Why Your Business is Not About You
A business brand needs more than just a logo or the color palette you choose for your design. A brand is about creating a voice and community within an industry that impacts your audience. The logo, typeface and website design are all choices you make, but in order to be successful, you have to look beyond choosing options that solely please you.
Think About Your Story
Often when a brand isn’t successful you hear comments such as, “People just don’t understand our values or what we’re trying to achieve.” Statements like these are problematic. If your audience doesn’t understand your brand, then it’s probably because it isn’t being explained understandably and intuitively. Your brand is your story, and only you can tell it. However, you have to tell it in a way that resonates with people.
Telling a good story isn’t always about presenting the company in a way that looks good to you, but rather it’s about giving your audience a glimpse of what will be appealing to them. For example, consumers like to see a personal touch; providing a list of achievements won’t reach them as effectively as showing your employees supporting a cause in the community. A common rule taught to writers is “Show, don’t tell,” and this should be applied to your company’s brand. Show them your core values by being present in the community, offering exceptional customer service, or presenting whatever else your company strives to achieve.
Think About the Industry
You need to keep your industry in mind when making decisions about your brand. It’s important to see what others in your industry are doing—not necessarily to mimic their success, but to forecast what’s going to be popular in the near future. Following trends can be important in order to develop more brand recognition, but it’s also vital to spot a trend that’s about to end, or discover the next one before it gets too popular. Staying current is key to building your brand! You may have ideas about what your brand should be doing or should look like, but research will help inform whether those ideas have worked in the past for other businesses.
Think About Your Audience
Ultimately, your brand is for your audience. Without their support or interest a brand can’t grow. Always take your audience into consideration when deciding any aspect of your brand. For example, if your target audience is Millennials then design choices and tone will be vastly different than if you were marketing to Baby Boomers.
It’s important to know everything you can about your target audience through surveys and research, especially the type of technology and platforms they’re most likely to use. Is your audience spending most of their time on a desktop computer or smart phone? Do they prefer to use Twitter and Instagram over Facebook? These and similar questions will lead to more successful results than if you merely made decisions based on personal preferences.
In order to build your brand, it’s important to put aside personal desires and preferences to create one that will appeal to your target audience. Becoming knowledgeable about your industry and audience can help you make decisions that will benefit your brand, as a whole.
Need help with branding decisions? Contact the Juicers today.
Stay Creative,
The Juicers
