We are likely to encounter a number of brands in our daily life like Nike, Coco-Cola, KFC, Olay, etc. Almost covers everything from what we eat to what we wear.
We can easily access to different brands and enjoy their service when they just fit our needs.
For instance, we are hungry and we can order KFC because the hamburgers taste good.
Why do we remember these names?
Actually, they simply represent the brands and the quality of their products and services in the mind of their customers.
Similarly, the brand created by you will be remembered by the customer if you offer great products and services.
As a matter of fact, branding works for your business once you gain credibility and trust among customers. Your business can be easily promoted via branding.
How can you create a brand to start your online business?
We will dive into this topic and give you the best ten tips to create a successful brand online. Let’s get started.
1. Prepare and Start Market Research
When you decide to start an online business, prepare and do market research first and foremost, utilizing market research tools. You have to prepare and do something to lay a solid foundation for your branding. When you prepare your business, you get to know yourself. This means you have to know your SWOT, your skills and credentials, passion, interests, core values, etc. Figure out who you are and what’s your passion.
Besides, you get to know the market. You have to know the market of the industry, the major players of the industry on the market, the business performance of your competitors, and what they are struggling with, the feedback from your competitors’ customers about their products or services. Get all these info, and decide your business position on the market.
This is crucial to prepare yourself and get to know the market, and then find how your brand can position on the market among various competitors.
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2. Determine the Target Customer
When you do the market search, you get to know the demand which part of the market still hasn’t met. And you can segment it and choose these people as your target customer. Remember your business can’t be everything to everyone.
Make it specific and think who you are trying to reach. You are allowed to create your perfect customer profile including their age, gender, location, income, education level, motivation, goals, pain points, influencers. Draft the right buyer persona, and then get to know the commons of your target customer and what you can do for them. Get to know difficulty your perfect customers are facing, figure out your business can help them out.
For instance, an online fitness trainer would likely to start a workout course for teenagers. They figure out their customers are ranging from 13 to 19. They are anxious about developmental overweight and a lack of confidence to change the situation. The trainer will share free workout course, eating recipes online for their targeted customers.
Identifying the target customer for your services or products will ultimately benefit your branding process, especially the following marketing part.
3. Identify Market Positioning
At this part, you have to position your brand on the market. This means that you have to zero in on the established market with a unique idea and value to fit the needs of your target customers. It may include the choices about who are your target customers, how you want to feel about you, and how you will reach these people, etc. It seems complicated, but you can break down it and make it.
You need to identify the opportunities in the market for your target customers. You are allowed to analyze your Amazon keyword research, and figure out the best tips to fill the gaps of needs which haven’t been met by established brands or niches that people may get interested in.
When positioning your brand, you have to figure out the answers to below questions:
- What can you bring to your target customers? In other words, what are the benefits of the customer?
- Is your product or service unique on the market? What’s the difference between your products or services and that of your competitors?
- What is your unique selling proposition (USP)?
Find the answers combining extensive market research and the business idea. Or you can refer to the customers’ feedback of your competitor to find out the USP of your business.
4. Define Your Value
When you start to create your brand, you have to figure out your business value. Normally, it should be the uniqueness which distinguishes yourself from other brands and helps you stand out among competitors.
From the buyers’ perspective, value means that your products or services are valuable since it delivers a more fantastic shopping experience, or help customers to enhance their reputation. Your products or services should be a more preferable option for target audiences because it is known for a reasonable price.
Look into what your brand can offer and the unique value you bring to your customer, integrate them into your brand identity. Simply, it means what is the uniqueness of your business.
5. Figure out Brand Personality
If your brand is a person, who should it be? How will it think? How will it talk? How will it react to the people around it? How will it communicate with other people? Similar to a person, your brand personality is the psychic manifestation of your brand identity.
It is closely linked to your brand values. Try to express like a person when you deliver your brand values, and let your customers feel like they are talking to a real person when they inquire something about your products or services.
Try to deliver your meaning fun but not childish, powerful but not complicated, cool but not alienating, informal but not sloppy, helpful but not overbearing. Keep it align with your brand value. Change your voice with a different context.
6. Create Visual Identity
You will find tangible elements of a brand including the logo, tagline, slogan, images, etc. These elements will determine how the brand is perceived visually. It is the first impression on the customers and an everlasting consumer association. Powerful brand identity will deliver as much info about the brand as possible in less than a second. How can you create a comprehensively strong brand identity?
Choose your brand name
To create a brand identity, you have to determine your brand name first of all. Your brand personality, actions, and values will give your name meaning in the market. It will affect your logo, website domain, marketing, trademark, etc.
Ideally, take your business scope in the industry into account and figure out a unique and broad name that is hard for others to imitate. Besides, you have to check it online as the brand name is closely tied to your domain.
Actually, there are a number of ways for you to create a brand name. You can make it by using the founders’ name, making up a word like Google, or reframing an unrelated word, or using a suggestive word or metaphor, or using the initials, or combining two words like Facebook.
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Design your logo
Your brand logo is the key elements of your brand identity. As the most recognizable part of your brand, it will appear on everything related to your business. You can design it by yourself with different circular or organic shapes, geometric shapes, or even exploring top fonts for branding to create a distinct typography based on your brand values and personality. It should be the first thing coming into consumers’ eyes and their minds.
As a result, remember to create a unique, exceptional logo to deliver what you do and who you are. TryYou can design it by yourself with different circular or organic shapes, geometric shapes, or even exploring top fonts for branding to create a distinct typography based on your brand values and personality. to make it clear and simple enough to be identified in small size.
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Write a slogan
A slogan is an important asset of your business. A good slogan is a brief and memorable phrase or sentence that delivers the most important info you want to tell your customers about your products or services. It is also a key item that helps you differentiate your brand in the market and make your customers feel happy and positive about your business when you are marketing.
Try to create a good slogan. Make it short, memorable, and penetrating that can easily touch people. You can also deliver your business benefits that will bring to customers and highlight your business values in this short message. Once you decide it, it will be shown in all your marketing and advertising with your logo.
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Create a website
There should be a platform for you to express your brand. You can start with a website. You can create your website with your business partners to deliver your business goal. Try to create valuable content for your target audience and drive traffic on the website.
When you start to create your website, remember to make it friendly for mobile users given the rising number of mobile users. This is to attract mobile users to increase more sales.
7. Build Your Community
When you start your branding, remember to build a community to grow your business followers. This is a great way to marketing your products and services.
There are a wide variety of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. You are allowed to share all relevant updates and news on these platforms. You can update your special offerings and promotional activities. You can post relevant and fantastic content on the platform to build your networks. This is a great way for you to deliver your news to your followers, and communicate with them.
It is the community you built can help you gain customer trust and engage with them to expand your business. You can also advocate your products and services on your social media platforms.
8. Keep Consistent
A successful brand should be focused and consistent that always delivers its values. It will consistently presents its images and messaging to customers on each market platforms, be it on the website, marketing emails, advertising, or social media platforms. Consistency is the key to a good brand.
How to keep consistent when branding your business? Firstly, you have to present your brand name, logo, slogan, business value, products, services, marketing material, and website consistently. This means you have to integrate your brand into every aspect of your business.
Do not change your branding randomly. Any change in your branding will bring confusion to your loyal customers. And it will definitely harm your branding or undermine your marketing efforts in the long term. It is the consistency of your branding will help you gain customer trust, which is hard to build but easy to destroy. As a result, stay true to your brand building, and keep consistent to deliver your business values.
9. Market Your Brand
Now it’s time for you to marketing brand. Marketing is to promote your brand to reach more and more customers to reach your business goal. There are various ways for you to market your brand.
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SEO & Content Marketing
First and foremost, you can use SEO and content marketing. Combining the SEO and valuable content, it will effectively increase your website ranking on the search result page. On one hand, try to make your website simple and clear with appealing images. On the other hand, remember to develop a comprehensive strategy to create high-quality content to resonate with your target audience. It includes blogging with texts and pictures, infographics, videos, and case studies, etc. It should be a long-term marketing strategy to retain your target audiences.
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Paid advertising
Advertising is another way for you to market your brand. You can run an ad campaign on Facebook or Google Ads to reach your target audiences. To prepare a strong ad campaign, try to create clear goals and well-defined target audiences. Create a clear campaign structure with relevant keywords, track the ad performance, and figure out the way to optimize the ad campaign. This is an effective way to market your brand in the short term.
10. Monitor Brand Marketing
You will never get to know what you are doing in the marketing right or wrong if you never track the key performance indicators. To build a brand online, there are many ways for you to know your brand performance. Google Analytics, surveys, comments, social media discussions are all available for you to monitor your brand and get to know what you can do to correct your previous marketing measures.
You get to know how people talk about you and interact with you. This is a great way for you to figure out the right measures to improve your brand identity.
In a nutshell, branding is the most powerful way to grow your business. Customers will instantly recognize your brand based on a logo. Hopefully, you have a full understanding of branding your business. If you are stuck in such a dilemma to brand yourself, try to incorporate some of the tips above. If you are a new beginner, it’s the best time for you to get started.
