Branding 101: 8 Step Process to Develop a Lasting Brand Identity

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Branding 101 8 Step Process to Develop a Lasting
Brand Identity
Your brand is your brainchild, your years of hard
work, something you have given your flesh
blood to. Portraying your brand in the right
light ethically and as honest as possible sets
you apart from the competitors and improves your
customer base. In order to develop a lasting
brand identity, one should understand the basics
of branding and its face value in the
market. Only then, youd be able to develop your
brand identity. Brand Identity Defines Your
Business The impression that your brand makes,
at first sight, is your Brand Identity. In
literal terms, brand identity is defined as the
name, design, symbol, tagline or any other
elements that distinguish your brand from
others. But what makes brand identity crucial is
the fact that it brings the basic yet
indispensable asset to your business
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• Loyal Customers - the key to the success of any
  business.
• So, without further ado, lets get into
  establishing your brand identity. It can be
  achieved in 8 steps
• Establish Your Brands Core Attributes
• Brand attributes are the representation of the
  physical and mental characteristics of a company
  in the market.
• They represent the unique values that give you a
  competitive edge over other brands.
• Before you establish a brand it already has its
  own natural attributes. You need to enhance these
  further all the while creating new ones. There
  are 2 steps you need to follow to build a good
  brand attribute.
• For establishing, you need to identify some
  elementary but key points
• Understanding the Brands Philosophy Before
  building the brand attributes, understand what
  your brand stands for and all its characteristics.

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• Understanding Targeted Customers Understanding
  what a customer expects from a particular
  product, what are the changes they want to see,
  their emotions with a product, etc can make a
  great impact on the progress of your brand.
• Voice of the Brand While the customers emotions
  play a huge role, a brands voice and
  communication are also important. It is necessary
  that the brand is always positive, happy, and
  approachable.

• The need for making a mark in the market arises
  when your brand is very new. But once your brand
  becomes well known, the brand attribute can be
  easily maintained with reliability, customer
  loyalty and quality of the product.
• So to promote your brand in the market, you can
  adopt simple techniques like RFIs and Brand
  Workshops.
• The crucial reason for doing a brand workshop is
  getting all the people working in a company
  together and gathering ideas on how to make
  positive progress in your business. It is also
  conducted to enhance your brands vision,
  purpose, and values.
• RFIs - Overview of the company, details of the
  service (just basic information), how to respond
  and points of clarification.

• Identify Key Differentiators from the
  competitors
• When it comes to key differentiators, your
  company should follow the famous poem, The Road
  Less Travelled. That is, take warranted risks to
  achieve the utmost success.
• Your key differentiator should be true. It could
  jeopardize your whole company if it's not true.
• You should be able to prove your key
  differentiator. What is the point of stating it
  if you cant prove it? In fact, you risk the
  wrath of your potential and existing customers.
• Relevancy of your key differentiator is also
  important. If it is not relevant to your audience
  why will they care?
• Narrow down on your Target Audience
• In order to narrow down the target audience, you
  need to know what excites the customer and what
  ticks off the customer.
• - Understanding the Product

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Determining the key benefits of your product and
how they help your brand gain profits while
outwitting your competition helps you narrow down
your target groups. - Understanding the
Audience We, humans, are fickle beings.
Understanding us takes quite the time and
patience. But doing it helps a brand tailor all
their efforts on what the customer wants.
In digital marketing, using SEO helps a brand to
find and target the right audience.
4) Create an Elevator Pitch - Positioning / Core
Messaging Elevator Pitch is a brief description
of your company-curated in such a way that itll
create a spark of interest in the audience and
takes only a few minutes to explain. A simple
elevator pitch consists of brand positioning
This includes, what your company does, your
unique selling point, reasons why any customer
likes your product and finally your goal for the
future. Core Messaging further strengthens the
companys brand value and customer base. But it
is important that the brands core motto or
message should be creative, positive and strong.
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• The final thing that makes elevator pitching much
  easier is Practice. This helps you to talk
  confidently and naturally, making your brand look
  good in the market as word of mouth is the
  best kind of marketing.
• Craft a niche identity that resonates with your
  target audience
• To understand brand identity, you need to get
  into the shoes of your customers. As a customer,
  you search the market for the best product to
  meet your requirements. Moreover, you would
  expect good customer support once you bought it.
• This expectation of being treated well is the
  same in your customers. You need to provide your
  customers with such an experience and give them a
  reason to come back.
• Finally, your product or service identity should
  become synonymous with the brand. Remember the
  last time you called a photostat copy a photostat
  copy? You dont. You call it Xerox - thats a
  powerful brand identity.
• Expression - across media
• Expressing your brand across multiple media is
  very important. But how you showcase your brand
  and what customers think of it matters a lot
  more.
• For example, lets say you run a restaurant and
  you want to boost the sales of your vegetarian
  dishes. You showcase the quality of vegetables
  that you get in and the hygiene you maintain in
  keeping them. Your quality becomes your unique
  selling point - your brand expression and you
  maintain that across all marketing media.
• Brand Rollout
• Consider a brand launch - the first impression
  that will set out a niche identity for your brand
  across many customer groups.

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• Increases your repeat customer base as they will
  experience what your core values are.
• Most importantly, it gets you sustainable growth.
• Not only above there are many other benefits like
  prioritizing you for any new product your brand
  brings, referrals and so on.
• If youre a business owner who wants help on
  branding or rebranding, then developing a lasting
  brand identity is key to your success. We at The
  Go-To Guy! are here to help you. Contact us
  today and know all about marketing from our
  experts.