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What Every Entrepreneur Must Know About Business Branding

Every day, new businesses are established and lots of people now see reasons to own a business. This is because you’ll be financially free if you know how to achieve business success. You need to have good business branding ideas for your business to compete and achieve its business goals and objectives.

Branding is so important in businesses, as business owners and managers see it as a means of being ahead of their competitors and a bid to have a grip on the market share. For instance, if a brand has 60%-70% of a market share, that makes the brand the market leader in that line of business or industry.

Furthermore, a good brand attracts more customers, gets increased sales, more referrals, and makes more money. This article explores some business branding ideas for entrepreneurs.

Table of Contents

Meaning of Branding in Business

Branding in business is more than just a name and logo. It should create a strong identity for businesses and reflect how you render services to your customers, staff uniformity, and how you create awareness for your product or service.

All of the above-mentioned should be considered even before starting your business. Also, you should have in-depth knowledge of your business and carry out market research to know what will work best for customers to be attracted to your business. Again, your brand should be able to meet the needs of potential and existing customers. Certainly, customer loyalty and trust in your brand will make you achieve your business goals, objective, vision, and mission quickly because these customers will likely refer your brand to others. Your business should aim to get customers’ loyalty and trust.

How do you choose a brand name for your business?

Choosing a brand name for your business could be challenging. Your brand name should be able to communicate what you are into and be extendable because when you decide to add another line of business to your brand, the brand name should be able to cover that new line of business.

Although, it took some big businesses you know today several months to come up with a standard brand name.

According to Marty Nevemier in his book The Brand Gap, he says, “customers will always want a convenient way to identify, remember, discuss, and compare brands. Besides, the right name can be a brand’s most valuable asset, differentiation, and speeding acceptance, because the need for a good brand name originates with customers.”

For a brand name to be good, it should be meaningful, distinctive, accessible, future-proof, and visual to people. Highlighted below are the step-by-step guides in choosing a brand name for your business.

Articulate Your Brand Heart

Before naming your brand, you need to fully understand what your brand is and what you are trying to achieve with it. However, combing the purpose, vision, mission, and values of the brand influence everything you do in your brand name.

Look at Your Differentiators

This step in choosing a brand name is to understand what makes your brand unique and also makes it stand out from your competitors.

Note that, looking into your competition gives you a better sense of how you can stand out through every aspect of your branding process.

By Brainstorming

Brainstorming

Brainstorming provides you with an effective guideline that you can work with. For example;

  • Write down what describes your product or service
  • Look into what you want your customers to feel when they use your product or service
  • Carry out what we called the association of words about your product or service.

In Alina Wheeler’s book “designing brand identity”, she outlined different categories of brand names which include;

  • Founder: This is based on a real or fictional person. An example of such is Betty Crocker of Ben and Jerry’s, etc
  • Description: This is a name based on what you do or make. An example of such is General motors.
  • Fabrication: This is a make-up name such as Kodak or Xerox
  • Metaphor: Are names based on people, place, and process? An example of such is Nike.
  • Acronym: This talked about name abbreviation or initials. An example of such is AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph)
  • Magic Spell: This is a name that adds two words together such as Facebook

The above categories by Alina Wheeler are super and you can take advantage of them and brainstorm, to come up with a better brand name for your business.

Vet Your Business Name

This part of naming your business is important and at the same time frustrating because it’s time to search for the brand name if it’s available or taken using the database of the registered trademark of the United States patent and trademarks. If the name has been taken, it means going back to the drawing board. However, if a name is available, you just have to get a legal team to fully vet it.

Test

This step provides you with the best options to choose from and you can use these top 3 available names by designing mock-ups for them such as logos, product packaging, and homepages.

According to Steven Cook who is an attorney at Cook and Cook in the Phoenix, AZ area, he stated some helpful sources when testing top available names in your brand. These sources include:

  • Build a landing page for each name you are considering.
  • Run a Facebook ad that is highly targeted to your ideal customers or clients.
  • Examine your landing page analytics after the ads have been run for a week so as to know which of the names will lead to the best conversion rate.

Note that, if there is a tie in the conversions, it is best for your brand team or stakeholders to choose from the tie.

The Business Branding Ideas

Discussion of the Various Business Branding Ideas
Discussion of Various Business Branding Ideas

As stated earlier in this article, “branding is important as business owners and managers see it as means to be ahead of their competitors”. In addition, business branding ideas also help business owners or managers to stand out in their business.

Highlighted below are some business branding ideas to help grow and promote your business. They include:

Create a Good Logo

A logo serves as another way for customers to identify your brand and it should stand out and be memorable to potential customers or clients. Also, it should be something that is clear and understandable to people.

Below are some tips that make a logo design great.

  • Understand what appeals to your target market
  • Research moods and emotions of different shapes, colors, and symbols
  • Keep the logo simple
  • It should be versatile and scalable.

Create a Vanity URL

Creating a good vanity URL for your brand or business is something that will boost your business presence both online and offline. Meanwhile, URL which stands for “Uniform Resource Locator” refers to an address that shows where a particular page can be found on the World Wide Web.

Below are some vanity URL attributes:

  • It should be straightforward
  • Well recognizable
  • It should be short
  • Catchy,
  • Memorable.

Create a Custom Hashtag

Using a custom hashtag in your business makes your hashtags unique. Custom hashtags refer to something specific such as an event, person, cause, or company. Thus, when creating a business hashtag, a custom hashtag is one that is related to your business specifically and it includes your business name, location, slogan, date, and catchy phrase which ensure that the hashtag has not been used elsewhere on social media.

Hashtags can be seen as two types, for example, in the Diamond Lab, there is a section where you can shop online called the Diamond Lab Marketplace. If the Diamond Lab uses hashtags like #shoponline, #shoponlinemarket, or #shopinoneplace, it is called the general hashtag because when searched on social media, several other brands’ posts will pop up. However, if the Diamond Lab uses hashtags like #shopwithdiamondlab or #shoponlinewiththediamondlab, it is called the custom hashtag because when searched, it is the Diamond Lab posts that will pop up.

The reasons why you should use a custom hashtag is because;

  • It expands your brand
  • Facilitates conversations
  • Builds credibility

Run a Facebook Contest or Giveaway

The use of a Facebook contest or giveaway in your business makes your brand stand out, promotes your business, and make you achieve your marketing goals.

The steps to use in achieving your Facebook contest or giveaway are listed below;

  • The contest should have a goal
  • Let there be a tag price
  • Identify contest entry method
  • Make sure you can contact the winner
  • Create the contest or giveaway post
  • Promote the Facebook contest
  • Choose the contest winner
  • Announce the Facebook contest winner
  • Create a thank you post
  • Measure the success of the Facebook contest.

Tag People on Social Media

Business Branding Ideas
Tag People on Social Media

Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter allow you to tag people to your post and it enables you to increase your reach and engagement.

With tagging, you are putting your post in the timeline of other users and making sure you are tagging people on relevant posts.

Improve Your Photo

Canvas, Afterlight, Photoshop, and other photo software tools serve as an effective means of improving your photo quality through editing using these tools. It is important you have eye-catching photos of your brand because it can easily go a long way in creating awareness for your brand.

Water Mark Your Pictures

It is important to watermark your pictures with your business name, logo, or social media handle. Photo editing apps allow you to easily and quickly add text to your photos.

Show Customer Appreciation

Showing customer appreciation will make your brand stand out and make customers like your brand. Also, customers who are satisfied with your products and services will likely return to your business due to brand loyalty and evangelism marketing.

Brand loyalty refers to when customers are repeating purchases of your products or casual customer turning into a hard-core fan. In essence, brand loyalty is summed up to be retaining existing customers.

Below are some of the things, you need to do in building brand loyalty;

  • Let your brand identity be known
  • Educate your team
  • Develop consistent brand messages and experiences
  • Brand perception should match the reality
  • Deliver your brand promises and experiences.

On the other hand, evangelism marketing is when a customer recommends or refers others to your products or service. They also do the marketing on your behalf.

Below are ways on how you can do brand evangelism;

  • Your content should be easy to share
  • Let your employees also be a brand evangelists for you
  • Create an outstanding customer service
  • Watch out for your competition
  • Let there be communications on your social media platforms.

Create a Unique Graphics

There are lots of web apps that allow you to create good graphics for your brand or business. These web apps are easy to use and you don’t have to be a professional before using the tools.

 Add Quotes to Stock Photos

Adding a motivational or inspiring quote to your photo through the text option of Canvas may show customers that you care about them.

Stock photos are professional photos or pictures that are made available online for advertising, marketing, and commercial purpose. However, there are free stock photo sites like pexels, new old stock, foter, morguefile, gratisography, stocksnap.io, and several others. Actually, each of these sites has its own purpose. For example, the types of businesses that should use foter are daycare, preschool, and health care.

How to Make a Branding Decision for a Growth Strategy

Business Branding Ideas
How to Make a Branding Decision for a Growth Strategy

Making a branding decision for a growth strategy should be looked into by every business owner and manager because it helps businesses position well and creates amazing awareness among customers. In other words, all branding decisions should focus on potential and existing customers.

Highlighted below are the major branding strategy decisions;

Brand Positioning

For a brand to be able to target customers, it must be well positioned. Highlighted below is how it can be done;

On Products Attribute

Product attribute in brand positioning is at the least level and it can easily be copied by competitors, thereby taking away the uniqueness of the brand. However, customers are not interested in the products’ attributes much, rather, they are interested in what the attributes of the products will do for them and this leads us to the next level.

Benefits

The benefits of the product can be well positioned by the brand to give desired results to customers; a better and stronger brand will go beyond products attribute and benefits and this will lead us to the next level of brand positioning.

On Beliefs and Values

These stronger brands position their products on beliefs and values. Thereby creating passion, surprise, and exciting surroundings for their brands by engaging customers on a deep and emotional level.

Brand positioning stands as a mission and vision of what a brand should be and do. Also, brand positioning lays the foundation for the other three branding decisions.

Brand Name Selection

In the earlier part of this article, we discussed how you can choose a brand name for your business. In essence, naming a brand is part science, art, and certainly a measure of instinct. Hence, this leads us to the next branding decision.

Brand Sponsorship

This branding decision goes beyond brand positioning and brand naming. However, brand sponsorship has four brand options, which are;

Manufacturer’s Brand

The manufacturer’s brand can also be called a national brand, in which manufacturers sell products or outputs under their own brand names. Also, a manufacturer could sell products to resellers (whole seller, exporter or distribution).

Private Brand

This can also be called a store brand, distributor, or retailer, and customers are also willing to buy from a private brand instead of a manufacturer’s brand.

Licensed Brand

Manufacturers can also choose a licensed brand instead of spending money to create their own brand names. Note that, some companies’ license names or symbols already created can be used by other manufacturers for a fee.

Co-Brand

This is when two companies come together or join forces to co-brand a product. It can also refer to the process whereby two companies use their existing brand names on the same product.

Furthermore, one of the advantages of co-branding is that it creates more customers and larger brand equity for the companies.

Brand Development

Brand development which is another branding decision has four categories, which are;

Line Extension

This is when a brand extends its existing product into a new size, form, colors, flavors, to form a new product, etc. and it has a low-cost, low-risk way to introduce new products. However, the risk involved is that it can lead to overextending and losses of its specific meaning in the brand name.

Brand Extension

This is where a brand extends to a new product category and it gives this new product quick recognition and acceptance. Also, it saves advertising costs for the newly established product.

However, one of the risks involved in the extension is if the extension fails, it may alter customers’ attitudes towards other products carrying the same brand name.

Multi Brands

This means when a company is marketing different brands in a given product category. In other words, the company offers different products to best suit customers’ needs. Also, it makes the company capture larger market shares. However, the various products may obtain a very low market share.

New Brands

This brand’s development decision strategy is the most expensive because it involves creating an entirely new brand to go along with a new product. However, if it is well handled, you will reap its benefits and have also a good market share in the industry.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this article has shown you the various business branding ideas that will help you position, create awareness, and also make your business stand out. It is important you put these various business branding ideas to work. With these branding ideas, you will be ahead of your competitors and also have a larger market share in the industry.