Are You Embarrassed By Your Branding Skills? Here's What To Do

Have you ever felt your company's reputation, marketing, and branding efforts need to catch up? Are you worried that no one thinks of your business when they hear a specific name? If so, it might be time for an action plan.

With more and more competition in the business world than ever, creating an online persona that people can recognize is more important than ever. However, if you take these simple steps, creating an effective brand is definitely within reach!

Define Your Brand

Your brand is the total of everything you do and say. It's not just your logo and your tagline, it's the way you dress, the way you speak, and the way you interact with others. You don't have to be a marketing genius to create a powerful brand — all you need is awareness about the kind of person you are and what that means for your audience.

Your brand reflects who you are as an individual. If people don't know who you are, they can't relate to what you're offering or buying from you. And if they can't relate to what you're selling, they will only buy from or support your business as much as they already do.

Research Your Audience

The next step to improving branding is understanding who you're trying to reach. The best way to do this is through research, which involves talking with people in the group you're targeting about their needs and wants and then analyzing the data from those conversations.

Start by identifying a target audience for your product or service. This might be a specific type of person, like an engineer at Google, or a broader category, like "people who want a simple way to create websites." Once you know who your target audience is and what they need from you — whether it's something tangible, like an app to help them manage all their business contacts or just a little more guidance on how they can use your products and services — you'll have a better idea of where to focus your efforts.

Know the Competition

Before creating your brand, you must know what other brands are doing. The first step toward branding is knowing the competition and where you stand compared to them.

If you're a new business owner, there's no better place to start than with a comparison chart. Create one using this template (it'll only take a few minutes). You'll be able to see at a glance how your company stacks up against others in your industry.

Once you've created your chart, go through it and look for any common traits that are shared by all of the other brands on the list. These could include things like:

Brand Name (make sure it's unique)

Logo Design (make sure it's professional and consistent)

Colour Palette (is it consistent?)

Website Design (does it work for customers?)

Grow your online presence

If you want to grow your business, you need to be able to reach new customers and get them interested in your products and services. That's why you need a strong online presence.

A strong online presence can help you grow your business and make it easier for potential customers to find you on Google, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, or other popular sites.

Here are some ways to build your online presence:

Create a website that includes information about your company and services.

Use social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to promote your business.

Post photos of yourself working at the office or with clients.

Create account profiles on networking sites like LinkedIn so people can learn more about you and contact you directly through these sites instead of through email (which they may see less often).

Summary

If you're concerned about your branding skills, feel free! You can make your brand stand out against the competition with a bit of practice. And surveys show that what consumers want from a company is more than just a catchy logo—many of them are looking for a real relationship with a brand. So forget about what everyone else is doing and consider how to do something different. Before long, your business will appear cutting-edge to customers looking for something better and more personable in this highly competitive market.