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Tips to Help You Develop Your Brand
Posted On: September 15th, 2010

Developing an effective brand for your company is a process that requires time, effort and a great deal of careful thinking. Some might even argue that it’s through the ins-and-outs of running a business that you truly have the opportunity to develop your brand.

While this may be true, most of us would like to have a brand developed so that we can use it when we begin to market our business, or while it’s new. On the other hand, if a corporate brand is hastily put together, does little to communicate what the company is all about, and worst of all—fails to relate to your target market, your business could be in serious trouble.

The problem that most entrepreneurs face is knowing where to start when it’s time to develop a corporate brand.

Start With Your Target Market

The very first step you need to take is to know who represents your target market. This knowledge will be an important part of your brand.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Who represents my target market? How old are they? Are they male or female or does it even matter?
• Where are they located, or are they part of a global market?
• What are their spending habits?
• Do they care about price and affordability?
• What is the one key benefit that you can provide, that they will really be interested in?
• What is it that they want? (note, this is different than asking what they need)
• What kind of lifestyle do they enjoy?
• Are there any discomforts or problems that they face that you aim to remedy?
• What is your competition offering them that you can improve on or provide an alternative product or service for?
• Do they portray feelings of brand or company loyalty?
• Can they be swayed from a brand or company via promotions and special offers?
• What emotional benefits are they expecting to experience by using what they consider to be a great product or service?
• Do they place a lot of importance on excellent customer service?
• Are they a labor intensive market that will require a superior level of ongoing service and support?

Of course, there are many other questions that may need to be asked, and a lot will depend on the product or service you sell.

The key here is to realize that you cannot begin to develop a brand for your company without understanding who your target market is and what they will want from you, based on the products and services you are providing (and the products and services your competition is providing).

Tips to Develop Your Brand around Your Target Market

Now that you can easily answer the question of who your target market is, you are ready to take that big leap into developing a corporate brand that will effectively communicate to this market.

You’ll need to consider the more traditional elements that make up a great brand, along with other things, like the kind of message you need to send to your target market that will actually grab their attention and compel them to take action:

• The traditional branding elements of color, font style and shape – how should these visual components speak to your target market? If you sell lingerie to women in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties, would brown be a good corporate color? If you target men in their forties should you use a script font and curved lines to define your corporate print material? What about if you need to develop a visual identity that will appeal to both men and women?
• The corporate logo – how can you craft a logo that will effectively communicate to your target market that you have what they want?
• Your marketing message – if you target young hip hop fans should your Marketing message be conservative and safe?
• Being heard – how can you spread the word about your products and services so that it actually reaches your target market? Can you host seminars and information sessions that would be of interest and establish you as an expert in your field?
• Your corporate name – I may be listing this one a bit late in the article, but a lot goes into crafting just the right corporate name. You’ll want to choose one that fulfills two goals: 1) tells in a nutshell what your company is about and 2) relates to your target market. As a very simple example, if you are into premium landscaping services for the high income family it’s probably not such a great idea to name your company “Sam’s Budget Lawn Care”.

There is (at least) One More Key to Developing an Effective Brand – Customer Service

If you provide poor customer service (or none at all), your customers will be unhappy and your word of mouth referrals will do more harm than good. No matter how well thought out your corporate brand is, overlook this element and you’ll probably fail in business. What’s even worse? Building your brand around something that’s not true about your business (like offering good customer service when you really don’t).

Just about every company has to implement some measure of customer service. How detailed and unique you are in developing corporate support systems can be a huge factor in forming a corporate brand that really works.  Consider the problems Toyota has encountered in recent months with some of its products.  Toyota has always stood for quality and reliability, so when some of their vehicles started to encounter major problems, the company immediately took the action necessary to repair any damage to their brand.

Good customer service is essential to a good corporate brand in just about any type of company you can think of.

Summing It All Up

In conclusion, I hope I haven’t overwhelmed you! Like any highly important and detailed process, developing and perfecting a brand takes time and a little bit of trial and error. Being well informed about your target market before you begin will significantly cut down on poor judgment decisions.

Finally, keep in mind that a brand can evolve and change over time. Just as your company grows and expands, you may take on new directions and find new target markets to explore. The key is figuring out how to tie it all together without losing your corporate identity that is already working for you.

As always – good luck!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 15th, 2010 at 1:04 am and is filed under Branding Ideas & Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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