10 Tips to Build a Brand & Create a Strong Brand Persona

Building a brand is essential for any business, as it sets your products or services apart from your competitors. A strong brand can help you establish trust with your customers, increase recognition, and ultimately drive sales.

Branding encompasses much more than just choosing the right colours and fonts for your logo. It’s about creating a positive experience for your target audience that sets you apart from your competitors in the marketplace.

As a business owner, you must consistently communicate your business’s unique identity, personality, and strengths to establish a strong brand persona for your customers. By introducing a robust brand identity to them, you can bring greater success to your business.

The best part is that you don’t need a large marketing team or a big budget to build your brand. If you’re interested in creating a strong brand, continue reading for 10 tips on how to build a brand that not only attracts but also retains customers, leading to repeated purchases and long-term success.

1. Define your brand’s mission and values

Before you can build a brand, you need to know what it stands for. Define your brand’s mission and values, and make sure they align with your business goals. Your mission statement should communicate your purpose and vision, while your values should reflect your company culture and ethos.

2. Conduct market research

Market research can provide valuable insights into your target audience, including their needs, preferences, and behaviours. To ensure that you’re targeting the right audience, it’s important to consider the types of products you’ll be offering and who will benefit from them. 

Instead of simply targeting “plant hobbyists” for example, a nursery could focus on new plant owners or plant collectors who specialise in caudiciform. By choosing a specific niche, you’ll have fewer competitors to contend with and be able to better meet the unique needs of your target audience.

Through identification of your target audience, you can determine the right brand voice, design, and marketing strategy to engage potential customers. You can learn more about your audience by:

Examining existing customers: Analyse the demographic information of your current buyers, such as age range, location, and reasons for purchasing from your business.

Analysing your competitors: Research the types of customers your competitors are targeting and identify any gaps in the market you could fill.

Creating buyer personas: Develop a profile of your ideal customer, outlining their demographics, likes, dislikes, and online shopping preferences.

As you build your ecommerce brand, you’ll have access to customer feedback and analytics tools that will provide additional insights into your audience. Continuously updating your buyer personas will ensure that you have an accurate representation of your customers and can tailor your marketing efforts to their needs.

3. Establish Your Brand’s Voice and Tone

Deep understanding of your target audience can help in determining your brand position. You can’t be a high-end luxury fashion brand and a budget-friendly business simultaneously. You must decide where you fit in the market.

Developing a positioning statement can help you accomplish this. A positioning statement is a brief statement or two that helps establish your identity and mission. Using the same plant example, your brand’s position statement might read: “We are a nursery offering rare, hard to find caudex and caudiciform plants to customers in the Philippines.”

When determining your brand’s position, consider how you can distinguish yourself from the competition. In the example above, the main point of differentiation is the offering of rare plants and the specific type of it. Once you have identified your unique selling proposition and position, you can begin creating marketing campaigns and branded content that resonates with your target audience in the appropriate tone.

4. Create a brand name that stands out

After determining your target audience and brand positioning, the next step is to choose a brand name that encompasses everything your customers need to know about your business. 

Your brand name is one of the most important elements of your brand identity so it should be memorable while evoking the right emotions or ideas. Choose a name that’s memorable, unique, and easy to pronounce. Avoid generic names that can be easily confused with your competitors.

You can use business name generators to brainstorm brand name ideas and here are the different types of brand name to help you get started:

• Descriptive names: Titles that describe the business, like “Plants World.”
• Emotive names: Names that inspire emotional responses, like “Cute Plants”
• Origin names: Names chosen for where the business began or who made it, like “Wild Plants.”
• Compound names: Titles that combine words, like “Cuteplantsworld”.
• Initials and acronyms: Easy to remember versions of longer names, like “CPW”.

When choosing your brand name, it’s important to consider its availability as a URL/domain for your online store. Before making a final decision, always conduct thorough research to prevent incurring any unexpected cost.

5. Outline your brand story

Your brand’s narrative is the underlying “why” behind your business. All companies need to have a purpose beyond just making money. Consider why you started your business and how your products can make a positive impact on people’s lives. Storytelling can help you build an emotional connection with your audience. 

Use your brand’s story to communicate your values and purpose in a way that resonates with your customers. A compelling story has the power to make customers fall in love with your business and gain respect for your brand.

6. Create your brand visual identity

Establishing your brand’s visual identity is essential to make your company recognisable at a glance. Your brand’s visual identity includes your logo, colour scheme, typography, and other design elements. These should be consistent across all of your marketing materials, from your website to your business cards. 

Your brand’s visual identity consists of several crucial elements, including:

Brand colours: The colours you choose for your brand will be used on all your branded materials, from your website to your product packaging. Colours can have a psychological impact on customers, so it’s important to choose them carefully.

Fonts: Your selected fonts can make a significant impact on how customers perceive your brand. Serif fonts tend to be more traditional and authoritative, while sans-serif fonts are more modern and friendly.

Imagery: The images and illustrations you use on your website, products, and advertising materials can also affect how your customers perceive your brand.

Once you have all the necessary elements for your brand’s visual identity, create a set of guidelines to help inform your team and any designers you work with.

7. Create a Logo

When it comes to starting your own brand, your logo is another essential element to establish. It is one of the primary visual symbols that customers associate with your brand. To ensure that your logo has the right impact, it’s advisable to work with a professional designer who can help capture your brand’s visual essence.

A designer will provide guidance on the different types of logos you can consider, including:

Brand emblems: These images are placed within a circle or shield and are often traditional and sophisticated, such as Starbucks’ logo.

Mascot logos: Centred around a specific character, mascot logos, like KFC’s logo, can help humanise a business and give it a unique face.

Letter marks: Letter marks transform an acronym name into a visual logo, as seen in the DHL logo.

Icon logos: Simple images, like the Twitter bird, are used as identifiers and are great for creating a memorable visual for your brand.

Wordmarks: These logos use a unique font to transform the brand name into the logo, making it more memorable.

Combination marks: Bringing together the name of the company and an image, such as the Adidasl logo, combination logos are effective.

8. Craft a Slogan

Although optional, a slogan is a valuable element to consider when building your brand as it can enhance your brand recognition and reach. It is a powerful way to convey your brand’s message and values to your customers.

The type of slogan you choose should align with your objectives. For instance, Nike’s “Just do it” promotes its motivational brand ethos. A well-crafted slogan can provide customers with a glimpse of what your business stands for and serve as a unique identifier of your brand.

One tip when creating a slogan for your brand is to make sure to stay true to your brand voice.

9. Incorporate your brand across all channels

After creating your brand, it’s crucial to promote it to ensure maximum impact. To achieve this, you need to integrate your brand into everything you do. Start by creating a style guide that outlines your brand’s look and feel, and ensure everyone on your team is familiar with it.

Next, consider how you can showcase your brand on different channels. Your ecommerce store, for example, should reflect your brand’s identity by using relevant themes and incorporating your company colours. Make sure to feature your logo on every page and infuse your brand’s voice into your website content.

Similarly, social media is an excellent platform for building brand awareness. Share posts that highlight your brand’s personality and post images and graphics that represent your brand. Every marketing campaign should reflect your brand’s image and voice..

10. Be consistent

Lastly, consistency is key to building a strong brand. Make sure your messaging, visuals, and tone are consistent across all of your marketing channels.

Establishing consistency is paramount to creating a robust brand. By maintaining a consistent brand identity both online and offline, your audience becomes more accustomed to your company. This, in turn, generates a sense of familiarity that allows your brand to appear trustworthy and dependable.

Conclusion

Building a brand requires careful planning and execution. By following these ten tips, you can create a strong and memorable brand that resonates with your audience and drives business growth. Remember, building a brand takes time, effort, and dedication, but the payoff is worth it.

If you are interested in starting an ecommerce business after building your brand, visit our website to discover how you can easily set up an online store in just minutes, without the need for any coding expertise!