Building a Brand Without Breaking the Bank
Building a brand is an important part of creating and sustaining a successful business. Your brand is the way that your business defines itself: it’s of all of your marketing, customer service, and operational choices all rolled into one. When these things come together, they project a cohesive (or not so cohesive) identity to your team, your customers, and your potential consumers.
If you don’t take the opportunity to start strategically building a brand early in the game, the separate elements of your business may communicate different priorities to your audiences. This can leave employees and customers alike feeling uncertain about the mission and values driving your company.
Sound daunting? Expensive? It doesn’t have to be. By using our four easy steps, you can start building a brand around your business on the cheap.
Start Building a Brand Around Your Business Today
Define What Drives Your Business
The best place to start building a brand is by looking at what you are offering your customers. Conduct an audit of the products and services that your company offers, and put some time into researching the needs and desires of your existing customers. Figure out how your company helps to alleviate some of these needs. Revisit your mission statement, and compare your business’s values to the needs of your customers. Doing this will help you to start building a brand that connects with your customer base and differentiates you in the marketplace.
Create Buyer Personas
Do you know who your customers are? When building a brand, it’s crucial to understand the needs, goals, and behaviors of your customers. How do they use your product? What kind of media are they consuming? What motivates them to take action? There are many reasons that developing buyer personas is important for your business’s success. Defining the various ways in which customers arrive at your company will allow you to start building a brand message that speaks to the right people.
Develop a Unique Voice
Once you have a clear understanding of your company’s mission and your buyer personas, you can really start building a brand that works for you. The next step is to create a brand identity – the unique way that your business communicates both internally and with the outside world. The easiest place to start is by developing a voice. It’s important that the tone you use in all of your public communication speaks to your audience at their level, is consistent, and embodies the image of your company that you want to project outwards. If you are aiming to attract practicing neuroscientists, for example, your brand’s voice may be more academic than if your target audience is made up of pop culture enthusiasts and comedy buffs.
Not sure where to start? Make your customers care about your brand by using these emotional triggers.
Create a Consistent Social Presence
Now that you know who your customers are and how you want to talk to them, it’s time to start thinking about how to reach them. It’s important to take some time to think about where your consumers spend most of their time – especially regarding social media.
Once you know where your customers “live” online, it’s important to dedicate time and effort into scheduling social media efforts like you would with any other aspect of your digital marketing. Sharing consistent, relevant content (using your brand’s unique voice!) is crucial for increasing positive perception of your brand and creating valuable relationships with your customers. Planning is key! If you’re not sure where to get started, try using HubSpot’s Social Media Content Calendar to help you plan out your social media presence.
