Branding is not a marketing strategy. It's not a technique, either. It's a way of thinking about your business and interacting with your customers. A brand is so much more than just an image or logo—it is a promise to your customer that you will deliver on their expectations. Brands are built over time through consistent messaging and an authentic connection with the audience they serve.
Know your audience
Knowing your audience is the key to a successful brand. If you don't know who your audience is, how can you possibly design something for them? The first step in branding is knowing who your target market or customer segment is. You may have multiple target markets based on different demographics, psychographics and geographies.
The next step in branding is understanding how they want to be communicated with.
Do they prefer e-mail marketing over social media?
What types of content do they like (text vs images)?
How often do they read blogs and newsletters?
Do they want weekly updates or daily news flashes via email?
These are all important questions that will help shape how you market yourself as well as what type of content to create for each channel/medium that comes into play during the brand building process.
Be consistent
To be clear, this isn't about making sure your brand is consistent in every tiny detail. It's about making sure that you, as a producer of content or services, are consistent with your messaging and tone of voice. And that's what you should focus on being consistent about when it comes to branding—your messaging, tone of voice, visual identity (logo), and content.
Be consistent in your messaging: If you want people to develop an affinity for your brand over time, they need to know at any given moment what you stand for. They need to know why they should choose YOU over another option out there.
Be consistent in your tone of voice: You can use different words when talking about different things (we'll talk more about this later), but make sure that the overall feeling conveyed by those words is consistent with what people have come to expect from YOUR BRAND NAME as its own entity—the personification/persona associated with it—rather than just an anonymous voice floating around on social media or elsewhere online or off-line where no one can see who wrote them."
Be memorable
Be unique. You can’t just be like every other brand out there, because they all have the same goal: to sell their product. Your brand is supposed to stand out from the rest, and what better way than by having a different angle? Maybe you are simply more affordable or cheaper than your competitors, but maybe your products also come with a lifetime warranty or offer free shipping for life (an example of this would be Amazon). Whatever it is that makes your company unique, make sure that you never lose sight of that!
Be honest
From a customer’s perspective, this means being transparent with them about your brand and its offerings. If you say you offer affordable luxury, make sure they can get the full experience at that price. Don’t promise anything you don't intend to deliver on or that isn't in line with your company’s values. And be clear about what it is exactly that your customers will receive when they come to purchase from you—if there are any limitations or exclusions involved in their purchase, let them know before they buy!
Build a brand they come back to.
How to build a brand your audience will come back to:
Be consistent. Your company's branding should be clear, consistent and memorable. Your brand's message should match the experience you're trying to deliver.
Be honest. If you don't have anything good to say about your product or service then don't say it! People want honesty from brands they can trust, so make sure that when you do speak up it aligns with what they expect from your business or product line.
Be consistent with your brand's message. You want people who know about your company or product line at any given stage of its development (from early adopters through heavy users) to recognize the same thing regardless of where they encounter it—whether it’s on social media pages or in advertising campaigns—so make sure each piece is tied into its larger context by using similar colors/fonts/imagery etc across all mediums where possible so that customers can easily see how one thing fits into another seamlessly without having too think too hard about it
Conclusion
The bottom line is that a brand identity will make or break a company. You need to understand who your audience is and what their needs are before you can develop an effective strategy. It’s also important that you keep your brand consistent so people know what they’re getting when they come back again and again—through social media posts, website updates, etc.
