The Essential Guide to Branding Your Company

It is essential to understand what company branding is and is not at the beginning of the process.  Company branding is not the product or service, nor is it advertising or marking.  The company logo is the visual for the business, but it also is not branding. 

Branding is the genuine personality expression of your company.  It is what you want your customers to think and say about your business.  In other words, it is what the company stands for and what it is known for by devising the promise your company makes to the customer.

Years of research have shown the companies that clearly establish their brand identity before marketing efforts are made show a higher rate of return on their investment. Not only do you want a brand that customers will feel good about and believe in, but you also want to make them know that your company has the only answer to their problem.

The Essential Guidelines for Branding Your Company 

1. Tagline – Create a tagline, or slogan, that expresses the emotional reaction you want your customers to have and what you want them to remember.  To do this, you want the company leadership to spend some time together brainstorming around these ideas until they are clearly identified.  Defining the question, “What does the company stand for?”
2. Audience – Determine who your company’s audience, or marketing target, is and research what the competition is doing to express their business.  Pay attention to the core commonalities with your business and start identifying what differentiates your company from the rest.  How do you want your company to stand out from the competition?
3. Company Culture – Develop your company’s culture around the business branding ideas.  It is important to hire people that will reflect the same thoughts, speak the same language, and promote the same culture internally and externally.
4. Consistency – Be consistent with public relations, marketing, advertising, and sales because they are all extensions of the brand of your company.  Make sure the company’s visual designs, copy, and the language used by your teams are based on the brand.  Capturing the essence of the brand is vital to making sure of its reflection through everything your company does.
5. Patience – It’s important to be patient with the company’s branding.  Take on new outreach efforts carefully.  By nurturing the company brand and not rushing outreach activities like marketing, public relations, or advertising, it will pay off over time.
6. People – Put people first, and make this a necessary part of the branding and cultural attitude of the staff.  Remember that the company brand is bigger than the company, and it includes everyone behind the brand from the CEO through the line staff.  The company needs to embrace a ‘people first’ attitude.

One error some businesses make is rushing the start-up of the company.  Rushing the start-up leads to problems, such as hiring the wrong employees, canned template designs, generic business cards, and customer service as an afterthought.  No company sets out to make these mistakes, but these issues will likely limit your company’s branding efforts.  A rushed start-up can end with branding stagnation or worse.

Branding in its infancy is a great place to invest time and money for professional help.  Professional branding assistance will build a company brand that will withstand time and help your company bring in the most returns.

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