Why Branding Matters & How To Get It Right

With a solid brand strategy, you will be able to stand out from the competition to take your fair share of the market. As a result, you will get more customers.

Without a potent brand, your business will feel like a ghost without any face or personality, making it much harder to connect with potential customers. Thus dramatically reducing your chance of that sweet success you deserve.

What are the building blocks of a brand?

The basis for a good brand varies, but only a little. A strong brand is like describing your company as a person. Namely:

What does the brand stand for? Equal rights for all rodents, more freedom to robot vacuum cleaners?
What should the brand look like? Logo, colors, typography, etc.
What voice should the brand have? Casual/Funny/Professional/etc.
To whom is the brand trying to appeal? A.k.a. Buyer Persona.
And how is your brand positioned versus other brands? More serious? Fun? Inclusive?

All these answers live in a document called a Brand Book (also called a Brand Guide, Brand Manual, among others).

Do I REALLY need a brand strategy?

Yes, at least something basic! Here are the reasons stated in a nice list:

It will help you write copy for ads, articles, videos, your product/service, and your website.
It will guide you in choosing images, animations, fonts, and colors in all customer touchpoints (web, ads, content, app, emails)
A proper brand foundation will also help you find the right channels to market your business.
You'll get a sense of what features to develop and which features not to create.
It will make your startup feel a lot more professional and harmonious.
As you might have figured out, it will save you much time since you will know the dos and don'ts.
Harvard Business Review concluded in a survey that 64% of people buy because they resonate with the brand. Therefore, if you build a strong brand, your customers will stay more loyal, thus shielding you from the competition.

Virtually all successful companies have a strong brand, so if you want to be successful, you should have one too.

I'm convinced. Get more concrete, pls!

All right, a complete Brand Book (albeit lean) is a tad too long to showcase here. But you can download our template here along with examples.

This document guides us in everything we do, for example, when writing this article. We try to be more fun than the average agency, helpful (hence these articles, exposing our secrets), and only focus on the must-haves for startups.

How do I get started?

Make a copy of the Brand Book Template mentioned above and start writing your own brand strategy!

Takeaways

A Brand Strategy saves you time by helping you focus your efforts on what matters
Long-term, it protects you from the competition.
It makes any company look a whole lot more professional, which will increase conversions.

Have you worked with branding in your startup?