How to Create a Brand from Scratch in Just 7 Steps (2021)
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Creating a brand that stands out from the crowd is no easy task.
What face should I give my brand? What feelings do I want her to arouse in people? Will my target audience identify with her?
Even those who are just starting to think about how to create a brand and make a product or service reach the ideal audience must have already realized that there is no way to escape these questions (by the way, check out our guide on how to start a business and answer your questions ).
If you just have a business idea in your hands and nothing else, or if you want to promote your existing brand, this article is for you: see how to create a brand and develop an identity so that your online store has enough strength and impact on the Marketplace.
But what is a brand?
A brand is not just a cool name and a nice logo that sets your business apart in a competitive market.
It is also defined by how people perceive you when interacting with your business, and here we include both impressions that you can influence and impressions that are beyond your control.
If you think about it, people have brands too. Each of us has a different name, face, style and way of expressing ourselves, and we make unique impressions on people.
Likewise, companies have the name, products, logos, colors, fonts, language and reputation they must manage. These elements make up the identity of companies and affect the way they are seen by consumers.
You can’t build a successful brand without consistency, and as you expand into all areas of your business, that consistency must be maintained. But, first of all, you need to define what your brand image will be and what kind of feeling you want to make people feel.
How to create a brand
The process of creating a brand can be done in 7 steps:
- Analyze your target audience and your competitors
- Define focus and personality
- Choose your company name
- Create a slogan
- Define the visual identity
- Create your logo
- Use your brand throughout the company
Even if you change your mind later on and want to make adjustments, it is essential to take each of these steps into account when defining your brand identity.
Let’s start by laying the groundwork for you to build your brand.
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1. Analyze your target audience and your competitors
Before making any decision, try to understand the current market or, more specifically, who your potential customers and your competition are.
There are many ways to do this:
- Do a Google search on the category of your product or service and analyze the direct and indirect competitors that arise;
- Join forums related to your niche to see what people are talking about and what types of products are recommended;
- Talk to people in your target market and ask which brands they tend to buy from in your niche;
- Check out social media profiles or relevant pages that your target audience follows and likes;
- Shop online or at brick-and-mortar stores to get an idea of how your customers look for and buy products.
During your research, please note:
- Who are your “closest hand” customers — those to whom you could sell more easily;
- Who are the main competitors that come to mind — brands that are established and well known in the market;
- How your customers communicate and what they talk about — what interests they have and what language they use to express those interests.
It’s important to get a good grasp of these issues before moving on, so you’ll know where to drive your brand and what to do to make it stand out.
2. Define focus and personality
The maxim of “you can’t please everyone” is even more important in the business world, especially when it comes to an online store that is just getting started.
For those of you who are learning to create a brand, it is important to find a focus and let it serve as the basis for all the other elements throughout the creation process.
Here are some branding questions and exercises to help you reflect on your brand’s focus and tone.
What is your brand positioning in the market?
Brand positioning is about establishing clearly what you offer the public, so that your product or service is engraved in consumers’ minds.
✍🏽 An example of how to write your positioning statement…
We offer [PRODUTO / SERVIÇO] for what [MERCADO-ALVO] be likely to [PROPOSTA DE VALOR].
On the contrary [A CONCORRENTE], we [PRINCIPAL DIFERENCIAL].
For example: “We produce bottled water so that sports people can hydrate themselves during exercise while reducing their carbon footprint. Unlike other brands, we plant a tree for every bottle you buy.”
Your value proposition is the main instrument to compete in the market. Develop, explore and make this proposal an integral part of your message.
On the other hand, if the business you want to start revolves around a cause (for example, if you are starting a social impact business), can also describe this cause in a mission statement that contains a clear promise.
What words do you associate with your brand?
Imagine your brand is a person. What would she be like? What personality type would be attractive to your customers?
This information will help you set your voice on social media and the tone of all your creative material, both visual and written.
There’s a branding exercise that’s quite fun and useful: Choose from three to five adjectives to describe the type of brand your audience can relate to. If you need a little inspiration, feel free to refer to the list of personality traits below.
3. Choose your company name
And when the desire (to buy) comes, it’s your name I call.
Just to Counteract (more or less)
Depending on the type of business you open, the name you choose for your business will be of little or great importance. As we’ve said before, the brand is much more than the name. Personality, actions, and reputation are really what will give her meaning in the marketplace.
But, as a business owner, one of the first big commitments you have is to create the name, because it will have an impact on the logo, domain, marketing and also on the brand registration, if you choose this path (it is more difficult to register names generics that literally describe what you sell).
Ideally, a trade name that is difficult to imitate and even harder to confuse with other brands on the market. If you plan to expand your product lines in the future, give the company a more general name. This way, you avoid the trap of tying the brand name to the name of a single specific product.
Use our Name Generator for companies to see suggestions or try one (or a combination) of these approaches:
- make up a word, like Häagen-Dazs (the American company invented a Danish-sounding name to sound more sophisticated);
- Create a new association for a word, such as Apple (apple) for computers;
- Use a suggestive word or metaphor, such as Oi (telephone company);
- Make a literal (and easy to imitate) description, such as Telefonica;
- Change the spelling of a word or expression, like Kibon (good);
- Use the initials of a longer name, as SBT (Brazilian Television System);
- combine words to form a new one, such as Bradesco (Banco Brasileiro de Discounts SA).
The name choice will also affect your website’s domain/URL. Therefore, make sure you have a domain available for registration before making a final decision.
📚 Three guides to help you define your business name:
Another cool idea to help with the choice is to conduct a session of focus group with people close to you; this way, you avoid names that have unwanted meaning or that are too similar to other existing tags.
4. Create a slogan
A catchy slogan is a very valuable resource to put in your Twitter bio or from Instagram, on your website header, on your business card, or anywhere else you need to make a big impact in a few words.
Keep in mind that you can always change your tagline as you discover new marketing prospects. World famous brands like McDonald’s and Pepsi changed their slogans several times in the last decades.
A good slogan is short, catchy, and makes a strong impression. Here are some ways to approach creating a slogan:
- Affirm your value: “Hellmann’s, the true mayonnaise”;
- Create a metaphor: “Skol, the beer that goes down round”;
- Encourage your customers to have attitude: Nike — “Just do it”;
- Highlight the importance of the customer: L’Oréal — “Because you’re worth a lot”;
- Use the rhyme: “You took Doril, the pain disappeared”;
- Make your audience identify with you: “From woman to woman, Marisa”.
📚 Here’s how to create a slogan with the help of these guides:
5. Define the visual identity
You can’t think about how to create a successful brand without thinking about the visual identity. Once you’ve decided on the name, it’s time to think about how to visually represent your brand, that is, with the most appropriate colors and fonts. This step will be handy when you create your online store.
choosing colors
Colors not only define the appearance of your brand, but also convey the feeling you want to communicate and maintain consistency in all of the company’s actions.
Try to choose colors that differentiate your brand from direct competitors; thus, you prevent consumers from getting confused.
THE color psychology it’s not an exact science, but it can help with the choices you make, especially when it comes to the color of your logo.
The infographic below shows the emotions and associations that colors usually evoke, which can help you when developing your brand identity.
It is important to consider the readability of black and white text against its color palette, as well as color text on black and white backgrounds. Use a tool like the Coolers (in English) for suggested colors that work well together. Write down the hexadecimal codes (six-digit codes that identify the color) for later reference and research the different shades until you find the ones you like.
How to choose fonts
In this step of how to create a successful brand, it’s also nice to think about what fonts you want to use in your design.
Choose at most two fonts so as not to confuse visitors to the site: one for titles and one for body text (you can use a different font for your logo).
The tool Font Pair (in English) makes available for download a wide variety of fonts that look great when used together.
And if you see a font you like a lot on a specific site, you can find out the font name used with the Stylify.me (in English).
📚 Need help creating your branding? Check out these guides:
Complete Guide to Product Photography
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