Strong Branding: 4 Key Elements of a Good Brand Identity

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What makes a good brand? Is it down to your messaging or design? Is it how you engage with your communities? Or is it down to how well you know your audience and can adjust? The secret to branding really might lie in the fact that it is all of these together. All of these rolled into one strategy for brand excellence. 

So, how do you go about designing a brand identity? How do you make sure that you have a strong brand identity in your company and really appeal to and engage with customers? We thought we would take a look at some of the most useful tips and advice to create strong branding for your audience. 

Speak to the Right Audience

The first thing is learning who your audience is and what they want. In many cases, B2B and B2C audiences will differ vastly. You will be finding them in different ways, they will want different messaging and you will need to engage with them differently. B2B is a somewhat unique animal compared to B2C marketing. You will be using different platforms and tools to engage with and reach these two different audiences. 

LinkedIn, for example, is a good example of a platform that is specifically made for B2B relationships. It allows you to search for, find and engage with the right customer base for your business. It provides you with key marketing data that you can utilize to reach and engage with your audiences. It also provides you with a way of actually reaching out to these leads and converting them to loyal, paying customers.

Spend Time Molding Your Brand 

When you know who your customer is and what they want, you need to spend time creating your brand around that. Remember, it is going to take some time and a lot of experimentation to get all of the elements just right. But start with the basics – your logo, your colors, your key messaging and your brand identity. 

Your brand name, for example, is something that you need to spend some time on. You will need to tell your customer what your company is about in the name. You will need to make it simple and easy to remember, but catchy and unique. There is plenty of literature on how to come up with a brand name, so spend some time doing some research on the brand name and test it with your audience. 

The same can be said for the rest of your brand identity. You will need imagery, key messaging and a website that reflects who you are and your basic values for your customers. Again, try something simple and to the point and play around with it until you find something that really works. 

Focus on Your Content Marketing  

Ask yourself, what do you want to achieve with your content marketing? What is your customer going to get out of your marketing? Simply jumping in blindly to marketing can be a big mistake for your company. Spend some time putting together a strategy as well as a content calendar to flesh out what needs to be achieved and what you need to focus on.

One of our key pieces of advice for content marketing is to focus on the three E’s of content: educate, entertain and empower. Your content should be teaching your customer something about your brand, your products, your services and what it can do for them. 

Your blog section should be populated regularly. And this content should be highly educational and informative. Your customer should be walking away with key content that really educates them on the topic at hand. You will want to establish yourself as a dominant authority figure in the industry. So, focus on content that they can learn something from, and use that as a basis for your marketing. 

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Try, Test and Measure Everything 

We have mentioned several times that in order to get your brand just right, you will want to try, test and experiment with everything. When you are launching your logo or your brand name, test it out with your audience first. Get some feedback on your branding from a branding consultant company. Try A/B testing everything. Give them two different options and see what receives the more positive feedback. 

The same goes for all elements of your website, from CTAs to content, banners, images and your sales funnel. There are tons of platforms and tools that you can use to monitor how well things are being picked up in your brand. You are able to monitor how much traffic comes to your site and how it behaves with Google Analytics. With this, you will be able to see what marketing works and what pages are the highest sources of bounces. 

Another really helpful tool is HotJar. This allows you to see how far your customer goes down your page, what they click on, what they open, where they are more attracted to. With this, you will be able to A/B test some of the key branding on your site. 

The Bottom Line

Don’t be afraid to test things out with your branding. Your customer is constantly evolving and changing. Your company is constantly evolving too. So, keep trying new things and make sure you are keeping up with the latest trends and industry changes.