10 Tips for Branding Success

Published: June 2014

Top Ten Branding Tips

Branding is one of the most important aspects of a strong company when it comes to securing the goodwill and trust of your customers. Newcastle Branding Specialists Urban River provides Ten Branding Tips advising how to build a strong brand that can add value to your company and ultimately generate sales.

1. Put your customers first

Identify who they are and how they think. What are the factors that lead them to want or need your product or service? Now match your business offering to their needs.

2. Brand identity

A strong element of how your company is seen by your customers, your brand identity should remain consistent to reinforce your values continually. This will help your customers make the decision to buy from you instead of your competitors.

3. Positioning

The way you ‘position’ yourself in the market will determine how customers think about your company in relation to your competitors – are you price lead or quality driven? Whatever your chosen path, this should be reflected in your marketing copy, images and materials.

4. Keep it simple

Keep names and straplines short, simple and consistent. Once chosen, use the company name and strapline in every possible means of communication to ensure future recognition and brand association.

5. Involve all staff

Your greatest ambassadors or your biggest weakness – how you involve your staff in branding will determine how much they can help reinforce that brand. Keep them in the loop, encourage involvement and ensure a united front for the business. A cohesive staff team will appear extremely professional and trustworthy to potential customers.

6. Develop a brand plan

Careful management of a brand on an ongoing basis will ensure the brand remains strong, clear and unaffected by outside influences. Form a plan to maintain brand values and ensure any changes are made in line with brand values.

7. Consistency

A simple set of guidelines will ensure that everyone (internally and externally) can apply your brand in a consistent manner. This is crucial to ensure your potential customers develop a familiarity with, and trust of, your brand.

8. Different media

Keep a close eye on the use of your brand guidelines across different media such as newspapers, radio, print, website, social media and email marketing. Size, colour and positioning of your logo is essential and the correct use of these should be ensured at all times.

9. Review

Make sure all occurrences of incorrect branding are tackled as they arise. Ensure the correct guidelines are understood for the future; nipping such problems in the bud will avoid long-term damage.

10. Involve the professionals

While it’s tempting to enter into a spot of DIY branding this is generally not a good idea and can be costly in terms of time and money to address at a later date. To get some solid direction and professional advice you should seek to employ a professional creative agency to help establish the future brand security of your company.

It’s as simple as that! For more branding and design insight why not pop in for a chat or view our portfolio.