The Top 7 Branding Strategies To Make Your Business Stand Out

If you're looking for the best branding strategies to make your business stand out and take it to the next level then you're in the right place. We'll show you how to be distinct and avoid having your business lost in a sea of brands in the world. You'll need to target the right customers while honing in on who will benefit most from your services or products. 

Once your message is communicated to those specific people, then you're on your way to success. These are the people who will take action once they understand what you can provide and what it's the best solution for them. Here are the best brand development strategies you'll need to succeed in your field. 

1. Finding Inspiration 

When building the right brand awareness strategy, you need to review what the competition is doing. Pay attention to what they have going right and what could be going wrong. It's important to look at the brand identity, product or service offering, website interface, content publishing, social media, and advertising first. 

Consider having a SWOT analysis done for your business branding alongside your competitor research. If a competitor is using different images in a particular way that inspires your brand, take notes. Pay attention to if there's quality, traction on social media, and if it's truly unique from any other branding strategies out there. 

Avoid completely ripping off other brands, as you shouldn't be stealing another business's brand identity. Instead, ensure that your business branding is not similar to another business's logo, branding, or overall aesthetic. You'd be surprised at how often people OK a logo that's borderline plagiarism — don't let this be you!

2. Know Who Your Customer Is

Before asking Google, “what is brand strategy?", remember that a good brand strategy will commit to a target audience. It's imperative to visualize what your ideal customer is so that you can best serve them. This is known as a buyer persona: it's a fictional character or customer based on real data about your current customers mixed with market research. 

If you have a new company that has little sales data, you could always look at competitors and make educated predictions. Take a look at the reviews and social media engagement to get a better idea. You could also interview potential customers to gain feedback before developing your target audience. 

Avoid trying to be everything to everyone because, without specificity, your brand becomes nothing to no one. You should find a niche that is easy for you to serve with your service or product. Eliminate anyone who isn't in your audience, focus on your Google Analytics, conduct surveys to existing customers, etc. to build your buyer's persona from scratch. 

3. Get a Professional Logo

It doesn't matter how big or small your business is, you should have a professional brand strategy for your logo. You can hire a freelance graphic designer or work with a small business branding agency to create a logo. Larger creative agencies that work with top brands are bound to charge hundreds of thousands for the same branding strategies. 

If you have a smaller business or startup, there's plenty of options for good branding companies for small businesses. You can pay more than a thousand dollars for a great brand logo, style guide, and even collateral to go with it. Or you can opt for a cheaper graphic designer online but understand that you'll get what you pay for. 

4. Have a Brand Tagline or Slogan

Having a tagline or slogan is using a short phrase to exemplify the essence of your brand, its positioning, and personality. This does not need to directly apply to your products or services. It just needs to be a memorable message that'll convey the essence of your entire brand. 

Avoid making your slogan too long. A successful slogan can be short like Nike's slogan “Just do it". The point here is to inspire and motivate your potential customers quickly and clearly. 

5. Research Trends

Before developing a brand awareness strategy, you should do your market research to see what's going on in your industry. This will help you hone in on what's appealing to your particular target market. It's also important to do this even after you're an established business so that you stay current with the trends. 

Avoid getting too caught up in trends, as you can easily forget the core of your business and your why. If you have a business that sells something that appeals to more traditional people, you'd want to avoid trends altogether. The more data you can gather about trends, the better you'll be able to fine-tune your messaging, target audience, and your offering.

6. Identify Your Brand Personality

A bland brand is like marketing some flavorless food. You want your brand to, instead, have a personality or a subtle attitude. Consider some adjectives that can describe your company, then go from there. Once you determine how to describe your business, you'll be able to present clearer branding strategies to your audience.

Avoid turning your brand personality into a joke. Your brand shouldn't sound like the stereotypical used car salesman's pitch. It should sound authentic and speak to your target customer so that you can influence true conversations with existing customers as well. 

7. Have a Consistent Voice

While having a visual style guide is important for any successful business, so is the voice you use while communicating your brand. Does your voice sound casual or does it sound professional? Are you writing your blog posts in the first, second, or third person?

Your brand voice will help determine a compelling brand story with the right messaging. Avoid changing your voice too frequently and give your brand's voice time to develop before suddenly switching gears. You can test things out with your current customer base and see if it truly resonates with your audience. 

Branding Strategies, Made Simple

Building the best branding strategies takes time and practice, yet, it's one of the best things to do for long-lasting growth. It's what differentiates small brands from established companies in the market. For more help developing your brand strategies, speak with one of our specialists today!