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Branding is:
An Identity
The identity for your business – it’s your vision, your goals, your products, your services, your staff, the way you work, what you stand for and so on…
A Label
A brand helps people categorise your business in their busy mind. Our eyes, ears and senses get bombarded with literally millions of bits of information every second and so the only way for our brains to cope is to distort, delete and generalise, or in other words, put things in boxes that make sense to us.
This is why everyone sees things so differently. They base their decisions on what they know, what they’ve seen or experienced and what they know is safe, fun, useful, cheap, expensive, tasty etc
When you create a brand you are helping people to put your business in a box – the key is making sure they put you in the box you want to be in and that’s where building a strong brand comes in.
But most importantly it is…
An Emotional Response
And when I speak about this it tends to be a bit of an unexpected answer. Put simply, all branding is about creating the right emotional response from your customers and potential customers to get them buying from you.
No one likes to be sold to and yet everyone likes to buy. BUT they are not buying whatever it is that they are spending their money on… instead they are buying the feeling they get once they have it and they base their buying decisions on what is valuable to them and what they need or want.
Brand is becoming more and more about connecting with your Ideal Clients on a personal level and even to a point where they feel they are almost part of your business. Like members of a club with a real sense of belonging.
Brand is a powerful thing that can create strong emotional reactions with your clients and the level of that emotion is down to you creating a brand that people can feel so passionately about.
A big part of that is knowing what your business values are and about being authentic. It’s a big bad world out there and we are assaulted with ‘stuff’ every moment of every day so finding a brand that we connect with, that understands our pain, that offers us a solution, that makes us feel like we really matter is magic and we hold that brand close to us. Passionate brand ambassadors are what you want but you need to give them something to be passionate about to get them singing your praises from the rooftops!
Keeping this simple, here are a few questions for you:
- How do you want your clients to think about your business?
- What emotions you want to illicit in those that come into contact with your brand?
- What do you want to be known for (your reputation)
Further reading:
I have written quite a few blog posts on branding now that go into this in more detail and it is well worth reading the following:
- Do I Need To Niche For My Brand?
- Why Passion Is Important For Your Brand
- Does Branding Really Matter?
- Why Branding Is Rather Like A Victoria Sponge!
- Isn’t It The Graphic Designer’s Job To Create My Brand?
- Do I Really Need A ‘Brand’ For My Business?
Enjoy and why not comment below with your own feelings about what a brand is…