What exactly is a brand and how do you figure out what yours is? You know companies and products based on their brand but did you know that you also need a brand? As a person in any field, regardless of career or major, building a brand is key in establishing a name to yourself.

What Is A Brand?

 By definition, a brand is a product, service, or concept that distinguishes itself from its competitors due to its distinction, uniqueness, and differentiation. This is either through their name, term, design, symbol, colors, or any other feature that helps identify and associate itself to consumer’s perspectives. Building a personal brand is the first step because it will help distinguish yourself from other competitors. A personal brand is essentially your reputation (how other people view you) and your identity (how and what people associate you with). 3 key developments of a brand include development, consistency, and protection. Your brand needs to consider a variety of factors, such as, how you want to be remembered and how you would demonstrate or convey your brand (either tangible or intangible). It also needs to stay consistent across all media and uses. You should also consider how to protect your brand’s reputation once you’ve decided how you want to be remembered, by making decisions that coincide with your mission and message. 

How To Build Your Brand?

Now that you know what a brand is, we move onto the next step, developing your brand. There is a lot of thinking, trial and error, and evaluation before finalizing your brand so that it consists of your mission and message.

Step 1: Research Your Target Audience

• Your brand is influenced based on your target audience and who you are trying to appeal to.
• Research your competitors as well, they are who you need to outshine.
• This helps you figure out what to focus on and how you can distinguish yourself from competitors.
• As you research your target audience & competitors, there are a few things to keep in mind:
  • Who could you sell to easily (this is usually by finding a niche).
  • Who your top competitors are (already existing and established brands).
  • How and what do your customers talk about (this includes their interests and what language they communicate in).

Step 2: Establish Your Mission & Personality & Focus

• Outline key distinguishing qualities and benefits, this helps you lay your groundwork.
• This is where you come up with a statement that explains what you’re most passionate about.
• Another way to explain it is, this statement explains why you get up every day.
• Find your focus, that way everything else will begin to fit like a puzzle piece as you build your brand.
• Create a positioning statement, this will help you answer some questions about your brand (a positioning statement defines what you offer, to whom, and what the benefit is).
• Find your unique value proposition, something that none of your competitors have or the one thing you’re competing on.
• Find some words to associate with your brand (can be verbs, concepts, or metaphors).

Step 3: Choosing A Business Name & Logo

• This is the first step and biggest commitment of your brand.
• The business’s name will impact and influence everything, your logo, domain, marketing, trademark, etc.
• Ideally, your business name should be difficult to imitate and shouldn’t be easily confused with already existing brands.
• You can use a business name generator or do a combination of:
  • Making up a word (ex. Pepsi)
  • Re-framing an unrelated word (ex. Apple & Computers)
  • Use a suggestive word or metaphor (ex. Buffer)
  • Using a literal description (although that would make it easy to imitate)
  • Altering a word (by removing or adding letters)
  • Using initials of a longer name (ex. HBO aka Home Box Office)
  • Combining two words (ex. Pinterest = Pin + Interest or Facebook = Face + Book
  • Turning a string of words into an acronym (ex. BMW aka Bayerische Motoren Werke)
• After you figure out your name, you would have to design your logo that fits your name.
• Invest time and money (if you are hiring someone else to create) to come up with a logo because it’ll be the visual reinforcement of your brand. You don’t want it to look the opposite of what you are trying to convey.

Step 4: Picking A Brand Color & Font

• is relatively simple, you choose colors that you want people to associate with your brand.
• Research the colors and their underlying meanings, and pick colors that best represent your mission & personality.
• Choosing fonts also come with research, depending on the font type to match your image. You want to choose at max 2-3 fonts to avoid confusion and clashing types. One for headings, one for the body text, and one for special occasions or other texts.

Step 5: Develop Brand Personality & Voice

• After choosing a brand color and font, then you can develop your brand personality and voice to match it.
• This is where you figure out how you want to communicate with your customers (brand voice can be professional, friendly, informative, etc).
• To make your brand stand out, you should be consistent and make your personality stand out.
  • This can be as simple as using a conversational voice in communicating or sharing behind the scenes content or telling stories from real experiences.

Step 6: Come Up With A Slogan

• A slogan is a brief description of what you are trying to convey in a few words. This is how you make a quick impact on the consumers reading it.
• You can always change your slogan as you find new ways to market yourself and your brand.
• It should be short, catchy, and leaves a strong lasting impression.
• Some slogan brainstorming ideas include:
  • Staking your claim
  • Make it a metaphor
  • Adopting your customer’s attitude
  • Leverage labels
  • Write a rhyme
  • Describe it literally

Step 7: Apply, Extend & Evolve

• Last but not least, this step is to apply it to everything. Apply your brand to everything you do, and make sure everything you do consists of your brand.
• Creating your brand is the very first step, next you have to spread your name and brand to be recognized.
• As your brand grows, things change, so make sure to keep your brand up-to-date as you evolve.
• Be your brand’s biggest advocate and show your customer’s the best you.

You Have A Brand, Now What?

You now have an established brand, what’s the next step? The next step is to build a portfolio that shows tangible work that showcases your brand. Of course, you won’t have one just ready, you have to build it. Set time aside to do projects or use projects that you’ve already done, and assemble it to display it to customers how you want them to perceive it. You can make a portfolio however you’d like, whether it be online or printed out. It is solely up to you, but having both would be handy. You can make an online portfolio through free websites or purchase a domain. You can also print out your work by either sending it to a printing company or if you have the tools and print it yourself. Having a portfolio ready is the next step of enforcing and showcases your brand, so it is good to start one!

Sources

• https://thebelfordgroup.com/conquering-the-three-types-of-branding/
• https://freshsparks.com/successful-brand-building-process/
• https://www.shopify.com/blog/how-to-build-a-brand