Branding is all about communicating the essence of your business and delivering it to your customers. Your brand represents your business and its personality.

Which is why businesses never underestimate the art of branding. They are aware that a strong brand can make their business shine and standout from their competitors.

Branding highlights a company’s strengths and tells customers why a product or service is better than another.

Your brand is also your promise to customers. It tells them what they can expect from your products and services. That said, we at Entrepreneur Insight have gathered some basics to help start-ups and new entrepreneurs (maybe even established ones) to boost their branding exercise.

 

Logo

Image by Crown Point Design

Where there’s a company, there’s a logo. The logo alone can promote the company’s personality, like Apple or the name itself can be a logo just like Google. Regardless, its impossible to see great businesses running without a logo. Make yours tell a story just the way companies like Toyota, FedEx and Starbucks did and in the social media marketing age, you don’t have to spend millions of Ringgit to get your logo noticed.

Creating a logo doesn’t have to be difficult. Design should be kept minimal to be easily noticed and remembered. It can be plain with basic colours or it can incorporate multiple hues to be visually engaging – it’s all up to your company’s vision and direction. Once you’ve got your logo ready, put it out there and everywhere. Don’t ignore the power of a logo in the name of saving cost.

 

Communicate your selling point

Image by Mashable

This is tone of communication that delivers your brand. So, how do you decide what selling points you should shout-out? Again, you need to be clear on your company’s vision and direction. For example, is your company involved in the sports industry? The tone for any sports-related business is usually motivating and inspiring. Look at how Nike motivates by asking people to Just Do It. When it comes to food, listen to KFC’s– It’s finger lickin’ good that works like a natural stimulus to heighten your taste buds.

So, be certain what industry your company is in and it will guide you in finding your voice.

 

Be precise

Once you’ve found your inner voice and the perfect logo to reflect that, don’t keep changing them. Change can take place when there is no chance for your brand to be forgotten. If you’re just building your brand, you may want to avoid toying around with fonts, colours and tagline or you may risk your brand getting lost in translation. Be precise with your message and delivery.

 

Tagline

Image by The Non Profit Center

If you realise, different car ads on the radio or television ends with different taglines. For instance,

Honda – The Power of Dreams

Ford – Go Further

Volkswagen – Das Auto

And it’s not just cars. Every successful business and industry– ranging from McDonald’s I’m Lovin’ It to LG’s Life’s Good, captures attention through catchy taglines.

Catchy taglines are so powerful that they seep into your subconscious without much effort from your side to memorise them. Like AirAsia’s Now Everyone Can Fly, a catchy tagline will help your brand be a memorable one. Interestingly, it gets people quoting them like crazy.

Try recalling some of the popular ones here. If you can think of them, chances are they are a top-of-mind brand in their respective industries.

 

Be Quirky

Pic from Nando’s Malaysia

Apart from business radio station BFM, Nando’s was one of the first brands to hit our mind when we thought about quirky marketing. Nando’s leverages on current issues affecting a country and comes up with cheeky themes every now and then. If you are start-up that’s leveraging on social media marketing, this may just work out in your favour but we suggest you to crow with care (pun intended) to avoid any form of trouble with authorities.

 

By Chris Tan