Posted on Nov 2, 2020 • Edited on Dec 2, 2020

Starting A Business: What Is Your Brand Identity?

Create a brand identity before starting a business. This way, you have a clear path to the company's future as well as its success.

What is your brand identity? Do you understand it? It’s best that you figure this out before you start filing papers for your business. Before you start operating your startup, you need to have a bird’s-eye view on how it can help your business organization flourish. Branding should be done because it is a great way to make your products or services marketable. The target audiences may have unique needs and demands but with this marketing technique, you will be given a great opportunity to have a remarkable brand performance.

In every endeavor, a great plant can take you a long way. If you just wing it, it’s a 50-50 scenario. You may succeed or not. But if you have proper planning, even if you are not successful with your activity, you can have a backup plan because you have a plan.

In other words, you have a Plan B if things don’t happen your way. In the case of creating a company, there is no Plan B, the plan is to create a brand. Everything else will fall into place. If a campaign fails, then the brand will just follow through with other activities and events based on what the brand identity is about.

What is your brand identity?

Finding your identity means a lot of contemplation and research. Why research? The business itself knows what it wants to do. But there are different components that make up a brand identity. While the company knows what kind of business it is going to start, there are different elements to making that happen.

Start with the product or service. What is it that you want to offer to the community? We say community because you have to start small before you take on the world. Now that you have the product or service, how do you want the company to be viewed?

Let’s call it the personality of the company. Do you want the company to be fun or serious? Do you want the business to target young ones or the older ones? Knowing the details of your business are crucial to creating your personality. Having a business persona will endear you to people because they will feel that they have a connection with you.

When you have sorted out the personality details of the company, then you can start thinking of a name. In most cases, the name is already there because there are some entrepreneurs who want to name their business after them. Or maybe they want it named after their loved ones.

Still, there are others who have not figured out a name. That’s actually quite good because you can create a name that will reflect what the business is truly about. One great example of a very apt name without being too obvious about it is Victoria’s Secret. It is primarily a lingerie store. It has since expanded to other products but when it was created in the 1970s, it was purely for undergarments.

The name was not personal. There was no Victoria. Instead, Victoria was a reference to the Victorian era. The secret refers to the undergarments or what’s inside the clothes. It refers to something intimate that not everybody will have access to.

Victoria’s Secret is a wonderful name for a lingerie brand.

What comes next?

The face of the brand

Now that you have already the name for your company, it’s time to create the brand logo. You might have your own idea about the logo but this is not just something that would represent your company visually. This is part of your brand. So, you have to be critical in choosing the name. As much as possible, make sure that the company name can represent the message of your business on the market.

This is why it’s very important to get in touch with a branding firm because they know what they are doing. They know how to create a logo that is both striking and rich in branding elements. At the very least, the logo should be created by a design studio.

Another important reason why another company should create your logo is that there would be an outside perspective. If you create it, sometimes you create it with emotions. That’s good! However, it doesn’t translate to branding all the time. That’s why it should be a collaborative effort. No, you won’t just let the branding company or design studio create your logo for you. It’s still your business logo, so you need to have a say in it. But you should be open-minded as well. Hear out the experts on why the logo should be the way it is.

The best result will be a collaboration. This way, your heart will still be in there along with the experts’ brain. The logo is very important because it gives your brand a face. Since you are still creating a business, it would be best to have your name along with the logo. There will come a time when your logo will stand on its own.

One day, people will see a logo and immediately realize that it’s your business. It’s like when you see a check mark on a product, you immediately know that it’s Nike even if the name is not under the symbol, formally known as the Swoosh. Before that happens, though, people will have to be familiar with your brand first. You need to be recognized and one way to really do that is to have an active online presence.

Online presence

The website is an important component to a business and it is one way to really inculcate the brand to the audience. The brand identity should be visible in the website and we are not just talking about the products or services that you offer.

The personality of the brand should be something that people will get just by visiting the website, which is the expansion of your physical store. In fact, your website should also have an online store component, the importance of which has been heightened as the world continues to face the health crisis caused by the coronavirus disease or COVID-19.

It has to be noted, though, that online presence cannot be achieved with having a website alone. Having just a website for online presence would be fine if the company is already very big. It would only work if people are so into the brand that they would visit the website without being prompted. To complement your website, you should have social media presence as well. It’s also important that you manage the different social media platforms with consistency by being true to the brand. This is also a work that you can outsource.

When you find a branding company, you’ll realize that everything you need in branding while starting a business is there. The company can help you create a brand identity while also creating a logo. The same goes for the website and Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram accounts. It’s like a one-stop shop for business branding.