Almost, every founder of the startup company dream to create an iconic brand to set the identity among people.
Startup Branding…!
Is that necessary for all the startup to get help from an outsider like branding agency? The answer would be absolutely no…
According to a report, 86 percent of consumers say authenticity is important when deciding what brands they like and support.
Doesn’t it mean that you have to create a genuine branding strategy on your own? Even for the early-stage startups like yours.
Let’s explore in this definitive guide, about startup branding, its importance, and 6 strategies to extend the reach of your company.
What Is Startup Branding?
Startup branding is the set of processes to create an identity of a startup company in a people’s mind. It fabricates the unique value in the customer’s perception. When they see or hear your brand’s name, it tells the story behind the company’s features that will be remembered forever.
Brand
A brand is an intangible asset that people identify the specific company and its products (Investopedia). The factors that are perceived as a brand are
- Name
- Logo
- Design
- Symbol
- Slogan
These essential elements of a brand create an emotional attachment with loyal customers. If this is going to impact the buyer’s decision, then without any dispute, knowing its importance is crucial for startup founders.
Importance of Startup Branding
Promoting and advertising the product to the target customers is essential for every business. It is a part and parcel of the marketing process. Leaving that aside, let us see why branding is important for startups.
Brand Awareness
At the very nascent stages of a startup company, no one knows whether your’s is an established business. Primarily, to let know people about your new company is through branding your company. This will help you to create Brand Awareness for a massive number of people.
To Gain Credibility
How can a person trust a brand is by branding itself. In a simple word, branding helps to gain credibility from the target audience, if a person recommends a brand product to other people. The other way to describe this is word-of-mouth marketing or advertising. This is how a message passes through and builds trust among people.
Increase The Number Of Customers
Branding gives an extensive reach for your startup company. When it reaches almost all the places of a target market, subsequently it gives a high conversion rate. Thereby it will increase the number of customers to your brand.
Influencing The Buyer’s Decision
Before buying any product, people will always have a priority list of brands in their minds. When a new player enters the market with a perfect business strategy, it influences the buyer’s decision. The customer will listen to the features of a new product and give it a try at once.
Direction For The Future
The entire Branding process will take some time to implement successfully. If it is done quickly at the onset of your project, it gains reputation, further shapes your future growth prospects. Tracking and monitoring the results and adapting to the changes will help you to exponentially grow your startup brand.
Startup Branding Strategies
Tell A Story
As a founder of a startup company, it is important to brand yourself alongside the branding for your company. You need not tell a fascinating story that feeds on people’s boredom.
Instead, tell briefly about your birthplace and how you were brought up. Impress the people with your goal, aspirations, ambition in your life. What inspires and motivates to become an entrepreneur in this niche business.
When you say the real truth behind starting the business, it connects your personal life with the product. This evokes an emotional connection with the brand.
To make the brand remember in people’s mind forever, you need to design the eye-catchy brand name, tagline, logo, and color.
Memorable Brand Name
The brand name is the foremost important thing for startup branding and marketing. It describes the product, features, and target audience. After the name, next would be a tagline that tells your brand essence. Some crucial thing you have to consider before choosing a brand name and tagline are
- Short name
- Unique
- Easy to Pronounce
- Phonetic
Visual Identity
Try out different colors for the logo design that is easy and eye-catchy. This will represent the mood and essence of the products and the age group of the people. For example, it would be obvious to use green color in the logo for branding organic foods.
Outsource a designer from freelancing websites like Freelancer and Fiverr, Or a local designer to design a logo that will cost you less, which you should not ignore at the early stages.
Typography is another point that you have to check in designing. Here, the typography is not limited to name design only, but also to the fonts that you will use in your website, documents, and material. Using the right size and font style according to the customer gives a good experience for them.
For, example, Open Sans, Helvetica, Verdana, etc…
Unique Personality
You’re not done completely… it is only halfway with your name, logo, design. But startup branding demands more. The next differentiating factor you have to look upon is to showcase your brand with a unique personality.
It is all about
- Culture
- Style
- Loyalty
Copying from the competitor never going to help you.
Instead of promising more, when you constantly put the effort in creating the brand value, it will automatically showcase outside the company.
This happens when you communicate with people. It creates trustworthiness among people and shapes the future of the company. Further, it will help you to expand the brand into different customer segments.
Strong Social Media Presence
Having a strong social media presence is a powerful tool for startup branding with no cost…!
Nowadays, it has become a trend among people to search for a new brand and engage with them, having said that it delivers engaging content. Use every opportunity to interact with the audience and respond to their problems and queries.
When it comes to interaction, it would be a wise strategy to use influencers and celebrities as the voice for your brand. They will make a good reach and attracts more people towards the brand.
Use other essentials of social media like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and get a verified batch to gain credibility from the people, which would also increase the number of followers.
Shout Out With Brand’s Voice
Now, it’s time to get into action. Communicate with the audience with your high voice pitch. Respond to their questions, teach, educate and motivate them using different techniques, thereby you’ll become a solution provider.
Analyze the behavior of the customers in the market according to location and try to reach the new generation audiences with some innovative marketing ideas.
Content is the key here. Despite going for paid advertising, try to convey the message with your own strategy by not paying a single penny.
Use abstract visuals relevant to your brand in your marketing collateral like images, gif, video marketing, and short stories. Hold a contest, webinar, surveys make them a part of your game.
When these efforts are put in the right place consistently without any lag, believe that it will definitely give good results one day, which let the people never forget your brand.
Reader’s Insight
Let us know if we missed out on anything in this article startup branding and share your thoughts in the comment section.