What is a Brand?

 "Ultimately, brand is about caring about your business at every level and in every detail, from the big things like a mission and vision to your people, your customers, and every interaction anyone is ever going to with you, no matter how small." - Dan Pallotta, social entrepreneur and founder of Pallotta TeamWorks, in Harvard Business Review.

Brand identity goes beyond how you present yourself to the public; it is how people and customers perceive your business. Your brand helps you deliver a message, maintain credibility, gives you a way to connect to your customers, generates loyalty, and influences your audience to take the next steps.

What is Brand Identity?

Brand identity is differentiated, recognizable, and accessible elements that form your brand image. Branding identity involves choosing color schemes, fonts, and visual language. Make your brand stand out, get stuck in the customer's mind, and lead them to return to your business at some point. You want to remain memorable.

Your brand identity makes up what you say, your company values, how you communicate your products and services, and how people feel when they interact with your business, be it online or in person. Verbal brand identity is just as important as visual brand identity. The tone of voice your company uses in social media posts, website copy, and any other marketing conveys your company's beliefs and values.

The American Marketing Association says that brand identity is, "Name, sign, symbol, design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or gap of sellers to differentiate them from those of your competitors." Science Direct published that having a strong brand identity can lead to "great financial rewards," among other benefits.

What Can Branding Do For My Business?

Branding is a process used to create business visibility or brand awareness, attract new customers, and build customer loyalty. You must include the brand identity essentials in your traditional marketing material (business cards, reports, flyers, brochures) and digital material (website, social media, digital ads) to create visibility.

Impeccable branding can result in:

  • High level of professionalism
  • Consistency through all marketing materials
  • Building an emotional connection with your customers and creating loyalty and trust
  • Making your business memorable
  • Showing commitment and pride in your company
  • Delivering exceptional customer experience every time
  • Networking and expanding your brand awareness

Your branding elements work together to create a cohesive display, unifying the separate pieces and bringing them together in a lovely package for the customer to absorb and internalize.

Build A Brand Identity

Having a brand identity builds trust, credibility, and authority, and can lead to a successful business. Jeff Bezos said, "Branding is what people say about you when you are not in the room."

Here are six simple steps you can do today to help emphasize your brand identity:

  1. Create a customer persona to understand your audience members better
  2. Develop a voice for your brand - solidify a tone that will be woven into all marketing
  3. Adjust all advertising and website verbiage to confirm it follows your company's tone of voice
  4. Engage on social media and keep imagery consistent with filters and a theme
  5. Start a blog on your website that exemplifies your brand and your company values 
  6. Check for unified and cohesive flow across platforms

Check to see if these aspects of your brand identity remain consistent:

  • Domain name
  • Branded links
  • Tone and voice
  • Color scheme (or color palette)
  • Logo
  • Website design
  • Content creation (blogs, white papers, ebooks, social media)

Arpit Sinha, copywriter in Classy Writeups, states in the "Six Reasons Branding Is More Important Than Ever Before" article (featured in Entrepreneur), states, "Your brand is the total of your customer's perceptions, notions, and experiences. It is the face, persona, and values espoused by your business."

Final Branding Checklist:

  • Visual Identity - Are your fonts, colors, photos, and other elements cohesive?
  • Analyze Communication - Do you have a clear point of view? Are you staying consistent with messaging and communication across all platforms?
  • Create a Plan - Is there anything you can improve or update with the current system? 
  • Exhibit Brand Values as a Team - Is your team informed on how the brand needs to be communicated to the public? How can you utilize your team's strengths to highlight your branding?

De Novo Digital can help you with branding questions. We offer a fully comprehensive and tailored branding package. Contact us today!