Why is brand identity important?

Standing out from the crowd can be difficult, but having a strong brand identity is a crucial cornerstone for differentiating your company from others. Whether large or small, every business has its own story to tell, but successful companies are often those that form and nurture theirs into an instantly recognisable brand.

What is brand identity?

In essence, your brand identity is how you want to present your company to customers. It is the way in which you portray your values and creativity, letting consumers know what experience they will get with your product or service.

There are a number of factors which can help a company to establish their brand identity, these include the following:

• Research - It’s incredibly important to understand your customers and how their values, likes and dislikes match with your own. You should also have a good idea of the competitors in your industry and how they promote their story. The knowledge you will gain from this research will help you to plan out the identity which will make your brand stand out.
• Create a unique business name - Your research should have helped you establish what makes your business unique. If you are just starting out then focus on the first building block of brand identity, picking a name for your business.
• Pick creative visuals - The next step is to generate brand visuals (or an image) that creatively demonstrates your identity. For many businesses this branding will mean getting a distinctive logo designed, together with graphics, typography and a colour palette that best reflects your business.
• Strong communication of your brand and its story - particular focus you should be paid to how your are communicating your brand identity to current and potential customers. You should look at the language you use and how you impart your brand’s story - what do you believe in, why did you create your product/service and how will your product/service help a customer.

Why is this important for my business?

Brand identity as a concept is often overlooked and condemned as being too expensive and complicated, whilst other aspects of a business get more attention. This is a mistake! Strong brand identities are very important, for the following reasons:

• Recognition - builds awareness of who you are and what you do
• Personality - gets across your own character and what makes you special
• Differentiation - sets you apart from competitors
• Price premium - encourages people to pay a premium for your goods/service
• Loyalty - helps to build brand loyalty and keep customers coming back

What should I remember when reinforcing the identity of my business?

All businesses have an identity, but most don’t utilise it. Spending some time figuring out how you can improve and utilise branding is a good first step. Find out what other successful companies do in your industry and work out what you can do to improve on this for your own.

We’ve already talked about why it’s important to use creative visuals for your business, so if you don’t have the capacity to generate these within your business you should look to professionals for assistance.

The logo and graphics that you have created should be utilised across everything that is customer facing, to help reinforce memory of your brand and the great experience a consumer gets with you. This should include your website, company vehicles and staff uniforms. Printing your logo onto t-shirts and other clothing that your staff wear is a fantastic and cost-effective way to highlight your business branding.

If you are looking at advertising your business using old or new media, you should always do this with your brand identity in mind. Ensure that in any advertising you are selling your story as much as the products/service that you offer.