Build your brand

You can pay a consultant a fortune to work with you to build your brand, but you can do this yourself if you have the time to invest in getting it right. You just need to follow a few simple, but important, steps.

1. Analyse the market
Any brand you develop must be based on a clear understanding of your business strategy, your capabilities and the marketplace in which you operate. A good place to start is a SWOT analysis.


2. Define your brand
Within the framework of your SWOT analysis, you need to set out clearly what you and your business stand for and what sets you apart from your competitors.

It is worth spending time getting this right. Ask your colleagues, staff and even customers for their input. You need to define your proposition (what you provide) and your values (how you provide it).

3. Create your brand
This is where you make your brand tangible. Design a logo, create a strapline, get stationery printed, redesign your website.

But remember what we said about a brand encompassing every element of your business? Your brand must be projected in your premises, the way your staff dress and answer the telephone, where you advertise, the events you hold. In short your brand must be promoted in everything you do, wherever you do it.

4. Get the buy-in of your employees
Once you have identified what your brand will be you need to secure the commitment of your employees. Your employees are an integral part of your brand. They need to adopt the attitudes and behaviours that support your brand and its values.

Get them involved in the early stages – get their input into the core values of the business, maybe hold a competition to come up with a brand name. Create and communicate brand guidelines once it has been established.

5. Communicate your brand
Consistent communications build successful brands. They are key to expressing what a brand stands for and defining its image. They contribute towards each person’s overall impression of a brand.

Make sure that your brand and the associated values and promises are communicated throughout your business first. And then to your customers – and potential customers. You should use a variety of strategies to do this – your website, PR, newsletters, direct mail, advertising

6. Keep communicating your brand!
Remember that while your brand may be very high up in your own mind, it takes a lot longer for your audience to recognise the clues and build the whole picture and actually identify with a brand.

So be consistent and resolute with your communications. You do not need a huge communication budget to do this but you do need to stick at it. And don’t forget – your brand includes every experience your customers, existing and potential, has with your company.

7. Review your brand
Some of the most successful brands can last for ever but it is vital that your brand continues to meet the needs and expectations of your customers. So make reviewing your brand part of your ongoing review of your overall marketing.

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