What is one branding tip you would offer a new start-up company?
To help you with your company's branding, we asked marketing experts and entrepreneurs this question for their best branding tips. From being bold with your branding to using budget-friendly outreach, there are several ways that your new start-up company can dial into branding.
Here are eight branding tips for new start-up companies:
Build A Unique Brand Identity
Invest In A Brand Book
Differentiate Yourself From Competitors
Know Your Audience
Be Bold
Do One Thing Well
Leverage Social Media
Focus On Solving A Problem
Create Budget-Friendly Outreach
Build A Unique Brand Identity
Your brand needs to be able to effectively communicate what makes you unique in your industry. Facebook stood out from Myspace because it was exclusive in its early days. TikTok stands out from YouTube because of an experience that only requires you to swipe up to enjoy. Figure out what makes you different and build your brand identity from there.
Steven Brown, DP Electric Inc
Invest In A Brand Book
Every company should have a brand book that outlines how their logos should look, what fonts and sizing they should use in various scenarios, what color combinations to use in emails, etc. Doing this at the start of your journey will save you tons of headaches later trying to retroactively fix misused fonts, reach out to people who are using the wrong logo, etc. The beautiful part is that you can get these done affordably on Fiverr. Just make sure you stick to the guidelines when you're designing your website and outlining editorial guidelines.
Quincy Smith, ESL Authority
Differentiate Yourself From Competitors
Differentiate your brand from others in the industry. Research your competitors and highlight what sets you apart from them in your branding materials and marketing initiatives. At Comidor, we differentiate ourselves by offering a synthesis of business management software, digital workplace applications and disruptive automation technologies, all powered by Low-Code development. To show potential customers how this approach can benefit them, we provide case studies of projects we have completed for our most well-known clients.
Spiros Skolarikis, Comidor
Know Your Audience
Before creating any marketing materials, define the various personas that exist within your target market. By doing so, you can create content that is even more relevant and engaging to your customers! You may also identify new opportunities on the sales side, such as creating different packages tailored to each persona.
Dale Gillespie, Tic Watches
Be Bold
When creating my company, I thought long and hard about branding and what I wanted Kegelbell to stand for. I created a detailed brand guide about what kind of company I wanted to build and the people I wanted to help. In addition to the mission, values statements, brand voice guide, we wanted prompts to help others “get” the spirit of the brand. I started asking the team questions, “If Kegelbell was a person, who would they be?” “If Kegelbell was an animal, what would they be?” If Kegelbell was a color, what would it be?” After jotting down these notes in our brand guide, and identifying “Kristen Bell” as the person, a snow leopard as the animal, and yellow as the color, I knew what I wanted our brand to be. I wanted everything about Kegelbell to be bold! We used that through the creation of our website, products, and marketing content. Now we are entering the next stage of communicating our brand and I have been following the “story cycle” method of Park Howell so that people can better know our brand through the power of storytelling.
Stephanie Schull, Kegelbell
Do One Thing Well
The term branding is about the space that you occupy in a customer’s mind. To occupy the right space, your business needs to do one thing really well. That way, when a customer thinks of “X,” then they think of your business and can refer someone your way. When our business started, we branded ourselves as a “digital marketing company.” Since then, we’ve narrowed down what we do best—SEO for small businesses—and focus our branding on that one thing.
Brett Farmiloe, Markitors
Leverage Social Media
You should be blasting ads, content, and messages all over the platforms that make sense for your business. Use crowdfunding sites, social networks, blogs, podcasts, etc., to get the word out. Brand awareness is big when it comes to establishing yourself, so be sure to post frequently and make the posts matter.
Mark Smith, University of Advancing Technology
Focus On Solving A Problem
Focus on your customers more than yourself. A lot of new companies go to advertise their features and to make the branding very self-focused with little interaction from their clients. I think in order to be successful in your branding, you should make sure your content can always answer: How does this solve a problem for my clients?
Loren Howard, Prime Plus Mortgages
Create Budget-Friendly Outreach
Every new startup should begin an outreach program with the hopes to network, build relationships, and engage in mutual collaborations. Anything to increase your brand's visibility will be beneficial, including adding backlinks, guest posting, brand mentions, and stellar social media cross-promotions. While budget conscious, these options still produce targeted results.
Greg Gillman, MuteSix
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