Building an audience for your business is kind of like building the business all over again. It takes an ample amount of time, money, research, vision, and persistence.

All of these things come together to create a positive, well-known brand image, which is crucial to generating a large following.

Your brand is everything users associate with you. It is the emotions and values they connect to, as well as the products and services you offer. The complex nature of this leaves some small businesses unsure where to begin.

Not to worry — we’ve gathered all the things you need to know when building your brand. Here is your complete guide to creating a brand image for your business.

Define Your Goals and Know Your Audience

Before you roll up your sleeves and get to work, define what you want to achieve with your branding efforts. Establish an identity for your brand. Think about the culture of your company and the feelings you want to stir in your customers.

Describe the idea you have for your brand image as if you were talking about a person. Let these attributes — like cool, sophisticated, creative, etc — guide your branding process.

Such adjectives will help you decide on various branding tools from company colours to fonts and photo filters. They will be useful in logo design, web development, and more.

Do all of this with your consumer in mind. As soon as you have a bit of direction for your brand image, describe your ideal buyer. The descriptions of these two ideas should coincide.

Invest in Great Content Creators

Once you have your goals set up, bring in the people who can make your brand image come to life. You can hire an in-house team or invest in professionals who do this every day. But, you can’t create a brand without such talent.

These are the photographers, graphic designers, and copywriters that can turn your brand from a simple thought into a recognizable force in your industry. Put simply, great content is everything.

Well-made content is what gets people’s attention as they browse the web and what hooks them when they go to your website. The right content takes your brand image and places it in front of your ideal users to generate brand recognition and loyalty.

It’s what makes your company easy to pick out among various kinds of print and digital media as well as when your products are stocked against competitors on a shelf.

Find Your Strongest Marketing Opportunities

Some content creators are also digital marketing specialists. Others will hand you their deliverables and let you do the rest.

Try to find a team who can do both the creative work and the marketing to support it. This will make your branding process as seamless as possible.

Such professional groups know what angles work for your photos as well as where to place them on your website. Same goes for the kind of copy that is written in the voice of your brand but can also perform well for search purposes.

The branding efforts you create start with you and are produced for your audience. But, they only reach these people when you find the right marketing opportunities to expand your brand’s reach. The following are some marketing tactics to consider utilizing.

SEO

If your company has a website, you need to focus on SEO — and you absolutely need a website. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the practice of matching user inquiries and search terms with the companies who can best fit their needs.

This is done with a mix of many different tools. SEO depends on keywords, web design, online ratings, blogs and guest blogs, and more.

But, all of this needs the direction of your brand image to succeed. The same values and characteristics that define your brand should be what guide your SEO efforts.

Social Media

Once your search rankings are improved and your website is getting a steady flow of traffic, it’s time to take that one step further. Give users an up-close look at what your brand is really about via social media.

This is where you can truly connect with your audience. There are endless ways to foster lasting relationships with current users on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. Plus, these channels help make connections with potential new customers.

Print Media

As effective as SEO and social media can be, users aren’t on their screens 24/7. Some of your audience members may need one more interaction with your brand to get them to actively engage with you.

Such interactions might be walking past your poster on public transportation or flipping to your ad in a magazine. Other forms of print media include billboards, brochures and pamphlets, postcards, and even business cards.

Keep Everything Consistent

No matter the branding goals you envision from the start or the marketing approach you take to generate a strong following, you need to be consistent.

This is why industry experts stress things like brand colours, branded taglines or phrases, and even certain filters to use on social media. Such tools create a brand that is easy for people to recognize.

A simple, yet effective logo helps brand everything you do. Place it all over your website, on your social posts, and on every kind of print media you invest in.

Also, pay attention to the words you use when creating a copy and the phrases that are commonly used by your audience. Aim to be consistent in the frequency at which you generate new content, too.

Set a goal for how many social media posts you want to have each week or even for each day. Do this for blogging and email blasts as well, once you start to utilize those.

Get Your Brand Image Out There

Understanding how to create a powerful brand image is one thing. Supporting your brand with proper marketing and strategizing tactics is another.

Thankfully, our crew knows the ins and outs of both. We are here to build your brand from scratch and help it generate a growing following. Contact us today to take your brand image from its beginning stages to the successes that await.