4 Steps to Building a Successful Brand

Branding is a strategic process that involves commitment. It's more than writing new ads or developing a new logo. Your brand is THE expression of your company’s image and beliefs. For it to be successful, and fly high, you'll need to believe in your promise and support it both internally and externally. You need to look at it deeply, closely, and critically to find its best expression. With teamwork, perseverance, honesty, and leadership, your brand can reach its true potential.

1) Everyone on the team needs to be seriously committed to a branding exploration.
Key decision-makers should be involved from the beginning to the end. Branding takes an honest look at who you are, what you are good at AND what you aren’t. The team should be willing to embrace the good, the bad, and the ugly and have the vision to think differently about how they present themselves

2) Your brand promise should be meaningful AND deliverable.
Brand positioning (why you are better or different) is all about finding new opportunities for your product or service. Whether it is a distinct point of difference -- “cleans better than the #1 brand” or an emotional benefit “We bring good things to life” -- every brand has some unique benefit to its customers. That’s why surveying your customers will help you discover new insights into your brand. If you discover a benefit that your customers say you are good at, then it’s worth the effort to deliver on that promise. Your customers are excellent judges of what makes you special. Don’t ignore it

3) Stay the course.
Branding efforts follow a process...first conducting discovery with the internal key players, then auditing the competition, and then surveying the customer. Along the way valuable learning is accumulated that will ultimately help in the development of the brand platform. A consistent, dedicated client team is extremely important in the process of building a competent and competitive brand.

4) Leadership is THE key to any successful branding effort.
The client must rally the team behind a common mission, keep the herd together and designate the ultimate decision-makers. In the end with this kind of effort and a great branding design partner (We have a suggestion on this one!) your brand’s success will be well-heeled for not only talking the talk, but walking the walk.