Creating a brand for your online business is essential at the start of your online business journey.
What is a brand?
- Your brand isn’t your logo, your product name, your colours – it is a sum of the total experience / perception of your business in people’s minds. It’s their overall impression.
- Your branding helps to influence that, along with their interactions and experience with your business.
Your branding includes your brand colours, logo, fonts, and how you use that across elements such as your website, advertising, social media, and all areas of your business. The image below is a great summary of what is a brand and what you should consider when creating a brand for your online business.
Some other brand terms are used across the strategic marketing world. They include:
- Brand identity
- Brand trust
- Brand loyalty
- Brand personality
- Brand awareness
One of the most commonly used examples of branding is Apple.
Their brand inspires not just brand loyalty but brand LOVE. Think of the queues outside an Apple store ahead of a product launch. Think of the level of awareness people have of the apple symbol. What words do you associate with the Apple brand what would you say is their brand personality? Innovation? Great design? Cutting edge technology? Do you have a level of trust in an Apple product over a product who’s brand you have never heard of that sells for 90% less on eBay?
The brand TRUST that Apple has built up in is what makes its customers comfortable to spend a lot more money on Apple products. It allows them to not just set a premium price tag but also sell consistently at that higher price.
Considering what you want your brand to ‘say’ to consumers is a really important part of your business strategy.
What is branding and why create a brand identity?
Branding: The process of creating, maintaining, strengthening or changing a brand.
Branding is all the elements that help to influence the perception people have of your business.
Think of a local plumbing business that has:
- new model vans painted in their ‘brand colours’,
- the uniformed staff that look smart (also in brand colours), are friendly and clean up after themselves and
- leaves an invoice with their business logo and name clearly printed on them and a branded fridge magnet for easy reference if you have any questions / further troubles.
Does this influence your perception and experience of the business? Do they strike you as professional, friendly, customer-service focused, and trustworthy?
What will you do to create the right perception of your business?
Creating a brand for your online business.
To start creating a brand for your online business, the first thing to consider is what you want your brand to convey?
- Fun, young and energetic?
- Trusted, professional, and stable?
- Innovative, agile, and responsive?
Next, consider the symbols that could help to represent your business and form the base of your logo.
The simplest logo is either just text or a mix of text and an icon.
Logos can also be hand-crafted just for your business by a professional graphic designer, to work across multiple platforms.