Starting a business is one of life’s biggest undertakings for most entrepreneurs. In the early days, there are many key decisions to make, from what the business will be, how it will operate, who it will target and how it will target them, to name but a few.

Branding is a vital part of every business as it defines how your company will appear to your customers and needs to be in line with their interests and likes.

Here are the key factors to consider when creating your business.

Your Brand’s Name

What’s in a name? Quite a lot actually. Your name is how your customers will recognize your business, remember it and hopefully recommend it to their friends. Names need to succinctly respond to what the business is all about, which can be a tricky task. Summing up complex brands into a few words, or even just one word can be the trickiest part of branding.

Your brand name needs to be targeted at your customers. Strength training gyms are becoming quite popular now and they really know how to name their brands appropriately. Short, strong, impactful names resonate with people who want to become strong. That’s why instead of seeing John’s Strength and Conditioning Gym we’re seeing gyms called Power and Gains. It’s what the customer expects to see.

Some notable businesses’ have rebranded and changed their names in the past. Best Buy was formally Sound of Music, Nike was Blue Ribbon Sports and the mighty Google was previously BackRub

Your Brand’s Colours

Colours have meanings, and not just when it comes to branding. White universally represents peace, while black and red make people feel like danger is just around the corner. It’s important to consider what your brand colours mean.

The world’s largest restaurant chain Subway has the tagline ‘Eat Fresh’ and works it into every part of its business. Their loyalty programme is called ‘Eat Fresh Club’, the tagline was used under their previous logo and it even influenced their brand colours.

Close your eyes and think of freshness. What did you see? A meadow of flowers blowing in the breeze? White bed sheets? A healthy salad? All of these include the colours white, green and yellow - the only colours that Subway use. They link all of their brand colours with being fresh.

Like the brand names above, rebranding addresses the brand colours of existing businesses. The Guardian is one of the most well-respected newspapers in the UK. Their logo was previously two different shades of blue, it is now black, and only black. There are two reasons for this.

Firstly two blues can seem a bit playful and informal when compared to a strong, official and confident black colour. Like most readers I want my news to be official rather than informal. The Guardian is also a liberal-leaning news source and shows slight favour to the Labour Party whose colours are red and are in opposition against the Conservative Party who use blue. Black is more ‘on-brand’ than blue.

Your Brand’s Tone of Voice

The Tone of Voice is the type of language you use to communicate with your customers. It needs to be appropriate for the situation and be understood by the target audience. If you were a complete beginner at managing social media accounts, you would be more inclined to sign up for a class where you could understand the results.

Would you prefer a course that promised to teach you about ‘KPI’s, analytical reports, ramifications of increased growth and how to improve on engagement rates’, or a class advertised as ‘How to see if your account is hitting your targets and how to make it perform better’?

One major brand that has really nailed their Tone of Voice is the messaging service Slack. This service is used by businesses across the globe, particularly in ones with remote workers and multiple departments. It knows its role in the world.

Email is most often used in formal settings, whether you’re sending off invoices, quotes for jobs or introducing yourself to a potential new client, they’re mainly done by email as it is the appropriate platform. Slack is for chatting on internal teams. You know these people so instead of opening with ‘Dear Ms. Jones’, people chatting on Slack use ‘Hey Maggie’. Slack adopts the same tone across the entire brand.

In the video here, where describing Brianna’s job they say she does ‘newspapery things’. This is similar to how you’d introduce a new friend to your group at a bar, rather than in a boardroom. Slack knows their clients and speaks to them.

Branding can seem like a daunting job, but it shouldn’t be. With a bit of expert guidance branding becomes one of the most enjoyable parts of starting your business. Get in touch with us now and see how we can help.

Filed in // Brand Identity, Branding, Strategy