You know that Youtuber promising you’re going to make 10k/month by following his free advice?
The one whose videos you IMMEDIATELY watch as soon as they come out?
It’s time to reverse the roles and become that guy. It’s time to have people connect to your brand, instead of fanboying on other people.
His secret? A powerful brand image.
That’s how you’ll get people to remember you, be loyal to you, and most importantly – buy loads of products from you.
Without further ado…
Importance of Branding for Startups: Identity, Credibility, and Connection
Let’s face it – it’s the 21st century and there are hundreds of MILLIONS of businesses out there. Whatever your market is, chances are it might be saturated.
Competing with established brands just doesn’t make much sense as a startup founder. That’s when having a brand image, aka being unique comes into play…
There are many branding decisions you’ll have to make in your journey to becoming unique.
If you manage to be unique, there will always be people who relate to you and buy from you, even though there might be “better” options out there.
It doesn’t stop there though. Yes, your brand attracts people – but it also makes them loyal.
Everyone knows just how valuable it is to have loyal customers, instead of just focusing on sheer sales volume.
Word of mouth, multiple purchases, steady income, growth… Just to name a few benefits of loyalty.
And since everyone also knows you like spending other people’s money…
Branding helps with investors too! If they emotionally connect with your stuff, they’re much more likely to help you.
So, don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and be yourself. You don’t have to be perfect to attract people, you just have to be your authentic self.
You are one special snowflake and there’s no copy-paste version of you in the world. There are millions of people just like you and they WILL relate to your authentic brand.
P.S. I forgot to mention this – A strong brand also attracts top talent. What you put out to the world is what you attract, simple as that.
Developing a Brand Strategy (Mission, Values, Personality, Voice, USP, Positioning)
Okay, now that we’ve covered the importance of branding, you’re ready for the actionable steps. Let’s keep it simple and go one by one.
Mission
Although it might seem meh right now, it’s very important to show your mission to the world. It’s not preaching and it’s not pretentious – it helps people connect with your brand. To determine your mission – ask yourself these questions:
- Purpose: What unique need does your business fulfill in the community? What problem do you solve for your customers?
- Mission:
What’s your mission?(haha) What are your short- and long-term goals? Your mission should reflect your commitment to your customers and the positive impact you want to make.
Values
What do you stand for? Do you have any different/controversial opinions on your industry? Identify the core values that guide your business and think back to those values any time you need to make a decision. By values, I mean things like:
Customer-centricity, integrity, quality, community engagement, sustainability…
Personality
This is how you give life to your business. Give human traits to your brand and people (other humans) will be attracted to it. How do you want to be perceived? Think:
- Passionate: Will you show a lot of emotions and strong opinions?
- Empathetic: Will you be feelings-oriented and understanding toward others?
- Authoritative: Will you speak as if you were better than other people (works especially well if you teach things!)
- Inspirational: Will you try and inspire and motivate people?
Choose the personality you want your business to have – and don’t be afraid to go all out. People buy so much more when they relate to you and enjoy your personality.
General rule of thumb in business: It’s better to be loved and hated than liked and disliked.
Brand Voice
Brand voice just means speaking like your business personality. For example, if you want to be authoritative – you’ll have to find a way to communicate it with your words.
You can use shorter sentences. Give proof of your successes. Not care if people don’t listen to your advice.
But you do you, you don’t have to listen to me, I guess…
If you want to come across as empathetic, you should emphasize how much you understand your customers, and how you’re here to support them. Their needs are your needs, and you’re committed to being there for them, instead of just giving a product and disappearing.
I hope you get the gist of brand voice by now.
Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
Picture this: A potential customer is considering a couple of options: You and your arch-nemesis competitors. To make the final decision, they need to find that something that perfectly fits their expectations. That something that makes the offer irresistible.
Well, this something is called a unique selling proposition. It’s basically a clear statement that clearly shows what you do and why you’re different.
It might seem like a no-brainer, but believe me, not many businesses really do this. So many entrepreneurs just fall in love with their own ideas before figuring out if anyone else even cares.
We actually have two articles on USPs, “What is a Unique Selling Proposition” and “How to Build a Powerful USP”, which I strongly recommend you study.
Positioning
Positioning is simply the way you would like your customers to think about you. In other words, the position you occupy in your customers’ minds.
Imagine you’re making an app and you position it as “App for team communication”. Boring and unoriginal. There are thousands of other apps like that already.
Or you can position it as “B2B app specifically for real-estate teams with more than 10 employees”. Now you’re interesting and unique. With this positioning, you’ll appeal to a smaller group of people…
But you will REALLY appeal to the teams you target because you come off as an expert in the field.
See, you can avoid all the established competition by making a race of your own.
You don’t have to be the biggest fish in the pond, you just have to make the pond smaller. ~ every marketer EVER (they’re completely right though)
Actionable step: Try and come up with a simple positioning statement. What exactly do you do and who exactly do you serve?
Choosing a Brand Name: How to Make it Memorable and Effective
Now, you need to bang your head against a wall for six consecutive hours trying to come up with a name you won’t hate.
I know it’s tedious, but it has to be done sooner or later. Here are some guidelines to help you bang your head for only four hours instead of six:
- Invented names: Made-up words like Google or Kodak
- Descriptive names: Words that describe your product like Snapchat or Airbnb.
- Metaphorical names: Words that evoke your brand’s essence like Apple or Virgin
- Name Generator names: Try using a name generator, like Namecheap, to help you pick a good name. I recommend using more than 2-3 input words, as the generator tends to suck
with less than 3… Then, go to GoDaddy.com to check if the domain is available. Simple as that!
To see if you came up with a good brand name, ask yourself the following:
- Memorability: Is the name catchy and easy to recall?
- Brevity: How short is it? Shorter names tend to be more memorable
- Meaning: Does the name convey your brand’s personality?
- Distinctiveness: Is the name unique and different from competitors?
Let me give you an amazing example…
Drum roll…
Eightception. “Eight” represents our multiple offers and it symbolizes balance and harmony in business. “Ception” represents the concept of layers and depth, which aligns with our focus on strategic and complex business services. Plus, it has a modern, tech-savvy ring to it!
Whoever thought of it MUST be a genius…
Or they must really like the number eight and that movie with DiCaprio 🙂.
While you’re trying to come up with a brand name, you might feel tempted to use an AI to brainstorm…And I highly encourage you to!
Write down various associations and words you like that can relate to the USP, positioning, and brand voice. Ask the AI to generate interesting and fun combinations of these and bam! You got yourself a winner.
Also, there are some things you need to watch out for when coming up with your brand name:
- Conduct trademark searches to ensure it’s available for use.
- Check if the matching domain name is obtainable.
- Avoid names that are too similar to existing brands. Standing out and stuff, you know…
Once you’ve narrowed down your top name choices, feel free to test them. Your brand doesn’t have to be set in stone from day one. It’s okay to have a bit of an identity crisis. Test your brand name(s), see how people respond, and tweak it before launching.
To test them, here are some other ideas:
- Ask friends and relatives what they think (and don’t get discouraged as soon as one person doesn’t like it)
- Ask people which associations and feelings they have when they come across your name
- Ask AI about its associations
and feelings. The AI could be really good at telling you about any possible negative associations with this name in other languages in areas where your brand will be represented.
Creating a Visual Identity (Logo, Colors, Typography)
Your visual identity includes your logo, color scheme, and overall design aesthetic. Again, all of these things should be aligned with your brand. Specifically, with your business personality and values.
Otherwise, it’s a bit like seeing a fully tatted priest… A bit incoherent.
To avoid that image, you should either:
- Be a creative visual designer yourself.
- Have a kick-ass designer in your startup team 😎.
- Work with a design agency that will help you pick a great style to convey your value.
If you’re an entrepreneur who is just building a low-cost beta-phase product or prototype – it’s totally fine to pick the style and colors using AI or other free tools. They can actually suggest nice solutions.
For the colors, we have some tools we can recommend (we used them and loved them):
Remember, if you’re just starting out, you need to keep it cheap and fast. You can always improve later.
Still not convinced that colors are important for your business? Well, Captain Skeptic – let me give you some examples of how your visual identity could convey your business personality:
- Red: Stimulates strong emotions, from love and passion to anger and danger.
- Green: Represents nature and growth. It’s a restful, calming color that’s easy on the eyes.
- Black: Considered a powerful, formal color – black can make people feel sophisticated and serious. It’s also slimming and mysterious.
For the logo, let me, once again – give you a number of delightful examples.
These are the many (there were dozens actually and I didn’t post all of them here to save your time) Eightception logos we generated, which symbolize all the things about our brand that I already talked about – like growth, layering, tech-savviness…
They’re real AI-generated logos for Eightception as we were brainstorming on it with the AI. As you can see, they are scrappy and sometimes hilarious (oh, thank you, AI, for that amazing CNNUUITY brand name idea!) but we got it to “good enough”, just to start. Now we’re working with a design agency (with real humans) to make a new branding.
Now you can see the beginning of our logos before they were wiped out from the face of the Earth and replaced with a better-looking one 😱.
Takeaways
If you want to build a successful business, stand out from your competition, and charge the prices you want to charge – you also need to build a brand.
Here’s a brief summary of how to develop epic branding:
- Understand the importance of branding. It brings customers, investors, talent… And it turns attraction into loyalty.
- Determine your purpose and mission. Then, communicate it to the world so people can relate.
- Be sure about your values and keep them in mind when making decisions.
- Develop your business personality. Give human traits to your brand and people (other humans) will be attracted to it.
- Speak in your business personality’s language across all channels (use your brand voice everywhere)
- Define your Unique Selling Proposition and tell it e v e r y w h e r e.
- Understand the positioning you want to occupy in your customers’ minds. The following rule mostly applies: The more targeted, the better.
- Use NameCheap and GoDaddy to choose a memorable brand name. Then, ask your potential customers, friends, and family what they think of it!
- Create a visual identity that matches your business personality and values (colors, typography, logo).
