With new businesses appearing almost out of thin air everywhere around us, there is no doubt that in order for your startup to reach your target audience and make a difference it has to stand out. While your startup’s product or service may be the one thing this world has been missing if no one ever hears about it, did it make a sound? This is exactly why your brand identity is so important.
A business’ brand identity refers to the ways in which your company is represented, what its values, purpose, passions and goals are. There are many advantages to creating a strong brand identity. These include your being able to develop a competitive advantage in the market, improving your consumer’s experience through visual elements, and maximizing your ability to increase awareness and brand loyalty.
So how will you know when your brand identity is ready for a facelift or a complete redesign? They say that if something isn’t broke, don’t fix it, and indeed when it comes to refreshing your brand’s identity, you better make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons. Don’t refresh or redesign your brand simply because you’re tired of it. Redesigning your brand identity should be a clear-headed business decision that has a purpose. Many brands believe that familiarity isn’t a good thing, but the truth is that most people trust what they know and have difficulty accepting change (just think about Instagram’s logo change).
If you still feel like your brand is in need of a new look and feel, you should figure out whether to go for a refresh or a complete change to your brand’s look, tone and presentation. Being able to answer crucial questions like what you like about your current brand identity, what’s your brand’s story, where you see your brand in another decade, and whether your current brand is able to reach certain audiences is key. Once you’ve figured out whether your brand is in need of a makeover or an entire redesign, follow these tips and watch your startup grow.
In order to properly jumpstart your startup by redesigning your brand identity, you first need to have a clear articulation of your brand strategy, its purpose, and core idea. This doesn’t mean you have to reinvent your brand to be something it isn’t, but rather re-focus on what your business is truly all about, and emphasize its strengths.
Your strategy should be able to tell your brand’s story, be clear so a client can understand and relate to it, be practical and inspiring, ensure consistency and move beyond the obvious.
In this digital and mobile age, everything around us is becoming more visual. Since consumers are bombarded with images, GIFs, videos, infographics, and symbols of all kinds, you have to make sure your brand’s logo, site and label stand out. Creating a logo that properly represents your brand is crucial to your building loyalty with your consumers, attracting new customers, standing out from your competition, and building a professional name for yourself.
Thankfully, creating or redesigning an existing logo or label nowadays isn’t nearly as time-consuming or as costly as it used to be. Platforms like Tailor Brands, Wix and Prezi, for example, enable users to create and design their own labels, websites, presentations, and even a whole brand structure.
In the here and now of content marketing, video has long been on its way to drive textual content into the sidelines. Businesses as well as social media platforms are now well aware of the fact that they simply have to use video in their marketing strategies if they’d like anyone of their users to stay remotely interested in what they’ve got to say. In a world in which over a billion people are using Youtube day in and day out, and 87% of online marketers using video content there is no doubt that video simply cannot be ignored.
However, just like the case of logo creation, there is no reason for a business to go bankrupt in order to create a stunning promotional video that will get people’s attention. Platforms such as Promo by Slidely, Explainify and Wevideo enable users to create sophisticated and creative videos that equal those of bigger brands, minus the added expense.
Video engagement is vital to your business’ success especially when you’re just starting out. Remember, 100% viewer retention is not your goal, and neither is virality. The goal is engagement from your target viewer.
When creating or redesigning your brand identity, it is extremely important that you focus on targeting multicultural consumers, since they are now a foundational factor in business and marketing. This means that if you are overlooking multiculturalism in your marketing efforts, you’re essentially overlooking more than half of potential customers.
With 21 of the 25 most populated states in the USA already consisting of a majority of multicultural populations, and research showing that the United States will be majority-minority by 2044, businesses need to start taking notice, the sooner the better.
Uriji Jami, for example, is a Venezuelan-based company that created an app called URIJI, which combines social networking and e-commerce in a unique way: the app is meant to bring real connections between people in order to help them reach their potential and fulfil their goals in life. The company appeals to a cross-cultural audience with their humanistic and inclusive approach; they actually want cross-cultural interactions as this helps their mission- to bring disparate communities together to share skills that one culture may otherwise not possess on its own. In terms of branding, this ensures that a wider audience will connect with the brand and utilize its services.
When it comes down to it, focusing on redesigning your brand identity is crucial to your success, especially when you’re just starting your business. Later on, as your company becomes more well known you’ll probably have to reassess the situation and decide whether a specific turning point in your business means you should invest in redesigning once more. Startups need to make themselves distinct and unique in an industry that’s filled with similar thriving businesses. Making sure your brand identity represents who and what your business is all about is bound to do the trick.
Since receiving her second degree in script-writing from TAU back in 2012, Nathalie Cohen-Sheffer has been busy writing full-time and as a freelancer in both English and Hebrew. She is currently working as a content marketer at Ranky. When she's not busy writing you can find her practising her yoga positions, as well as singing professionally and dubbing. Feel free to get in touch to learn more on Twitter
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