When it comes to branding, how do you strategize?
I have a love hate relationship with brand strategy/identity/development and all the other 500 buzzwords that the branding world has ;)
I feel like I'm someone who is naturally good at branding because I’m emotional & creative but because of my technical/marketing nature, I want things in frameworks, templates and a, b, c order. Thus, the branding world is a little more fluffy and requires a real deep and personal touch, it can't always just be condensed down into a “framework”.
Despite this, I still want to ask you guys, do you have any resources, frameworks, guides, thoughts, etc to assist in planning out a brand? If you had an open document and you were told to label out all the “core essentials” to a brand strategy, what would you make sure you put down?
I’m becoming really paralyzed at drilling down on things like tag lines, promises and other brand messaging etc. Maybe that’s because I don’t know my "WHY" enough? Or maybe because I’m actually not so creative and hate copy ;) who knows… let me know!
There's a lot of confusion about the difference between "brand" and "branding." Normally, when you're referring to branding, you're referring to the visual aspects of a brand: logo, design, color, font, iconography, etc. A brand, however, is the all-encompassing visual, emotional, mental perception of a company.
Here's my 2 cents:
Here's how I would approach it:
Write down in plain English...
That's about all you need for your messaging.
Stick with a minimalistic design until you can afford to get a brand identity from a designer. I've used 99designs before to create a brand identity framework and it helps a lot. Not super expensive either.
Thank you :)
I also agree with the minimalistic design aspect, I'm a minimalist at heart and I'd rather focus on the messaging and core product value. I also find it interesting how nearly every competitor I've researched goes overboard on design with their product/websites/etc but lacks incredibly in value so out with the fluff it is!
(I also meant branding as in like branding a cow, branding a business, not so much like a businesses brand that's already been decided haha!)
Brand messaging is definitely the hardest part, without a doubt.
My best advice is to keep iterating. Create 10 different variations until you find the right combination. Keep rewriting until it sounds best.
I also want to add in that all this should be crafted with real customer feedback.
It's tempting to use a bunch of marketing jargon, fancy words, and run-on sentences to describe your brand. Asking your customers will not only give you real unbiased insight, but they will also use plain English that your future customers will be likely to understand.
Your customers can tell you a lot about who you are and why people should care—they are your customers after all.
Thanks for that, that is very good insight and I agree.
I'm at the point that I started with a minimal and pragmatic design and now see the need to strengthen my brand. (also because I have the customers to proof/test it).
For me the key reason also is as the product grows the identity gives you the framework to grow, this does not only need to be clear to customers, also to your team members, the type of features you pick, how you communicate etc.
In your experience, what was the input needed for the 99designers to create a solid brand identity framework, is it 'only' the points mentioned above or more?
Yeah exactly. In my opinion, the brand messaging framework is one of the most important marketing pieces that no one actually cares about. It's so important to tell a consistent story and to know who you are front and back.
And to be clear as well, a lot of it will be determined by (and continue to evolve from) customer feedback. Ask your customers what "job" they hire your product to do, what made them look for a solution like yours, what their "aha!" moment was, etc.
The most important things for 99designs is a clear understanding of:
Hope this helps
Thanks and this helps, it is actually more or less what I'm doing as the key point is a customer driven design. Next to 'Aha' I also collect the 'wow' moments from my customers, where 'aha' is 'I get it', 'wow' is 'this is really awesome, I'll go and tell people'.
I did not yet took the job angle, that's a great way of looking at a product as well.
Would it be ok to reach out to you and pick your brain at a certain point to you in the next weeks to cross check where I am and my messages? just a short hangout would be awesome.
Absolutely! I'd love that. Brand messaging is so hard to nail down. I'm huge on being customer-driven and always leading with benefits instead of features. Feel free to reach out via email or twitter, which are both in my profile.
Awesome, I'll reach out by email in the next few weeks, thanks.
In all honesty, branding is imo one of the most difficult and one of the most undervalued skills a business owner can have. The biggest issue with branding is that a lot of brand owners tend to shift their position on certain aspects constantly - even CEO's and CMO's of largest companies tend to do that. This is very unhealthy for any brand and even if it will result in rise, it will definitely result in huge fall as well.
The one advice I have to you is to keep distance. Learn to observe things from outside of your world and "bubble". Be extremely critical of everything and lean towards "bad" angle rather than "good". Instead of trying to perfect details, try perfecting overall experience. This is how some of the great people created unforgettable brands that have a universally acclaimed following.
Thank you! I agree, branding is very powerful on both ends of the spectrum.