If we tried to find some textbook definition of the word brand we would probably find it stands for the way some company is perceived by the general public. That makes it one of the most important things you need to tackle if you want your startup to take off in 2022.
Even if you have the best idea in the world, you will ultimately fail if you don’t know how to sell that idea to a wide audience.
Define mission statement and unique values
If you don’t know what your startup is all about all of your branding efforts will feel disorganized. In order to solve this problem, you will need to identify two things. First, what is the main reason why your startup exists? What kind of market gap it is trying to bridge. What’s your plan for doing that? Once you answer that, try to find the unique ways you can solve the customers’ problems and why they should choose you over the competition. These two things lay excellent foundations for future branding efforts.
Find some value to rally around and stick to it
That will give your company an additional layer of identity and your potential customers another reason to pick you and not someone else. Of course, it would be ideal if the values, motivations, aspirations, and fears you are going to address are aligned with the general demographics of your market and the KPIs you have set for your brand. So, for instance, if you are launching your company in Australia, picking up some problem relevant to the local crowd will create a much better response than general global issues.
Create a striking logo
This logo should be simple, easy to draw, scalable (it should look good on a USB stick just as well as on a billboard), use a lot of empty space to keep the look clean, be authoritative, and create a visual salience with a pop of color. And much like in the previous example, you should use local sensibilities to make a stronger impact on the local audience. So, if we once again take Australia for example, a professional Brisbane design studio will have a much better insight into local affairs than some foreign agency.
Integrate the brand
At this moment, your brand has two very important things – core personality and visual identity. Use these two things to integrate all the touchpoints you will have with your customers and make them consistent. The brand colors should be the same on the premises and the website. The employees in retail stores should send the same massages and preserve the same attitude you are marketing elsewhere. This consistency turns your brand from an interesting idea to a living entity your customers can latch on to.
Use empathy as the starting point for solving problems
Modern startups are usually driven by big data and complex AI analyses and feel free to use these tools as much as you like. But, while you are doing that, try to constantly put yourself in the shoes of your clients, try to understand why are they making certain purchase decisions, why they pick one product over another and overall get a better genuine understanding of them. This combination of cold analytics and human empathy will help you create a brand that will be able to truly empower its audience.
We hope these few tips gave you a general idea about the steps you should take to turn your startup into a powerful brand able of keeping up with the hardships of 2022. Of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg and we have left a lot of things below the surface you will still have to uncover for yourself. But, you know in which direction you need to go, and as long that’s the case every step you will make is a step forward.