If you’re a small business, this is the exact framework, step-by-step, to creating your brand identity.
Step 1: Define Your Core Brand Ideals
The first step in creating any kind of brand guide for a small business is to define your brand ideals. Typically, this involves four key concepts:
Mission Statement
The mission statement is the core idea, the ethos, the main, overarching goal of what your business does, and why. This might include the loftiest of goals—the true end game of what type of impact you plan to make in your market.
The mission statement should be clear and concise enough to not create ambiguity or confusion in achieving the target outcome.
The main purpose is to articulate the purpose and core promise of your business to your ideal customer base.
Typically, it’s one to two sentences on what your business is doing right now, and specifies what activities you’re involved in to make your claim attainable.
Vision Statement
The vision statement is the forward thinking idea you have for the business, and what you aspire to achieve in the future—this should be a guiding statement to how you obtain the main goal contained within your mission statement.
Where might you see your business in the coming years from now? While the mission statement declares what you’re currently doing, the vision statement is seeking answers for what this might bring as a result of consistent efforts in the following decade, or even decades.
Again, it should be clear, concise and relevant to your particular business industry, but it also needs to be reasonable and achievable.
The purpose of this statement is really to inspire and motivate the company for the path forward.
Brand Values
Brand values are important because they showcase the guiding principles, tenets, belief and philosophy of how your business works on a foundational level.
Rather than being opaque saying things like, “We do things right.” which has no bearing on what is actually right or wrong, it’s best to use language which is directive and really shapes how different aspects of your business operations and customer interactions actually happen.
Brand values should be actionable, true, and important to your actual business activities.
The purpose of brand values is to construct the base assumptions of how things are done, from the top down so every person within the business is always acting in accordance with one another.
Target Audience
While this seems almost automatic, many businesses fall short in being targeted. Especially when businesses are new, any customer is a good customer because it keeps the lights on. However, not every customer is the ideal customer which allows the business to grow and thrive and serve everyone to the best of their ability.
A target audience is more than just simple demographics, like age, gender, location and whether or not they own a house. There are other key focuses, like what kinds of challenges they face, whether they likely have similar values to your own, and maybe even what kinds of lifestyle choices they make.
You need to define a small enough subset of customers where, when they agree to your service, it tends to be exactly what they intended, if not better.
The purpose of really digging deep and defining your ideal target audience is to make it very clear who you want to work with, but also who you do not.
Step 2: Developing Brand Visual Elements
While many brands try to start here, having already completed the first step makes developing a brand’s visual elements much easier. While the brand identity is how you want to go about business and make a difference, the visual elements are what customers tend to see first, so they’ll need to embody your core ideals.
There are four main areas which make the first impression:
Logo Design
An often overlooked piece of branding, many forget how many different ways their logo or logomark might be used. For this reason, there are several things you can do to make your logo design something which is both simple and scalable, yet obvious and stands out.
In the conceptual phase, you’ll want to think about what your mission and vision statements say your business will do, and consider how your target audience will receive it, visually speaking. Whether you use an icon, silhouette, letter- or wordmarks, you may want to consider your niche to include design elements which are obvious to your intended audience.
The orientation of your logo is also important, as it might be used on billboards, letterhead and business cards in a wide range of formats, to many other ways around the web like on your website, social media profiles, videos and other digital documents.
In a perfect world, it’s unique, simple, and memorable. In most cases, the best logos are completed by a professional.
Color Palette
Brand colors, called the color palette, are all the primary, secondary and even tertiary colors which represent your brand.
First, select 1 to 3 primary colors which will dominate your visuals throughout all mediums. They should either complement or be used in accordance with your logo or logomark and be consistent with your brand’s personality, if you will.
Next, select complementary colors to each of your primary colors—these are secondary colors. While they may be used as much as primary colors, they tend to be as simple highlights, backgrounds, accents or even in text and imagery. They should be more subtle, and only accentuate the primary colors.
Last, tertiary colors are usually just shades and tones of the primary and secondary colors, although they don’t have to be. These allow for creating depth in material, design elements on web properties, and sometimes just outlines, but are always quite subtle and strictly aesthetic where the user probably doesn’t notice them.
Every color chosen above should be displayed visually with exact hexadecimal (HEX), red-green-blue (RGB), and cyan-magenta-yellow-key (CMYK) so they are consistent across all types of media.
It’s also important to clarify how these colors might be used in conjunction with one another. Additionally, if you allow variations (such and white and black versions) of text or logo designs, these need to be clarified.
Just remember, the purpose of colors is to warrant an emotion, spark an association, and attempt to influence how customers might perceive your brand and its identity.
Typography
Great logos and bold colors can get lost and muted out by a poor choice of typography. In a perfect world, they all work in tandem, complementing each other, and create a seamless experience for the customer.
The most prominent piece of typography is choosing the typeface for headings, subheading and the primary text. Fonts need to be very readable, should be modern and widely available, and generally very friendly and approachable.
As with logo design, you also need to consider the medium in which your customer is going to come into contact with your typography, from as small as a piece of print all the way up to a billboard, as well as digitally on your website or social media.
There also need to be rules and standard guidelines for how headings, body copy, or other formats should be expressed, especially when in conjunction with other brand marks. Remain consistent so the user isn’t constantly surprised with different sizes, colors, or uses of fonts.
The main purpose of selecting and being consistent with your typography is to influence the readability, the emotion, and the relationship between your customer and your brand.
Imagery
Most brands don’t dive too deep into imagery, but it does have a possible impact for larger brands who are spread across many, many different types of mediums, from print to digital, and even television or newsletters.
In a nutshell, brand imagery standards are how the business might comply with a structured set of photography layouts, colors, gradients, contrasts or even overlays. It could mean using a certain quality of image to avoid blur or low resolution, and may even mandate professional photos, and neglecting stock imagery.
While the image itself is one aspect of the imagery, so is its presentation. How it might be used in conjunction with text, heading or logo marks, how the image might be scaled or cropped, or even its orientation in a gallery of images can all be standardized, and probably should be.
The entire purpose of defining your imagery in such detail is to showcase brand consistency and value across the widest possible set of mediums.
Step 3: Developing Brand Voice or Tone
Working on how your brand voice or tone might sound to current and future customers is not often taken into any consideration, but may be something you’ll want to put thought into before you’ve established too large of a brand.
Let’s break this down into the three main parts:
Voice and tone are the elements of style of communication you have when “speaking” to customers across all mediums.
When communicating, do you want your business to sound professional? Relatable? Fun and approachable? Authoritative?
Voice
There are different types of personas to take on, but keeping the end user in mind is always where you’ll want to start with your brand voice. Educating the potential customer on what you do in a manner in which they expect from your brand, and maintaining the proper voice is critical as your business grows.
It’s also crucial to maintain your alignment with your audience, so they feel you’re meeting their preferences and expectations. As they stick around and become increasingly familiar with you, your brand, and what you stand for, you want this alignment to stay consistent, and not waiver to new ideals they didn’t align with in the beginning of their journey.
You have to meet the brand voice where the user is, so how you communicate on social media versus an email may vary in formality, just the same as it might on radio, in print, on a billboard, or on the web.
Tone
Tonality refers in a greater degree to what types of emotion you try to invoke given greater context. The tone of a funeral services business will be entirely different than one of wedding planning, for instance. The emotion the buyer is expecting has a stark importance on how you present yourself and brand depending on each unique situation.
Tone can change throughout the buying cycle, while a client’s service is being rendered, or even oscillate when a person is either satisfied (or unsatisfied) with the final result or product. The tone you use can help show you align with them every step of the way.
Writing Style
Finally, the phrasing and individual words you use, especially repetitively, help shape the brand’s projection. Using common language, and forgoing industry jargon and lingo in your writing or publishing can be a great way to better connect with your end customer, as unknown language tends to alienate uneducated consumers.
When prompting your prospects for information or providing them instructions on how to accomplish a needed task, the writing style and explanations can be very important to ensure meaningful and succinct responses.
In the end, the purpose of developing your business’ brand voice or tone is to make sure all communications “feel” as if they’re consistent and aligned with customer expectations based on everything else in your brand, from mission and values to logo and typography.
Aligning your brand helps you meet aligned customers.
Step 4: Brand Collateral Design and Assets
Up until now, all the work put into branding has been fragmented and isolated into big ideas with individual focus. Brand collateral design and asset generation is when all those things begin to merge into usable visuals.
There are several parts, but here’s the most logical order to work through them:
- Website & Digital Presence
- Email Templating
- Documentation & Forms
- External Marketing Materials
- Business Cards & Stationery
- Signage & Outdoor Advertising
- Vehicle and Uniform Design
Website and Digital Presence
In today’s world, your website and social media profiles are the primary contact points for most consumers when they are considering doing business. Ensuring the website and social media profiles adhere to your brand guidelines in every possible way is a sure way to give your prospect a positive impression.
Many people subconsciously confirm or deny their own biases based on the experience you have online from what they see on these two mediums. Enforcing strong brand signals, from color to copy and every element in between, you can reaffirm your brand and bring prospects closer.
Email Templates
Email templates are usually an afterthought, but infusing your brand with proper use of a logo, font or color can really enhance your communications and make them feel more familiar.
Since email is a very direct form of communication, you won’t want to overdo it here, since you’ll want to convey the message first and foremost, but reinforcing the brand here in a subtle way can bring back even a cold prospect to one who is more receptive.
Documentation and Forms
Whether digital or in paper format, documents you either hand others or forms you request them to fill out can, again, reinforce the familiarity of the brand. This is especially important for certain business types who may be asking sensitive questions or supplying sensitive information.
On the other hand, messy and unorganized forms (especially ones which ask the same information multiple times) can make your clients feel annoyed, anxious and even angry. Keeping them organized and as simple as possible to communicate your brand is one which is easy to work with.
External Marketing Materials
If your company might use brochures or flyers, branded swag, and more—always continue to highlight your best attributes and benefits while using consistent contact information and keeping the brand on display.
These are some of the best places to drop the slogan, declare your unique selling proposition, use your best branded imagery, and continuously reinforce your brand with color, fonts and message. These are the pieces of marketing which continue to do the work for you, even when you’re not there, so you’ll want to be on par with your branding every step of the way.
Business Cards & Stationery
While business cards and stationery are becoming much less popular, some businesses still utilize them for more personal branding. Especially in the c-suites and sales departments, business cards should be simple, embody the brand and its colors, and not deviate far from the brand.
They can have touches of individuality and personality, but should stick to fairly strict guidelines or even need approval from management to assure they are consistent. Like marketing materials, these can sometimes change hands many times, and need to represent exactly what the brand truly stands for.
Signage and Outdoor Advertising
From small yard signs to sponsorship signs as sports games (or maybe all the way up to large billboards), you can really grab attention from passersby using outdoor advertising. Just make sure it’s the right advertising.
While many businesses try to garner extra attention by making something funny or witty to catch the unsuspecting person, the message, colors, fonts and imagery still need to remain on brand. The last thing you want is negative attention because you attempted to be extra bold.
Vehicle and Uniform Design
Another place you can extend your brand is on your uniform or outfit, the uniforms of your employees, or even by wrapping your work vehicle. These are a great way to passively advertise your company while delivering continuity when driving to or speaking directly to customers.
These are the types of things which can really ground a brand and give it some personality, while still letting the driver or employee make it a unique and memorable experience. All the while, any other person who sees the vehicle or employee is getting introduced to the brand, its colors, and overall presentation.