Branding is one of the most important factors for any start-up business yet is often neglected and can quickly become detrimental to your customer perception and marketing.
There are numerous elements to building your start-up brand including brand identity, marketing collateral and a reputable online presence.
We’ll take a look at the fundamental building blocks in developing a successful start-up business brand.
1. Brand Naming
It all starts with a name, every successful company has at some point had to come up with their name. From Uber to Amazon, every company has had to go through the naming process. Naming your business needs to be carefully considered, as your name is often the first contact point for any new customers. Keep your start-up business name accessible, relevant and preferably as memorable as possible. Along with these points, your name has to work with important contact points for your brand such as web domain and email addresses, so it’s important to review these when coming up with your name. Read more about naming your business with our considerations when naming your business article.
2. Brand proposition and values
Establishing a brand proposition at the beginning of your start-up business is an important component in establishing constituencies across all brand points from tone of voice to social media and website content. Establishing your proposition along with your core brand values allows you to set foundations by which your brand should stand by and act as guidance to your brand story, objective decisions and behaviour.
A distinct brand identity is needed any start-up business to stand out amongst theor competitors
3. Brand Identity
They say a picture paints a thousand words and the visual impact of your brand is key to being a professional and trustworthy start-up business. Customers are more likely to recognise and communicate if your brand is confident, professional and honest. Your brand identity is a lot more than just your logo, from your brand values and tone of voice to consistent brand communications. Keeping your brand consistent helps your customers to position and makes it easier for your start-up to become more recognisable and authentic. Brand identity plays an important role in any start-up business as it allows you to convey your company’s values and personality and gives you a sense of credibility and over time a brand which will become familiar to your audience. Several aspects go into crafting a successful brand identity with one of the core elements to carefully consider is colour, as evidence suggests using a signature colour can increase your brand recognition by 80 per cent. Colour can evoke emotion and can affect the feelings your customers associate with your start-up brand. When designing brand identities, Lyfe Studio closely considers colour through competitor and sector research, understanding the psychology of colour and using the correct colour to enhance your brand’s visual appearance.
4. Website
Every start-up business requires an online presence, no matter what the size, industry or product offered. The sort of business and product will dictate the type of website required, be it a beautifully designed brochure site displaying your key services, testimonials and call to actions to a fully developed e-commerce website enabling transactions and multiple users. Consistency across all platforms, in particular, your website is key with 90% of customers expecting to see the same consistent branding across all communications. Websites increase your visibility and the more online visibility you have the more you can grow your business, sales, and customer base. Considered contact points on your website from simple contact forms to chatbots ran through WhatsApp or Facebook messenger can enable customer contact points and create new channels of contact with your audience. Content is king for any successful website, from professionally written text to well-photographed product photography, the better the content the better the user experience.
Running a start-up business should be a fun, exciting and challenging opportunity. Thinking about your start-up business as a brand will help you understand how your customers perceive and communicate with you and will help your business adapt and evolve for the future. We can develop your start-up brand from proposition to a full communication strategy and help you launch your new venture prepared for success!