Creating a brand with impact: Three critical parts

While the look and feel of your brand is important, the strength of a brand lies beyond what it looks like. What makes an impact on customers is how it makes them feel. By effectively shaping your brand, you’re able to tell your story in an instant, build an emotional connection and set yourself apart from your competition.

Why creating a brand is important?

• Brands are more valuable than non-brands and sometimes more valuable than the company who owns or created them.
• Brands have influence over the behaviour of the market they serve, making them powerful.
• You can charge more when you have a brand.
• You can make an impact on the world when your brands are meaningful and successful.
• Trusted brands will find it easier to do business in the future.

Your brand

Whether it’s personal or product-based, your brand is key to setting yourself apart from your competitors. It also helps you attract the right opportunities to make money. However, hard work alone won’t make the impact; whatever you do needs to relate to your brand. Here are the three phases required to make a brand impactful.

1. Create the brand

This phase includes creating eye-catching logos, taglines, photos and any element that you will use to communicate on behalf of the brand. You will use these elements in all your future communication, your website and social media, so it is important to get it right. Spend enough time on both what it is you want your communication elements to say and what it looks like.

2. Create awareness of the brand

In this phase, the objective is getting your audience interested in what you, your company and/or your product offers. It’s about creating a perception in the minds of your consumers, and you’ll use advertising and PR activities to get your brand noticed. Using the right words and colours consistent with your brand is important to attract people, create recognition and build trust, which is essential to customers to buy into your brand and continue to do so.

Remember that the same is true for your personal brand, and thus, anything you do could impact on the perception of your brand. Be consistent in the language you use, the clothes you wear and the things that you do or don’t do.

3. Create ways to interact with your audience

Capitalise on interacting with your audience through social media, newsletters, webinars and events to create two-way communication and feedback. Interaction with your audience is also a way of providing a value add to make your customers feel like they are getting more from the brand. It also provides the opportunity to not only communicate but also converse with your audience and show your brand personality.