Key Steps Every Business Should Follow

Whether you’re starting a new business, creating a new marketing strategy, or just looking to refresh your business’s look and feel, how you craft your brand matters. Branding isn’t just about having a cool-looking logo or an attention-getting tagline; it’s about defining who you are as a company, what you stand for, and how you want to be perceived.

Clarify Your Mission and Vision

Before diving into colors, logos, or fonts - which is definitely the fun stuff - it’s important to establish the foundation of your brand: your mission and vision. If you’re the marketing person coming into the business, hopefully the business owners have already established these foundations. If not, this is where it’s important to develop the “why” of the business. In a previous blog post, we talked about how the “why” is the most important part of developing your message - even more so than what you sell or how you sell it. If a person is emotionally motivated by your brand and company, they are more likely to buy from you. So your “why” should be reflected in your Mission and Vision statements. But what’s the difference between the two?

• Mission: Your mission statement defines the purpose of your company. Again, it’s the “why” behind your business. Ask yourself: why does my company exist? What do we believe in? What problem are we solving for our customers?

• Vision: This is your long-term goal. Where do you see your company in 5, 10, or 20 years? Your vision should inspire both you and your customers, providing a glimpse of the impact you aim to make in your industry.

Creating a clear and concise mission and vision statements help guide every future decision, ensuring consistency in your brand’s messaging.

Identify Your Target Audience

We’ve talked about the importance of target audiences in previous blog posts. But the long and the short of it is that your brand can’t speak to everyone. Your product or service may not be needed by the entire world. Even the biggest brands in the world don’t necessarily appeal to everyone. I don’t like Coca-Cola. So their advertising dollars are wasted on me. But I will say I love their polar bear commercials during the holiday season. So it is very important to define who you want to reach. Get specific about your target audience. Who are they demographically and psychographically? What are their needs and pain points? What are their interests and values? Create personas for these customers to help map out your strategies. Understanding your ideal customer will help you create a brand and messaging that resonates with them on a deeper level.

Develop Your Unique Brand Personality

Your brand is more than just your product or service - it’s how you want people to feel when they interact with you. Think about how you want to come across to your audience.

Should your brand feel playful and fun? Trustworthy and professional? Adventurous and bold? The tone and style of your messaging, your customer service approach, and even the type of imagery you use should all reflect your brand’s personality.

I worked with a school system where the leadership were all former lawyers and finance professionals. Their outlook of the brand was very corporate and buttoned up. Everything looked very polished. If the brand had been for a bank or a law office, we would have knocked the marketing out of the park. But the goal of this organization was to entice families who lived in lower socio-economical areas to choose to send their children to these schools as opposed to the local public ISD. The school system was not a private school, there was no tuition. And one key factor is that a great majority of the families were bilingual. We started with small changes like using pictures of smiling children in classroom environments and using more playful fonts in advertising and social media posts. Just those two small changes saw an increase of traffic by 20%.

This is where having personas and a well-defined target audience will help ensure that personal preferences and opinions don’t interfere with reaching customers.

Craft Your Brand’s Story

This part goes very hand-in-hand with defining who you are as a company. Storytelling is a powerful way to connect with your audience. Your brand’s story should include the journey of how your company was founded, what inspired you, and the values that drive your business. A compelling story helps humanize your brand, making it relatable and memorable.

Create Your Visual Identity

This is the FUN STUFF! Your visual identity includes your logo, color palette, typography, and overall design style. When creating the visual identity for JJA Marketing, I wanted a bright, clean, minimalistic look. The blues reflect stability and reliability, while the typography show crisp, clean lines for a high-end look and feel. A friend of mine described it as “the Tiffany’s of marketing.” And that’s what I was going for. I wanted the luxury look and feel with a more strategic slant over creativity. My business is much more focused on brand and marketing strategy. How to set foundations before getting to the fun, creative stuff. While I’m a talented graphic designer - and that’s an aspect of my business - if you want an over-the-top piece of art to be created, I’m not your girl. I can help get that done, though. But let’s get into the fun stuff and the key visual branding elements to focus on:

• Logo: Your logo is often the first thing people will associate with your brand, so make it impactful. Insure it’s simple, versatile, and aligned with your brand’s personality. Versatility is a key thing many people overlook. Can your logo be in single color, in a square, in a circle, in a long line. It’s actually a good idea to have several versions of your logo that all fit together. For example, I have the horizontal version of my logo that is at the top of this webpage. But then I also have a vertical/square version that you see at the bottom of the page. They are interchangeable depending on the medium I’m using and spacing allowed.

• Color Palette: Colors evoke emotions, so choose a palette that aligns with your brand’s values and mission. There’s a reason most fast food restaurants have red and yellow. These colors get attention on the road and evoke appetite and make you hungry. Green often represents health and growth. Blue, like I talked about above, can evoke trust and stability.

• Typography: Fonts can communicate a lot about your brand. Are you bold and modern, or classic and elegant? Choose fonts that complement your overall brand vibe. Sometimes it’s good to have two fonts: a serif font (with feet) and a san-serif font (without feet). Try to make sure that the fonts that you choose are versatile across many platforms - or at least can have very close association with other fonts. For example, email service providers don’t allow for a wide range of fonts. Same with websites, so you may not be able to use a really artsy font on those platforms unless it’s in an image. Also, when you send something to another person, if they don’t have the font on their machine, they may not be able to view your piece in the manner it was intended. Make sure that you have secondary fonts selected as replacements should this be the case. Powerpoint presentations are a great example. For many years, I produced events for a large non-profit and would have to send Powerpoint presentations to the AV company to put onto the screen. The non-profit had a custom font created just for them, and every time I sent something I would have to make sure that either the fonts were embedded into the presentation (which caused its own issues), or I had to send the fonts to the AV team and make sure that they installed fonts on their machine. Fonts are lots of fun, just be aware that there are a lot of ins and outs to consider.

• Imagery: Your choice of images - whether photos, illustrations, or icons - should be consistent with your brand’s tone and message. For example, a playful brand might use vibrant, quirky imagery, while a professional service brand might favor more polished, neutral visuals.

Be Consistent

One of the most critical aspects of building a brand is maintaining consistency across all touch points. Consistency is key. There are many sayings out there that a person needs to see something 7 times before they remember it. Other says as many as 20 times before they buy the product. So if your website looks one way, your social media looks another, and print ads look another, then you’re missing the boat when it comes to getting noticed by your customers. Now, I will say that each medium needs to be tweaked to fit the platform, but your brand tone and visual identity should remain the same. This builds trust and makes your brand easily recognizable.

Evolve as Needed

Your brand identity will likely evolve as your business grows. Stay true to your mission and vision, but don’t be afraid to adapt as your audience or market changes. Regularly revisit your brand strategy to ensure it aligns with your current goals and audience. I will say, try not to do full-on pivots of your visual identity. Coca-Cola is a great example of adapting and growing. I mean, the company is like 130+ years old, or something like that. When you see vintage ads or products, it definitely looks different from they way they look today. However, you can see the through-line from how they went from where they were in the beginning to where they are now.

Final Thoughts

Developing a brand from scratch may feel daunting, but by focusing on these key pieces - clarifying your mission and vision, defining you audience, developing a unique personality, telling your story, and building a consistent visual identity - you’ll be well on your way to establishing a strong and authentic brand that stands out in a crowded marketplace.

Taking the time to build your brand thoughtfully will pay off in the long run. Are you looking for help developing your brand and marketing strategy. Let JJA Marketing work with you to build a solid foundation for future growth and success.