Whoops, sorry, Step 7 of my Top 20 Tips for Small Business Start Ups contains more jargon. "Brand identity" sounds a bit fancy and something reserved for the big brands out there. Really every business has a brand whether they know it or not. It’s important that you learn how to shape it while you’re still in the planning phase.
Your brand identity is simply defined as how you want customers to see you, and how you behave /offer your service so they come back, and have positive feelings about buying from you. It's what you stand for, who you're for, how you sound and how you look. Get it right and people remember you, trust you and recommend you.
A brand is more than a logo
A logo is one piece of branding. Branding is a piece (but not all) of brand. Your brand is everything a customer experiences: your name, your colours, your photos, the words on your website, the way you reply to messages, how your parcel arrives. It’s how your audience perceives your business. Even if you do nothing on purpose, you have a brand. The trick is to shape it deliberately.
Start with strategy, not colours
Before you open Canva to design a logo, answer these questions. They build on the work you did on your USP in Step #1.
1. Who is your customer? Their age matters less than their attitude. What do they care about?
2. What do you stand for? Your values, such as honesty, creativity, sustainability or no-nonsense advice. Choose the few that genuinely drive you.
3. What's your personality? Pick three words. Friendly, expert and playful? Calm, premium and precise? Everything else flows from these.
4. How do you want people to feel? Reassured? Excited? Looked after? Customers will rarely remember exactly what you said, but they will remember how you made them feel.
5. What's your promise? The thing customers can always expect from you.
For example, my own approach is honest, experienced and straight-talking. That personality shapes how I write, what I post and how I speak to clients. Yours will be different, but it needs to be consistent.
Look at your competitors
Write down five competitors and note their colours, tone and style. You're not copying them. You're looking for the gaps. If every business in your field uses navy blue and corporate language, there may be room for something warmer and more human, as long as it suits your customer.
Your tone of voice
This is the way you write and speak, and it's often the most powerful part of a small business brand, because it's free. Decide:
• Are you chatty or formal?
• Do you use humour?
• Do you say "we" or "I"?
• Are there words you love or never use?
Write a few example sentences, such as how you'd greet a customer, how you'd say sorry and how you'd announce a new product. Keep hold of them.
The visual bits
Free design tools such as Canva are great for creating things like social media posts, flyers and simple logos when you're starting out. If you’re not creatively inclined, websites like fiverr.com are great for finding cheap design support.
Once the thinking about your brand is done, the visuals get a lot easier:
• Logo. Keep it simple. It needs to work small (like a social media profile picture), square, linear and in black and white too.
• Colours. Choose a main colour or two plus a couple of neutrals. Make sure text is easy to read against the background.
• Fonts. Pick one or two and stick with them. Make sure they are available on all the platforms you plan to use. You may choose one for your logo, and, say, the headings on your website, and another for your main text.
• Images. Decide on a style, such as bright and natural, or bold and illustrated, and use it consistently. There are many free image libraries you can browse and download a selection of images from, such as Pexels or Pixabay.
Write a one-page brand guide
A single page with your three personality words, your brand promise, your colours, your fonts, your logo and a few tone-of-voice examples is enough. Even if you’re not planning on briefing a designer, it’s a useful resource to keep yourself on brand. Making sure you note down the hex codes of the colours you’ve chosen for your branding is essential to ensure you stay consistent, believe me.
Your brand needs to look and sound the same on your website, your social media, your invoices, your emails and your packaging. A brand guide will help you achieve this - consistency is what makes you look established and professional, even when you're brand new.
Content Pillars
As well as deciding on all the pretty bits, you need to plan out how your content will help shape your brand. Content includes everything from your website copy, your blog, your social media posts, your emails to customers and prospects and more. To be consistent, you need to make sure that the way you phrase everything, the topics you choose to talk about all reflect what your brand stands for.
You would choose a small number of topics or themes, usually three to five, that reflect your brand’s expertise, values, and what your audience genuinely cares about.
Pillars give your content focus and consistency. Readers learn what to expect from you, which builds trust and keeps them coming back. They also make planning easier, because every new post has a clear home, and they help your brand become known as an authority in a few specific areas rather than a generalist in many.
Let me explain with an example. Say you’re a running brand.
Your content pillars might be:
Training tips (we support your passion): plans, techniques, and injury prevention
Gear reviews (we provide information to support you): shoes, watches, and apparel
Nutrition (we’re all round experts): fuelling before, during, and after runs
Runner stories (we’re real and authentic): real experiences from your community
Each post you write should support at least one of these themes. Keeps you on track (pardon the pun) to tell your audience what your brand stands for.
Protect it
Before you invest heavily in a logo or slogan, check it isn't too close to someone else's. The Intellectual Property Office has a free trade mark search, and GOV.UK has a handy overview of intellectual property. Make sure you own what you're using too. If you do get a designer to create your logo, check your agreement covers who owns it, and be careful with images you've downloaded, because they may have licensing restrictions.
Don't overspend early on
Your brand will evolve as you learn more about your customers. Spend enough to look professional and trustworthy, but you don’t need to go mad, as tempting as it might feel. As you test your business, you may find your audience isn't quite who you imagined.
Getting underway with building your brand identity
Don't panic, you don't have to do everything today!
• ☐ Write down your three personality words and your brand promise
• ☐ Note down five competitors' colours, styles and tones
• ☐ Write five example sentences in your tone of voice
• ☐ Choose a colour palette, fonts and a record them in a brand guide
• ☐ Write out what your themes or content pillars will be
Want help shaping your brand?
Brand and marketing is obviously where I can give you lots of help and support. If you'd like help finding your voice and look, book a call with me.
Next up in the series: Step 8, Behind the Scenes Preparation. Sorting out the cogs of your business machine.
