How to Build a Brand Your Audience Will Love

A company without branding is like… Harry Potter without his scar. The scar tells his story. It represents what he’s fighting against and fighting for throughout the entire series. It’s what he’s known for and how he’s recognized. And in the real world, the Harry Potter franchise is often symbolized by the scar. The scar functions as the Logo of Harry Potter. It’s iconic. 

Branding is responsible for creating individuality and a strong, consistent personality recognizable by consumers. But to many people, branding can seem complicated. The good news? It doesn’t have to be. 

You can build a brand your audience will love by following these tips.

Be Authentic and Transparent

86% of consumers say authenticity is important when deciding the brands they engage with. And emotionally engaged customers are 3x more likely to spend and 3x more likely to recommend.

Consumers want to know that the companies they are engaging with are aligned with their own personal beliefs and values. They want to know that you’re doing more than just selling products for capital — you have a passion and a purpose behind your products. All you have to do is communicate that clearly in your brand message. 

Without transparency and authenticity in your messaging and branding, you may start to face customer churn. Sure, you’ve got a logo, a color scheme, and you’ve got everybody using Arial or Proxima Nova, but for some reason:

• Your customer loyalty starts lagging
• The leads coming in aren’t the best-fit-clients
• You’re having difficult client interactions 
• You’re experiencing quick turnover

A transparent, authentic message (through branding) will turn that churn around. Because branding isn’t just about finding the right fit clients. It’s about being the best fit for your target market. Clearly communicating your goals, values, and beliefs will help the right customers find you and want to engage with you, getting rid of those difficult interactions and turnover we’re talking about.

 To do this effectively, you’ll need to know what you stand for. And in claiming what you stand for, you’ll also be communicating what you stand against. This is where many companies fail in their branding efforts. They want to be all things to all people. But the most successful brands have a clear bent towards what they believe in and what they stand for. When your brand messaging and mission statement communicate clearly where your business stands, you won’t attract everyone, but your target audience will more quickly flock to you because your brand identity aligns with their personal identity.

Be Consistent 

If you don’t know who you are or what you stand for, how can you expect thousands of other people to know? You want your brand to be clear, consistent, and recognizable. Customer confusion will only cost you, and 71% of customers report confusion from inconsistent brand usage.

A great way to ensure brand consistency is to build a brand guideline that outlines all of your brand colors and your brand voice. A brand guideline helps your team understand how you are forming your brand identity and ensures you have a unified source of truth to measure all of your marketing assets against. When everything you create aligns with your brand guidelines, it becomes far easier to execute strong branding.

Brand Building Through Storytelling

As you are looking at brand-building strategies, think back to the Harry Potter example. Some of the largest brands are simply stories we love to get lost in. Marvel, Star Wars, The Matrix, and Harry Potter are all stories we love to get lost in because they are stories of unlikely heroes overcoming adversity to save the day. In some small way, everyone wants to be the unlikely hero that saves the day, even if the day is helping increase the efficiency of our customer's businesses. 

And when you look at some brands, you’ll notice the story is all about the brand. If you want to create a unique brand in your industry, focus on telling the story of your customers. Tell the story of the pains your customers are typically going through, and how when they found your product or service, they became the heroes that saved the day for their companies.

When you create a brand built on telling the stories of your customers, brand awareness shoots through the roof. Why? Because you are communicating that you actually understand your customers.

Get Started Today

If you are trying to build a successful brand strategy, here’s how you can get started.

1. Start with the mission of your company
2. Identify the problem you solve for your customers
3. Identify the villain that is causing the problem for your customers
4. Identify the way you want to speak to address the problem (Brand Personality)
5. Put all of these ideas in a Brand Guideline that outlines brand voice, colors, icons, and typography
6. Build a marketing strategy and marketing campaigns that directly address the villain and the problem you solve
7. Continue to directly address the story of your customers
8. Become synonymous with the solution to the problem you solve

When you go through this process, you will have a brand rooted in authenticity and transparency, built from a mission to help your ideal customer overcome the challenges they are facing. With a clearly defined brand personality, messaging, and imagery documented in a brand guideline, you’ll maintain consistency by measuring your outgoing marketing material against the guideline. And when you continually root your marketing materials around telling the story of your customers, you’ll start building a brand through storytelling.

If you’d like a guide to help you walk through the process, Mojo Media Labs is a StoryBrand Certified agency and would love to help create a brand your audience will love. Please schedule a call today to get started!