How To Establish A Brand Identity

When you are building a business, there is a lot to consider. If you have been an entrepreneur for any amount of time, you know this all too well. One of the areas that you should consider first before you even do anything else in your business is establishing your brand. This can take a lot of time but is extremely important to your business success.

No matter what industry you are in, a crucial step in running your own business is developing a strong brand identity.⁠
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Now, what is brand identity? Brand identity is how you position your brand in the world and how your clients or customers will experience it. ⁠This is how your customers will experience your products, services, and the people in your company (even if right now, that’s only you).
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If you lack marketing experience, establishing a brand identity can feel overwhelming. In this article, we are going to explore the first 3 things you can do to begin to establish your brand identity.

Think of these as a springboard to get you started. This will give you inspiration so you can begin to think about how you want your customers to experience your brand, how you can make that experience better internally for them, and what new offers you can create to elevate your brand even more.

And once the ideas start flowing, there will be nothing stopping you. ⁠So, let’s dig into the 3 areas we suggest you start when establishing your brand.

Get Feedback

We know, this one can be tough.

It’s easy to make assumptions about your target demographic based on research, but you’ll learn more from direct feedback. Imagine you could grab information right from your customer's mind. When you ask for feedback from the customers already using your products, in a way, you can grab this information right from their minds.

How do you get started collecting feedback? If you offer a product or service, collecting feedback could mean conducting a series of user tests. If you are a small business, feedback could be as simple as delivering your elevator pitch to family and friends — or, testing your product or service on them.

Identify your niche

Many entrepreneurs and small businesses are scared to narrow down what they offer. This seems like the opposite thing you should do if you want to scale and reach more people. When you narrow in on what you offer, you can speak more directly to the people who are most interested in your product or service.

This is especially important in a highly competitive market. The more specific you are, the more clear your message will come across and in turn, your customers will relate to your brand more.

When you are fine-tuning your niche, consider your target demographic, and what sets your product or service apart.

Ask yourself:

What do we do better than our competitors?
What do our customers connect with most and keep coming back for?
How can narrowing in on what we do best create a better experience?

If you answer these questions, you will be on the path to defining your niche. But remember, once you narrow in on something, stick to it. If you flip-flop too many times, you will end up confusing your customer and they will seek out a competitor who’s message is more clear.

Take Your Business Online

This may seem like a no-brainer, but so many businesses miss out on sales and connecting with customers because they are reluctant to get digital.

There are many platforms to choose from if you want to market your business on social media; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, just to name a few.

Within those platforms, you can also pay for promotional ads to run on Facebook and Instagram if you have the budget. Make sure you are using your niche to create content so you can reach the people who will respond to your product the most.

Even if you are on social media and posting content in your niche, it’s vital that you have a home base to lead your customers to. You’ll also want to create a website that easily lists out products, services, and contact information for your customers.

Not only is this important to actually sell a product, but you can offer a lead generator or freebie to grow your email list. This strategy will help you in the long run as your business grows and will give you a database of people to connect with every time you have a new offer.

Now, as we said, this is just the start. But, we hope this helped spark some inspiration for you to get started on developing your brand.