Branding Your Business in 5 Steps

Are you considering branding your business but concerned it might be challenging or overwhelming? Rest assured, it doesn’t have to be. In fact, you can establish a world-class brand with just five simple steps. Why wait? Start building your brand today.

5 Simple Steps for Branding Your Business

1. Create your branding vision

The first step in branding is to determine how you want your brand to look and sound. This typically involves distilling a powerful truth about your organization into a concise, memorable message that is easily recognizable and actionable. A well-crafted external tagline is usually 5 to 9 words long—brief enough to be instantly recalled yet substantial enough to capture interest. It should be versatile, fitting seamlessly on business cards, letterheads, advertisements, and all other marketing materials.

2. Tell the branding story

The tagline really is nothing without the internal brand story that goes with it. I call this either a “Brand Manifesto” or a “Declaration of Passion.” The internal story gives life to the brand and helps to define it for your internal stakeholders. The brand needs this critical element to have enough emotional resonance to be interesting and to give yourself and your team something to hold onto.

3. Enlist your team in branding your business

Here’s one of the most important steps — enlist your team in creating how your brand works within your walls. I’ve spent the last week meeting with diagonal cross-sections of an organization and sharing with them their new brand story. We then asked each of them to brainstorm with us about what the company should keep doing to reinforce the new brand position. We then asked them about what the company should start and stop doing to help them live the brand. The results are astounding. Each team member feels included in crafting this brand position and is both invested in and proud to be part of creating it. That outcome, far more than any single idea that came out of the brainstorming sessions, is the most important to helping this new brand succeed. Oh, and they’ve come up with some pretty amazing ideas to communicate the brand, too!

4. Get consistent about branding your business

Consistency is king when it comes to branding. After all, “branding” started with livestock branding to show ownership. For farmers, it “creates an indelible mark that allows ranchers to keep track of their stock, wayward cattle to be returned to their owners, and stolen cattle to be readily identified.” as noted in Modern Farmer’s Brand Awareness, Decoding Cattle Brands. The Smithsonian Magazine even notes that “Livestock branding dates back to 2700 BC.” Throughout time, as you can imagine, in livestock brands, a consistent mark made it easier to identify and defend. And branding livestock works. Livestock Identification Services notes that “In many cases, over a period of more than a hundred years, many old ranch brands have become better known than the people who owned them.” The same thing is true when branding your business. Over the long haul, the more consistent you can become, making all your messaging have a similar look, feel, and voice, the more likely it is that your customers and potential customers will readily identify your brand and know what to expect from your business. Branding is the exercise of creating your business’s history in the present. Be consistent about every element of your business, and your brand will not let you down.

5. Make branding your business fun

Branding your business doesn’t have to be all hard work. In fact, it works best when you can find ways to make it light and include unique ways to share it within your community. The more fun you can have with your brand position, the more likable your brand will become. Look for unexpected guerilla tactics to surprise and delight your customers and potential customers.

Paradux Media can make branding your business simple and fun!

Are you ready to brand (or re-brand) your business but not sure where to start? Contact our expert team at Paradux Media Group, and we’ll have you on the road to showing off your successful brand in no time. We have experience working with large and small companies, with the skills to expand your brand from your physical building to the digital universe. Learn how joining our flock will help you meet your goals.