Home / How to Get Your Startup’s Branding Right First Time Around
Anyone can start a business. But it takes a lot of skill, effort and determination to turn a startup into a successful, profitable enterprise with a loyal customer base. You’ve got products or services to think about, hiring, financials… the list goes on.
As many as 90% of startups fail, and many of them fail within the first five years. If you want to make sure you’re not part of that statistic, it’s vital that you not only establish a business but establish a brand.
It might sound cliché, but it’s true: getting your company noticed now is more difficult than it’s ever been. In order to stand out and succeed in the long term, you need to differentiate yourself from your competitors and offer something unique – something memorable.
Therein lies the difference between a ‘business’ and a ‘brand’. Successful brands demand your attention. They plant themselves in your subconscious. They attract loyal customers. Get your branding right, and your company will have the staying power it needs to succeed and beat the odds.
To help you do exactly that, we’ve outlined a few top tips below.
Branding is all about differentiating your company from the competition – so before you put pen to paper and start sketching some ideas, take the time to write down everything that makes you and your business different.
What are you going to offer that other companies don’t? The more ideas you’re able to come up with, the easier it will be for these USPs to be channelled directly into your branding.
Every entrepreneur has a backstory, so don’t be afraid to tell yours. We’re all unique and we all have stories to tell, but many founders don’t recognise the importance of sharing these stories with customers. If you fall into the same trap and create yet another cut-and-paste company that looks very similar to your competitors, you’re not going to stand out.
Our advice? Embrace your quirks and life experiences – and make sure your branding is as unique as you are.
Once you’ve conceptualised your brand, it’s time to start actually creating it. Mood boards are a great way to experiment with different imagery and colour palettes, allowing you to get a feel for what suits your brand and what doesn’t.
It can even help inform the design of your logo; will you opt for a more playful, youthful design or a more restrained, timeless look? A mood board can help point you in the right direction.
The look of your brand is one thing, but the feel of your brand is quite another. It’s surprising how many startups have a swanky website and an impressive logo but uninspiring, forgettable content.
The way you talk about your brand is every bit as important as the brand itself. Your design and content need to align right from the start, with each one reinforcing the other (rather than pulling in opposing directions).
Here’s an example. Let’s say you’ve created a children’s toy brand and come up with a fun, memorable logo design and colour scheme. If you then write content that’s too dry and corporate, there’s an immediate mismatch between what your brand looks like and how it comes across to consumers.
This kind of mismatch can be jarring, undermining trust in your brand and switching customers off. So, make sure your content has every bit as much personality as the rest of your branding – the tone of voice you choose is all-important.
Once you’ve created your brand, you’ve got to stick to it.
Brand guidelines help ensure that your company looks and feels consistent across every platform and every touchpoint. From printed brochures and leaflets to social posts, your brand needs to present well at every stage of the customer journey – and brand guidelines make this a much easier feat to achieve.
Nailing your company’s branding is enough of a challenge in its own right – but doing it alongside founding the business and getting things up and running is an even tougher task.
If you’re looking for a partner to help you get your business off the ground with branding that’s as unique as you are, why not speak to the team at Brave? With 25 years of experience in branding and content creation, our team has the passion and know-how to create branding with real staying power.
Want to learn more about us and what we do? Check out our case studies to see how we’ve helped brands just like yours.
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