Keys for your brand to be in the mind of the consumer
One of the most common mistakes from both new and established marketers is to think of your brand only in visual terms. If I design a good emblem and establish a recognizable visual presence, clients will come, right?
The reality is that creating a trademark that is recognizable without having to explicitly say the company name is a more rounded process than you power contemplate.
"A brand is more than a logo," explains journalist Ramona Sukhrajen in a report for the business magazine Impact. “It is a tone of voice, a feeling, a series of expectations that arise when people hear the name of your business. They are the values and emotions to which your business is associated ”.
Set up your identity
The first step in starting a strong brand is to think about the characteristics, values, and attributes that make your business unique. This will allow it to be among the first options of your clients, what is known in the corporate world as " top of mind ".
"After thinking about this, you have to look for a visual
identity that echoes those features," describes Javier Hernández Acosta,
director of the Unit of Business Administration at the Universidad del Sagrado
Corazón (USC).
Visual identity is everything you create around the brand: logo,
fonts (typeface), message, customer communications, content. "That is
what will be important in the mind of the consumer," he says.
As an exercise, Hernández Acosta indorses personifying the
brand, in order to find those attributes. This will make it easier for the
consumer to associate certain characteristics with your brand. But be
careful not to be inconsistent in your message, as this can be detrimental to
the business.
"The best way to handle this brand recognition is
consistency in all elements of the message," says Hernández Acosta.
For the teacher, the association process happens so fast in the
mind of the consumer that you cannot create doubts or confusion. That is
why he recommends developing a style guide for the brand and making thoughtful
decisions about changes in colors, fonts and tone of voice, among others.
Know
your market
Another important variable is to know well the market to which
you belong. "If you do not understand your market, it is very easy to
create communications that are too broad or that do not correspond to the needs
of your customers," elucidates Zach Beatty, Promotion manager of Blue
Fountain Media, in an conference with the digital medium Business Insider. “This
can be challenging for new brands. If they try to appeal to too broad an
audience from the start, they can end up alienating potential customers, ”says
Beatty.
For his part, Hernández Acosta emphasizes that you must
establish a relationship with your audience —a conversation where the client
feels that they can “co-create” with the brand.