How Important Is Brand Recognition For Your Startup?

Brand building is a process that involves a lot of factors, and it takes time to accomplish. It also needs investments in marketing and ad campaigns. However, that should not be a put-off for startups, holding them back from beginning the branding process.

What is Branding?

Branding is a wholesome perception of your company, its products and services, their quality, your integrity in business practices and more. Customer loyalty is a valuable result of gaining brand recognition. Branding will be a vital part of any guide on how to start an online business.

Your company’s products, quality, business philosophy, customer relationship, the reputation you have among your peers and customers for being trustworthy and reliable, are some of the factors that help build a brand. However, before that, there are some basics that startups can focus on.

Brand Building for Startups

You have a good product or service. Before you launch your business and after the launch, focus on a number of initial steps in brand building.

Choose a Good Name for Your Business

A brand ultimately filters down to name recognition. Nike, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Sony are all names you instantly recognize and associate with a certain set of products. Spend time choosing a name that will resonate with customers and indicate what product or service you are offering. If the name does not provide such an indication, but you still feel that it is a good name, start creating small marketing campaigns like pamphlets and online ads and banners that will make the name visible to future customers along with a short note about what you deal in.

Create a Logo That is Memorable and Attractive

Hire a professional designer to create your logo, you can click here https://www.shopify.hk to find the professional services for designing your website.. The use of appropriate colors and fonts is vital and a professional designer will be able to advise you on the best choices. The logo can include just your company name or it can also include a symbol. For a startup, never think of using just a graphic symbol and leaving out the name. The company name is the brand and you need to repetitively reinforce it in your customers minds to create brand awareness.

Be Consistent with Design Elements

Once you have chosen the colors and fonts for your company name and logo, derive your company’s theme based on these. If you have used red dominantly, or a combination of red and black, make sure that your letterheads, cards, website, marketing material all use these colors. Choose one or two typefaces or fonts and stick to them across all materials and media. This consistency helps your customers remember and recall your company colors. If you are looking for an example, BOTY has beautifully used multiple colors for their website theme and branding with all of them blending beautifully with each other.

Display Customer Testimonials

Once your customers have begun using your product or service they might want to leave a complimentary message or review on your website. Make it easy for them to do so. Direct them to a form page where they can fill in their name their company name (optional) and their positive feedback. You can also enable them to include a photo if they would like to. Display these testimonials on a separate testimonial page. Positive feedback from actual customers helps build your brand image and a good reputation for your business.

Secure a Domain Name that Matches your Company Name

Try to get your company name as the domain name for your website. Choose a dot-com extension as the default, you can add additional extensions if you want. If you cannot get the exact name of your business as a domain name, you can try a close match with a suffix like (your company name)online.com.

Social Media Sites

Secure your company name or domain name on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter etc. This will ensure consistency across all your online resources and marketing campaigns.

Branding is a gradual process, but it begins in small steps. Begin with the name, logo, domain name etc. to enforce your business name in the minds of potential customers. Providing good products or service will help build your reputation. Enforce your company name, logo, and design theme through consistently designed marketing materials. Invest in Facebook and other forms of marketing and send newsletters with special offers to your customers to bring them back to familiarize with your brand. You can do this on your own but it would be highly recommended to get trademark attorneys to assist you throughout the process. As your brand gains more support, having a licensed trademark will protect you from potential risks.

These are just the basic steps and will not involve huge investments. You need to create brand awareness before you get brand recognition. Branding is key to keep your customers connected with your products, eventually making them automatically recall your brand when searching for products in your niche. Creating a good brand awareness can also help you secure funding for your business as investors will begin to respect your commitment to your products and your growing reputation in your niche.