As companies grow, it can be challenging to think about how your company’s identity will change. One way of being creative is through defining new facets that are unique and different from other brands in the market. Business identity is the way that a company portrays itself and its products. Businesses can have a variety of identities, but they all need to be defined. The “business identity examples” will help you determine your company’s identity. Entrepreneurs and company owners typically have a good idea of what items or services they’ll provide and who they’ll market. However, they often miss the basis to secure future growth: identity. A distinct brand identity helps you stand out from the crowd and interact with consumers at every touchpoint. Your brand identity will connect with your customers and identify your business, so it’s more than a corporate logo or mission statement. This tutorial will show you how to create your brand from the ground up, whether starting a company or rebranding an existing one.
The Simple Steps to Defining Your Business’s Identity
Many individuals believe that creating a brand identity from scratch is difficult since they don’t know where to begin. But it’s not as difficult as it looks on the surface. You already have a brand identity notion in your brain, whether you recognize it. It’s now simply a question of taking that concept and making it a reality. You may find a plethora of excellent brand identification templates on the internet. These templates make it much simpler to put your thoughts down on paper and visually communicate your individuality. One of my favorite tools for this is Canva.
Canva is a web-based graphic design application that lets anybody without design knowledge generate world-class images. Thousands of templates for presentations, social media, marketing materials, workplace supplies, and more are available. As a result, you can quickly establish your internal and external identity across many channels using it. There are also templates explicitly built for brand identification. The platform makes it simple to work with others and exchange information. Canva’s free plan includes over 250,000 free templates, and the Pro plan is just $9.99 per month. For 30 days, you may test the Pro plan for free. Another simple way to start building your company’s brand is to lead by example. Hundreds of businesses in every area have found remarkable success by clearly identifying their identity. You might draw inspiration for your individuality from these many success tales.
Parts of Defining Your Company’s Identity That Is Difficult
While the notion of developing a solid identity is straightforward, the actual execution is fraught with difficulties. A company’s identity encompasses more than simply its logo and mission statement. It establishes who you are as a company, how you function, and the kind of influence you want to have on the world. Consider your brand as a live, breathing person with a distinct personality. It must be actionable, in addition to taglines, slogans, and names. Getting employees to buy-in is one of the most challenging aspects of building your company’s brand. People are at the heart of a successful company’s identity, from the top executives to the lowest-level staff who handle the register or answer the phones. Everyone must comprehend the company’s identity description and be able to implement its principles daily. Prospects and consumers soon identify it from there. This isn’t going to happen in a day or two. It’s a long-term procedure that needs a lot of work. When others misinterpret your vision, it may be aggravating. However, it’s essential to remember that corporate identities change with time. Determining whether or whether it’s time for a change is also challenging. You won’t be able to control specific components of your brand’s identification. Things like media coverage or a favorite video might give people a different impression of your company’s identity than you intended. You may either resist or roll with the punches when this occurs.
Step 1: Research and Find Inspiration for Your Target Audience.
Market research is essential for things like company strategy, product development, marketing efforts, and more. It’s also critical for establishing your company’s brand from the ground up. It’s pointless to have an identity if it doesn’t connect with your target audience. So that people desire to support your business, your identity must communicate to them on a human level. In the end, you want to create a character for your organization that people can connect to. Market research for brand identification will differ from market research for other objectives. You’re not attempting to determine whether or not the market will embrace your product or service in this instance. Instead, you should figure out what sensations, emotions, and triggers will entice them to your business.
- Locate Your Unique Selling Proposition
What distinguishes your business? Consider what’s behind the surface of items, services, and prices. Look for market gaps in your sector that may be filled to meet the demands or requirements of your target market. Is there anything you can provide that other businesses cannot? This is your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) (USP). Let’s pretend you’re the owner of a bakery. There might be hundreds of other bakeries in the neighborhood offering the same items as you. However, not all of them may provide gluten-free cupcakes using locally sourced ingredients. Appealing to dietary restrictions and supporting other locally owned companies in your area might be your company’s USP and the basis for its identity. Begin with this and gradually increase from there.
- Get Motivated by Successful Leaders
The first step is to define your unique selling proposition and how it appeals to your target market. Now you must apply that principle to your identity. It’s not enough to have a sign on your door that says, “we offer gluten-free cupcakes made using locally sourced products.” What steps will you take to put this into action? Look at how famous figures in many sectors have established their identities. Look for concepts that work well for your goal and strive to imitate them. Consider a worldwide behemoth like Starbucks. Personalization and creating connections with consumers are essential aspects of their brand identity. Handwriting names on mugs is one method they do.
Even for a corporation with over 30,000 outlets globally, this personal touch gives consumers the sensation of a neighborhood coffee shop. This brand logo may be seen across the Starbucks website and other marketing materials. For example, take a look at this extract from the company’s culture and values page on the website:
The highlighted portions all reflect the same identity by putting names on cups. Let’s return to the bakery scenario now. You might follow Starbucks’ example and include stickers or labels on your package that detail the local farms from whence the items were obtained. Perhaps the blueberries in your muffins come from a different farm than the carrots in your carrot cake, but you picked those two farms for unique reasons. This is just one example of how consumer research and outside inspiration may help you start fresh when developing your company’s brand.
Step 2: Write and design high-quality copy and graphics.
It would help if you had a better idea of the identity you want to develop after the first phase. It’s now time to build various images that represent your brand. Instead of beginning from scratch, go to Canva and choose a brand identification template.
Because the templates in Canva are so customizable, I like to utilize them for this phase. They offer branding templates for presentations, social media, and marketing materials, among other things. Begin with a presentation to push you through several processes to codify the company’s identification. You may then use that information to create website content, social media postings, onboarding materials for new hires, and other shareable content. Another reason I like Canva is that it is straightforward to use. I have no expertise in graphic design, but I can browse through the templates and edit them with my material. I’ll guide you through an example using one of the templates to show you how simple it is to establish your brand identity using Canva.
- Choose a Template
When working with a template, here’s a quick rundown of Canva’s interface:
In a brand guidelines presentation, the template comprises 25 separate pages. You may browse through each slide on the left side of the screen and only include the ones that are relevant to your business identity. Although you may not need all of them, I recommend utilizing as many as feasible. You’ll be forced to define various components of your company’s identity from diverse perspectives due to this.
- Define your company’s core values.
You’ll discover several slides that assist create your brand identity as you travel through these template pages. For example, here’s a drop that asks you to explain your brand in only a few sentences.
The following slide takes the identification process a step further, focusing on your mission statement, brand, values, and slogan in more detail.
All of these slides are entirely editable. So all you have to do now is click on the text and replace it with your own. You may also return the graphics with unique ones.
- Colors and typography should be chosen carefully.
Colors and typography may quickly communicate a brand’s identity. For example, a tattoo parlor or a nightclub will undoubtedly have different colors and typefaces than a company that sells toys to five-year-old girls. This Canva template guides you through the process by asking you to define your company’s primary, secondary, and complementary colors.
After you’ve decided on your colors, use the template to specify your typeface.
To change the information with your brand identifiers, click on the text.
- Give Your Identity a Face
Customers don’t want to deal with a faceless, nameless corporation. It helps develop a human connection between you and your consumers by putting faces to your brand.
You may also provide a unique bio for each of your team’s essential players. Let’s keep with the bakery example from earlier in this article. Perhaps your executive chef grew up on a nearby farm and trained to cook only with ingredients gathered on-site. Alternatively, maybe your whole crew is local, reinforcing the concept of community and supporting small companies.
- Define visual requirements, social media branding, and other aspects of your project.
We’re not going to go through the whole template’s 25 slides. However, this should give you a fair idea of what you can do using Canva. You may also utilize the template to create other brand identification components, such as:
- criteria for a logo
- Variations on the logo
- Branding criteria for social media
- Guidelines for Photographers (cropping, lighting, filters, etc.)
- Structure of the brand hierarchy
- Strategy for your brand
Canva makes it easy to customize anything with music, images, charts, backdrops, etc.
Step 3: Communicate and Disseminate Your Company’s Brand
You may use your brand identity template as your north star after you’ve done.no tweaking it. It would be best to have everyone on the same page to do this successfully. You must make the identification available to the public and share it with your staff. Each section will need different materials.
- Sharing With Your Employees
You may share the presentation you’ve previously made with Canva with your staff. Click the Share or Present buttons at the top of the screen, depending on your channel.
This style of presentation is ideal for new employee onboarding. It assists in getting everyone on the same page from the beginning, ensuring that they have complete knowledge of your company’s identity. If your workers don’t believe in your brand, you’ll have a hard time putting it into action in the actual world. As you work on this, get feedback and encourage essential team members to engage with you.
- Customer Collaboration
It’s more challenging to make your brand identification visible to the general public. Customers will not learn who you are by watching a slideshow or presentation. As a result, you’ll have to think beyond the box. You can still use Canva for this, thankfully. As you create more items for your website, social media platforms, shop signs, and so forth, keep your basic brand identity template in mind. Canva features a wide range of templates, including posters, flyers, business cards, etc.
- Maintain Consistency
Consistency is another crucial part of building your company’s brand. Ensure that your message and actions are consistent across your sites and channels. This reinforces the message and makes it more memorable to your viewers. On Vuori’s website, you can see a fantastic example of consistency in action.
Vuori is a garment company that is in a very competitive market. But, on the other hand, their site stands apart by appealing to nature and travel-loving clientele. Take a look at some more screenshots from the website that resemble the same persona.
Vuori’s identity is hammered into every page of the website using graphics and language. This is a great way to connect with existing and potential consumers. All platforms, including social media, email, packaging, and in-person shops, have the same look and feel. As previously said, following the example of other successful businesses is always a bright idea. You may use this as a starting point for your brand. Creating a brand identity for your small business is an essential step in becoming successful. But, first, you need to know what your company stands for and how you want people to perceive it. This guide will help you define your company’s identity.
Related Tags
- how to create a brand identity
- corporate identity
- brand identity examples
- how to create a brand image