Build a brand
Branding your product and your business correctly is vital when it comes to pitching. This is the first thing a buyer notices and a weak brand translates into a weak product.
There are a number of different definitions of what a brand actually is. It can refer to a business name, a product name, or a unique identifier such as a logo or trademark. The most effective description is that a brand is a name or symbol that is commonly known to identify a business or its products.
Your businessâs branding, therefore, is its message to the world. This will become the single thing that distinguishes you from others and will become the equivalent of your businessâs word. It is the promise of value that you make to the consumer, whether stated directly or simply implied.
A strong brand can command a premium price and maximise the number of units that can be sold at that premium. A weak brand can irreparably damage your image long term. For these reasons branding can make or break your product and this is definitely something that you need to invest both time and money in.
A well-known brand is generally regarded as one that people will recognise, regardless of whether they know about the products or services the business provides. Many people will recognise a logo and be able to match it up with a business or product without even thinking about it.
This kind of unconscious action signals a strong, well-marketed brand. This is not by any means an accident. When a business is planning their branding they have to go through many stages and may not always get it right first time.
For example, soft drink 7Up started life as a very different brand. Invented in 1929, it was originally named Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Sodas, which doesnât exactly roll off the tongue. The name was quickly changed to â7Up Lithiated Lemon-Limeâ, though this was still not quite catchy enough to grab peopleâs attention.
Eventually, the name 7Up was settled upon â simple, easy to recall and, now, a household name. Throughout the renaming process, the product itself did not change, however without those early changes being made, 7Up might not have become the world famous, trusted brand that it has grown to become today.
How people perceive and feel about your product or business
Branding creates trust and an emotional attachment to your product or business. This attachment then causes customers to make decisions based, at least in part, upon emotion. Customers do not necessarily choose products for logical or intellectual reasons.
When thinking of the image you wish your brand to portray, try to imagine the emotions and perceptions that you want to evoke in your target market. Think about the emotions you want people to go through when they envisage your brand, then use this thought process in your brand planning.
Take a well-known brand like Jimmy Choo shoes. We associate Jimmy Choo with quality, high end, longevity, indulgence and luxury. The fact that people make these associations is no accident. Behind each well-known brand name there is a lot of planning, research and thought given to how the desired reaction can be created among consumers.
The first step to take with your own branding is to sit down and make a list of all the feelings you want the consumer to experience when they see your branding. You might choose words such as:
- Quality, luxury, indulgence, high-end, deluxe, affluence, extravagance, impressive and opulence.
Or at the other end of the scale you might want your brand to be thought of as:
- Low cost, good value and economical.
Once you have decided upon the reaction you want your brand to evoke you can then start to look at ways in which you can stir up these emotions in your target consumer. A graphic designer and brand expert will come in handy here. The main points for consideration are your business branding and your product branding.
A good designer can use fonts, colours, graphics and special effects to create the brand you are striving for. From your brief, they will create a number of different designs to fit your requirements, from which you can choose your favourite.
The best way to find a designer is to get recommendations from others. Take a look at the brands of other businesses that are in the same sort of area as you, or look out for a business whose branding you think achieves its aim, and then contact them to ask for the details of their designer. Thereâs no reason why they shouldnât be more than happy to give you the details.
Some examples of graphic designers for small businesses that might be able to help you are Qwerty Cow (www.qwertycow.com) and Flourish Design (www.flourishstudios.co.uk).
You should consider that you may need some separate and slightly different branding for each of your products. For this reason, it is good to have a logo that can be easily tweaked so that you can expand your product range and accommodate new product ideas in the future.
Widening your product range
Keira OâMara started her business, like most of us, with just one product, the Mamascarf â an aide for breast-feeding in public. When she started her journey Keira only required the name Mamascarf as she only had one product in her range, but since then she has gone on to develop a new product and has had to make a few changes. The business is now registered as Mamadesigns Limited and each individual product produced can have its own branding and identity whilst still maintaining the identity of the original Mamascarf brand.
www.mamascarf.co.uk
Key factors in a brand image
Simon Middleton, founder of the brand advisory firm Brand Strategy Guru, and author of Build A Brand In 30 Days and What You Need To Know About Marketing, says that there are several key factors that need to be taken into consideration when you are deciding upon your brand image:
- Be authentic. Authenticity means that a brand should not pretend to be something that it isnât. Brands should be true to themselves, otherwise they will be found out.
- Be compelling. A brand must be compelling to the senses, the emotions, the intellect or the imagination. Data alone is never compelling.
- Be distinctive (unlike any competitor). Distinctiveness is what people are endlessly seeking. Nobody ever built a brand by being just like the other guys.
- Build on excellence. Businesses have to be very good at what they do. Apple, Google, Coke, etc., got to be great brands not by being average, but by being excellent.
- Take an outsiderâs view. Look at your brand from the outside and ask yourself: why would you buy or stock this businessâs products?
Think long and hard before making any firm decisions and use market research to help gather public opinion before committing to your branding. You do not want to be stuck with an image that you start to dislike very quickly or, worse still, that the consumer starts to dislike. Ensure your brand has the strength to go the distance.
Packaging
Part of your brand is the point of sale packaging of your product. Take some time to think about how your product will look when shown in a catalogue, when sitting on a shelf or when displayed on a website. Quite often people buy with their eyes so you really need to ensure that your product and its packaging is attractive in appearance.
You should make sure there is a clear message within your packaging. It needs to show an image of whatâs inside (if there is no option for a clear window), the product name, a description of use, any tag lines or phrases that you are using in marketing and your branding. Two companies that can help you with this are: Skylab Design (www.skylabdesign.co.uk) and Peachtree (www.peachtree.uk.com).
There are some legal aspects of packaging which must be adhered to and they vary from sector to sector. An experienced packaging agency will be able to advise you of the legal requirements. If youâre unsure of your obligations then check with the Trading Standards Institute (www.tradingstandards.gov.uk) or at www.legislation.gov.uk.
If there are already products of a similar nature on the market, then itâs well worth visiting the website or physical store of a stockist to take a look at how these products are displayed in their packaging. Make a note of the type of packaging used, the graphics and text used, and the quality of the finished packaging. How could you improve upon their design? When you look at their packaging can you see anything that you would add or remove? Think like a customer not an inventor.
One final thing to think about is the space stores have available. Most stores have shelving space but very little hanging space and some may have specifications for the size of products they can carry. Waterstones, for example, do not like awkward sized books. So, consider how your productâs packaging will affect how stores can display it and explain to your packaging designer just how you see the product being displayed in store.
For many new products, the costs of packaging can be high and itâs rare to find a company that will create a sample for you. They should, however, provide you with a three-dimensional PDF mock-up which you can use in your presentation. Providing the retailer can get a idea of the final size and appearance of the packing from the mock-up, itâs perfectly acceptable practice to use a sample in this way.