11 Simple Steps For Building a Successful Brand

Crafting a successful brand is a comprehensive process that goes beyond having an attractive logo or a clever slogan. It involves creating an identity that your target audience can relate to and trust. Here are 11 straightforward steps to help you build a brand that stands out and achieves success.

Understanding the Basics of Branding

Before diving into the steps of brand building, let’s clarify what a brand truly is. A brand is the overall perception customers have of your business. As Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, puts it, “Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.” Essentially, your brand is your reputation.

A successful brand maintains consistency across all touchpoints, including:

- Physical spaces like storefronts or offices

- Print materials, signage, and packaging

- Digital presence through websites and online ads

- Content publishing and social media

- Customer interactions through sales and service

- Internal communications with employees

Building a brand is a gradual process that requires a strategic approach. Although it takes time and effort, the result is a strong brand that fosters long-term customer relationships, leading to increased leads, sales, and brand advocacy.

What is Brand Building?

Brand building involves creating awareness about your business through various strategies and campaigns, aiming to establish a unique and lasting image in the marketplace. A positive brand image combined with distinctiveness leads to brand success.

Branding can be broken down into three key phases:

1. Brand Strategy

2. Brand Identity

3. Brand Marketing

Trust.

Obviously, trust is mainly about operational execution—service delivery. But keeping customers informed when things go wrong can prevent a slipup from becoming a trust-eroding PR disaster. Customers expect airline websites to be accurate and up-to-date. But during the volcanic-ash crisis last spring, VAA’s website couldn’t keep pace with the rapidly changing situation, so it used Facebook and Twitter to communicate with customers. This was well received by some, but VAA learned from irate callers and site visitors that it needed to do an even better job of providing information in a crisis. The company is modifying its site to include a “rapid response” link to real-time VAA updates on Twitter and Facebook. It sees the various social media as complementary: Fergus Boyd, Virgin Atlantic’s head of e-business, told us, “Twitter is no more than a sound bite. Facebook can be an article. The website is for in-depth detail. They all need to signpost each other.”

Continual improvement.

For VAA—and for most companies—the biggest social media opportunity lies in gathering insights to drive continual incremental improvements.

For instance, since its founding, in 1984, VAA has built its brand on the customer’s total experience, from her initial search for a flight to her safe return home. The proliferation of travel blogs has reinforced this emphasis. When the company learned that its loyalty-scheme members were complaining online about tedious, redundant requests for security information, it created a secure opt-in service to eliminate the problem. In response to online community suggestions, it launched a system to arrange taxi sharing on arrival with passengers from the same flight. None of this represents a shift in strategy: The brand promise hasn’t changed, but social media dialogue has enabled VAA to keep improving its offer.

Innovation beyond the familiar.

VAA frequently wins awards for innovation—such as its in-flight entertainment systems and “premium economy” class. Fresh insights from social media reinforce this aspect of the brand. For instance, Facebook interactions helped the company appreciate an important but largely unrecognized segment: consumers planning a big trip. Their planning starts well in advance and involves extensive discussions with other travelers, so VAA launched Vtravelled, a site dedicated to inspirational journeys. Customers moderate the conversation and exchange information, stories, and advice. They can create a Trip Pod, a personal scrapbook of ideas for a dream trip. VAA enters the discussion using a traveler’s tone of voice, not pushing a product but offering advice. The site leads to some sales, but its main benefit to VAA comes from brand reinforcement and novel customer insights.

In an open innovation initiative, VAA in 2008 partnered with the UK’s National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts to launch VJAM. In a daylong workshop it presented a diverse group of VAA customers, IT developers, and social digerati with this agenda: “Social networking meets travel—magic happens.” Many ideas bubbled up at the workshop, and many others were submitted privately. Nine of them were short-listed, six received funding for proof of concept, and three have become products: the Flying Club and Facebook Flight Status app, a first for any airline; Taxi2, the aforementioned cab-sharing service; and VAA’s first iPhone app, called Flight Tracker, which includes real-time aircraft positions—also a first for any airline.

Keep Your Eye on the Ball

VAA would not claim mastery of social media in brand building—no firm yet can. But here’s our advice, based on the dozens of early successes and failures we’ve studied:

Don’t throw out your playbook.

Start with your brand promise and let it guide all your actions in social media. Don’t get distracted by the abundance of options.

Use social media primarily for insight.

Companies can and do sell things via social media, of course, but their real value at this stage lies in learning about customers. Facebook in particular has such tremendous reach that it can provide detailed quantitative analyses of communication flows between consumers. Increasingly smart natural-language-processing technology will, over time, help marketers extract further insights from the content of those discussions. At the other extreme, company-sponsored online brand communities can generate immediately applicable insights from direct, smaller-scale interactions.

Strive to go viral, but protect the brand.

The few brands that have substantially improved sales by using social media have done so with communications that convey authenticity and relevance—and are so entertaining that they go viral. Consider Blendtec’s inspired “Will it blend?” YouTube clips, in which Tom Dickson, the company’s founder, demonstrates its blender’s power and robustness by pulverizing everything from golf balls to an iPad. Since the campaign launched, four years ago, the videos have been viewed more than 100 million times, and sales have increased by 700%. Sony, on the other hand, stumbled badly when it paid an agency to create a supposedly authentic blog and YouTube video hyping the latest gaming PSP for Christmas 2006. Hit by a storm of criticism when word of the deceit leaked out, Sony was forced to own up, withdraw the video, and post a contrite apology on the blog. The debacle surely didn’t help sales; 2006 holiday shipments were down 75% from 2005.

A robust brand strategy differentiates your brand, builds trust, and makes it memorable and appealing to your target audience. It conveys your purpose, promises, and the solutions you offer. Here’s how to get started:

1. Define Your Brand Purpose

Identify the core reason for your brand's existence. What problems do you solve? What are your core values and mission? Your brand purpose will be the foundation of all your branding efforts.

2. Research Your Target Audience

Gain a deep understanding of your customers—what they need, what motivates them, and how they behave. This knowledge helps you tailor your brand to meet their expectations and build a meaningful connection.

3. Analyze Your Competition

Examine what your competitors are doing well and where they are lacking. Identify market gaps that your brand can fill and discover ways to differentiate yourself from the competition.

4. Create a Strong Brand Identity

Develop a cohesive visual and verbal identity, including your logo, color scheme, typography, and tone of voice. Consistency in these elements helps build brand recognition.

5. Develop a Unique Value Proposition

Clearly articulate what makes your brand unique and why customers should choose you over others. Your value proposition should be compelling and straightforward.

6. Craft Your Brand Story

Share an engaging narrative that emotionally connects with your audience. Describe your brand’s journey, mission, and the impact you aim to make. A compelling story can deepen your audience's connection to your brand.

7. Design Professional Logo and Visuals

Your logo represents your brand visually. Invest in a professional design that reflects your brand’s personality and values. Ensure all visual elements align with your brand identity.

8. Build a Consistent Online Presence

Ensure your website and social media profiles consistently reflect your brand identity. Use the same logos, colors, and tone of voice across all platforms to create a unified brand image.

9. Engage with Your Audience

Interact with your customers through social media, email marketing, and other channels. Respond to their feedback, answer their questions, and show that you value their input.

10. Monitor and Adapt

Regularly review your branding efforts to ensure they’re effective. Use analytics and customer feedback to identify areas for improvement and adapt your strategies as needed.

11. Stay True to Your Brand

Consistency is crucial for building trust and loyalty. Stay true to your brand’s values and promises, even as your business evolves. Authenticity will resonate with your audience and strengthen your brand over time.