Every company has a brand identity, but not every company has a purposefully built and effective identity. If you want to build authentic, powerful connections with your audience that lead them to invest in you, you need a focused and unified approach to building your brand identity.
A company’s identity includes all the components that make your brand what it is and shape how people perceive it. It’s the story your business is trying to tell, and the unique assets that set your brand apart.
Each component is important, and when all the pieces come together in the right way, your company can make a memorable impact on customers.
Key Components of Brand Identity
Successful branding requires a consistent approach to developing your company’s identity, from your website down to your product labels. Consistency creates brand equity, which means that your product is recognizable and memorable. It’s what motivates some customers to pay more for a product when they can get the same thing from a different company at a cheaper price.
Let’s take a look at the key components that make up a brand’s identity.
Brand voice
If your favorite products started talking to you, what would they sound like? What would they say?
Your answer to those questions is rooted in that company’s brand voice. For instance, an athletic brand like Nike might sound like a coach talking to you in a strong, motivational voice, pushing you to test your limits. Some brands might sound playful, while others may be more professional.
Your brand voice creates a conversation with your customers. It’s important in ads and marketing, but essential across social media messaging, reports, newsletters, and all content related to your business. Anytime you speak to your customers, you’re using brand voice. It’s part of your company’s title, mission, vision, value proposition, style guides, and product messaging.
For that voice to reach your audience and connect, you need a brand story.
Brand Story
A good superhero saga includes an origin story – the backstory of how a hero or villain came to be. The more people know about a character, the more they want to invest their time in that character. Science shows that stories create powerful emotional connections with audiences, and that’s as true for businesses as it is for Hollywood.
Brands can tap into the human desire for stories by telling their own brand story. This story should do more than provide facts and a timeline of events; it should create a compelling narrative that people connect to on an emotional level.
Tell your brand story consistently and frequently, whether your audience visits a physical location or interacts with your company online. Again, consistency is key.
A strong brand story cuts through the clutter of ads and marketing to build an authentic connection between your company and your audience. If people believe in your story, they are more likely to believe in your product.
Visual Branding
Your brand voice and your brand story work together to inform the visual elements of your brand.
Many visual elements make up your brand identity, including logo, typography, font, style guides, imagery, and color palettes.
When paired with a strong brand voice, visual branding reinforces the story you want to tell about your company. The iconic Nike swoosh logo, paired with Nike’s strong, energetic voice and story about pushing the limits through athletic competition, complements a marketing strategy that is memorable and inspiring.
Color choices create a particular mood and feel that should align with your brand values and contribute to a cohesive identity. For example, let’s say a massage company wants to create a calm and rejuvenating experience for customers. They need to avoid bold, energetic colors like red, which is often associated with passion and urgency. Instead, they can evoke tranquility and peace with shades of green and images of nature. This company should tell a much different story from Nike, promising customers a chance to do nothing at all.
Brand Messaging
Your brand messaging, the overall communication strategy for your company, informs your brand voice, story, and visual elements. Brand messaging conveys what problems you solve, who you solve them for, and why solving those problems is important.
Start with core values and company mission, and connect that to your audience. Your messaging is only successful if it’s heard and understood by the audiences it’s meant to reach. You can then shape your value proposition to this specific audience persona.
Brand messaging should be part of all your branding and communication efforts and serve as a unifying theme. It defines who you are and what you stand for. Are you serious and professional? Fun and playful? Passionate? Driven? Your messaging acquaints your audience with your brand’s personality.
When the elements of voice, story, visuals, and messaging synergize to show customers who you are, what you offer, and why that matters, you’ve established a strong identity for your brand.
In-tune Branding with Voice and Tone
A memorable, quotable brand voice resonates with people. You want customers to feel like you are having a conversation with them. That doesn’t necessarily mean you are verbally speaking to your audience. Voice is part of all your written content.
To establish the right voice, think about your why: why does your company exist? How are you making your customers’ lives better? These questions will help you establish the general feel and sound of your brand. For example, if you want customers to find peace and relaxation, your brand voice should be soothing and soft.
When you know the general feel and sound of your brand voice, get more specific by focusing on tone of voice, which is how brand voice is used in different contexts. Tone includes things like word choice, how you put words together, punctuation, and what kind of emotional connection you want to make.
Let’s use McDonald’s current “i’m lovin’ it” slogan to look at the importance of tone in branding:
- i’m’ lovin’ it
- I am loving it.
In the first example, the lower-cased “i”, the shortened “lovin’,’” and the pithiness of the phrase make this slogan playful and light-hearted. It sounds like something a person might realistically say while enjoying a hamburger and fries. Since McDonald’s has a brand that values being relatable and fun, the tone of this phrase is in tune with the brand identity.
The second phrase conveys the same idea, but it sounds stiff and awkward compared to the other slogan. It’s out of tune with the brand.
You aren’t trying to manipulate or control your audience but to inspire them to connect to your vision and your product. Your voice should represent the authentic desire to connect with audiences and solve their problems.
Crafting Brand Identity is a Long Game
When you train for a marathon, you don’t run once and feel ready to race. It takes consistent running over weeks and months to succeed.
Likewise, developing a strong identity for your brand will take consistency over the long haul, so don’t expect to hammer out all the details right away. You don’t want to get so overwhelmed figuring everything out at once that you never start.
Take the first step by answering key questions about what you stand for and why customers should look to you to solve a particular problem. Work with your team to get internal agreement on the appropriate brand voice and build from there.
Building an identity shouldn’t stop at the marketing team. Get feedback from various stakeholders and customers. Test innovative ideas on customers, comparing your perception of your brand’s identity with verified end-user perceptions. This will give you the feedback you need to refine over time.
By taking careful, strategic steps, you can create a memorable and effective brand identity that captivates your audience and adds value to their lives.