Branding is one of the most misunderstood items in business development. It may always refer to the logo or the color of the company. But there's more to that than the image portrayed by the business. Jeff Bezos defines branding as “Your brand is what other people say about you when you're not in the room.” “A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn a reputation by trying to do hard things well.”Here in Bonanza Design, we have worked with over 25 companies in the past year. We spot usually the common patterns that companies miss when it comes to crafting a branding experience. In this article, we want to talk about the importance of branding to your business and why this is important to startups, especially for their future competitiveness.
WHAT IS BRANDING?
By definition, branding is the process of creating a strong, positive perception of a company. A total branding experience results from the aggregated experience of your customer with your brand through different touchpoints such as your products and services, customer service, marketing activities such as ads, articles, and logistics and operation. The process of crafting a brand experience is like what a conductor of an orchestra aims to do, i.e., coordinating a consistent theme throughout all business channels.Branding is more than just the visual looks, it's your bridge from your company to your consumer. Branding is your personality on how you want your consumer to know you. This is the feeling it triggers in them whenever they see your business logo or hear the name of your company.
WHY BRANDING IS IMPORTANT
In today’s global competition, there are two ways you can stand out
- By creating products that 10x better than the competition
- By crafting consumer experience will set you apart from the others
A strong brand has a causational relationship with the cost of your marketing activities. A stronger brand is equal to a lesser customer acquisition cost. Strong brands create a strong sense of familiarity in the eyes of consumers. Consumers trust your brand the way they trust your best friends, i.e., they just take your words for it.Branding builds your reputation and your value. The more you understand this the more that you need to know why you need to build your branding from the start of your business. Consumers and businesses will look at how established your brand is. If the reputation is strong this influences the chain of propagation. The growth of your business will circulate to your branding. This makes branding very important to any business.The topic of branding cannot be understood in just one article. This is why we are helping startup businesses get a great head start by creating their own brands. Branding has different levels and it is always different from each other. We help build a unique brand that will give you leverage in the future and will make you stand out.
BONANZA DESIGN PROCESS
This is our process for a typical branding project at Bonanza Design:
Week 1-2: Groundwork: Research: Getting to know our target group
- Workshop: problem framing workshop
- Workshop: user persona workshop
- Customer research: up to 7 interviews
- Market research:
- Competitive landscape research- Current/future market trends research- Quantitative surveys to validate core assumptions at scale
Week 3-4: Brand Identity Design
- Workshop: show&tell: market/customer research findings from week1
- Workshop (all week): crafting a brand experience
- Defining brand grand purpose & narratives- Determining core user needs- Creating brand hero character- Outlining brand hero guide character
- Crafting the brand mood board including ideas for
- Logos- Colour variations- Typography- Graphic & Illustrations- Tonality & Communication- Defining core topics for the future marketing campaigns
Week 5-6: Product Strategy Framework
- Workshop: product strategy
- Crafting product vision for the next two years- Listing related user stories- Prioritizing user stories and scoping- Define the Minimum Lovable Experience (also known as MVP)- Creating a product roadmap for the future versions
- Workshop: MVP design
- Creating the user flows for the MVP- Low-Fidelity Wireframing of the MVP
- Wrap up and hand over
Our startup package is perfectly designed for businesses who want to take a lot of loads while running their business. Let us be your guide and we will make sure you get all you need for your growing business.Book a call with us here: https://calendly.com/behrad-bonanza