Brand Building For Early Stages
Why might branding be the most fundamental and important step in the early stages of your start up business? How might one expect to get customers if their customers do not know who or what the business is about? This is why building your brand in the early stages is so crucial. Here are a few steps you can use to help build your brand…
1. Set Your Expectations Early
It is crucial to understand what is not only reasonable to expect from a new brand but also what a brand needs to accomplish. You should set up goals for one, three, and ten years. In one year your brand needs to not scare people away, it must be clear and consistent. this will show that you are a real company and that you understand your customers pain point and can help them solve that problem. In year three you can add another adjective to the list. Your company brand should start to have a more emotional connection to your customers. In year ten, you can expect brand awareness.
2. Make Decisions Then Define it
This will be one of the most difficult parts of the process, when you have to make some decisions that carry real consequences. Make some foundational brand decisions. Define a mission, stack rank target audiences along with the value you provide. List your competitive differences, identify and acknowledge the category of the market you play in.
3. Evaluate and Evolve
One last step you can use is to evaluate and evolve the brand moving forward. As you bring on customers ask for feedback and listen to their feedback. Just because they say something you may not like or agree with, it may actually be useful to your business in the future. Ask you r customers some things like
- How do they view you?
- What do they think you’re good/bad at?
- Who do they compare you to?
- What value do they get from your product?
Asking key questions like this can help you adjust and make the experience for the customer better in the long run bringing you in more customers.
Hopefully you have learned a few key ways to help brand your company early on and use these techniques to make your business thrive and become more successful than you had ever imagined!