5 Things Every Brand Needs Now (And Not One Is A Logo) by @brandisnotalogo

by Melissa Packham | Featured Contributor 

When you’re starting your new business it’s all new and exciting! So, it’s no wonder one of the first things you want to do is get a logo designed so you can SEE your brand right there in front of you. Well, I don’t want to burst your bubble or anything, but your brand is a whole lot more than that one element.

Here are 5 other things to consider about your brand – which may actually change the way you think about your logo.

1. Your Brand Purpose

As is the norm for anyone after one too many wines, getting all existential and questioning your reason for being is part of the whole branding deal too. Brand purpose acts as the guiding light for your business – what is it you are here to do every day? What’s the reason your brand (imagining it’s a person) gets out of bed every morning?

Saying your brand is purpose-driven and actually being purpose-driven is another. For a purpose to have any meaning it has to be true and it has to permeate through every fibre of your business. Decision-making for your business becomes a whole lot easier when you check it against the criteria of your brand. Asking yourself whether something is aligned with your mission, and whether it elevates or detracts from your brand is a great way to ensure you’re always being guided by that all-important light.

2. Your Brand Personality

Like people, brands have personalities too. Great brands have personalities that attract and keep exactly who they’re looking for.

These great brands connect well because people want to buy from people. The more human-like attributes you can build into your brand, the stronger the ability for someone to connect with it.

You can do this at a basic level by describing your brand’s traits as if it were a person using 3 – 5 words. Questions to ask yourself to help get these down:

• Is your brand light-hearted or serious?
• Is your brand nurturing, warm and fuzzy or transactional, blunt and to the point?
• Which character from a movie or novel, or celebrity reminds you of your brand?

3. Your Brand Promise

How many times have you’ve experienced a brand that didn’t deliver on its promise?

• The upmarket lingerie brand whose product gets delivered in a busted-up package.
• The chain fast food outlet whose burger looks like someone sat on it when you unwrap it.
• The very expensive business coach who delivers a less than “WOW!” service, then tries to sell you more.

How do those experiences make you feel about that brand?

Not super great, huh?

When you’re building your brand, think about the promise you make to your audience and how you intend to deliver on that promise through every interaction with your customer (or better yet, work out how you will over-deliver on that promise) every. single. time.

4. Your Value Proposition

This is all about the value you offer your customer and how that is unique to your competitors. It’s linked to your brand purpose, promise and your capabilities. It’s that pièce de résistance that makes your brand that will make people stand up and take notice, and keep coming back again and again.

A great structure to use for this is:

We help [who your target audience is]

Do / achieve / be [what your core benefit is]

By [doing what it is that you do + how you do it that is special].

You can adapt this into copy on your website and marketing collateral, use it as a cracking elevator pitch or shout it from the rooftops – whatever floats your boat. It just needs to be believable and resonate with your audience.

5. Your Brand Voice

There’s a lot of talk about ‘finding your voice’, but it can be hard to pin down exactly what that means. Once you have an idea of your brand personality, your promise and your purpose, it makes it that much easier to define your brand’s tone of voice, because these provide great context.

Think about how your brand (as a person) would “speak” (in all forms of communication – video, written, social media, etc.), when delivering their promise and working to their mission. Here are some word groups to help get you started on describing your tone:

•           Light, fun, fluffy, friendly
•           Bold, frank, brash, angry, serious
•           Quirky, witty, dry
•           Feminine, masculine, neutral

Getting these simple but oh-so-important elements of your brand in place before you engage a designer to work on your logo and style guide will not only help them do their job better (because each of the above elements should be important for them too) but will result in an overall better result for you.

Imagine the meaningful impact your brand can have now! Right, now where’s that wine…. I feel like contemplating my existence 😉🍷

Melissa Packham

I’m a brand strategist and marketer with 12 years’ experience managing some of Australia’s best-loved consumer brands. I help startups, entrepreneurs and established SME businesses shape their brand strategies from the ground up – because your brand is sooo much more than your logo. And it all begins with strategy, not design.

Since becoming location-independent corporate refugee in 2016, I’ve travelled the world and helped build brands for new and established businesses across Europe, the UK and Australia.

When I’m not being a passionate advocate for my clients’ brands, you can find me quaffing craft beer, raiding a stationery shop for more pens and notebooks I don’t need, or not-so-secretly dancing to 80s music. Don’t be shy: connect with me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter or at www.abrandisnotalogo.com.