It is often said by many businesses that developing a brand strategy can be one of the most difficult steps in the marketing plan process. I previously talked about the importance of brand and why it should be considered very early on in the business development. After all, once you’ve successfully grounded this major step, your brand identity will be communicated repeatedly throughout the lifetime of your business in more effective ways than one.

It is crucial therefore, to decide on how you want your business to be perceived and experienced in the marketplace as this will have effect on your customers as what is known as emotional impact. Let me flesh that one out a small bit; your customers need to connect with you in an emotional level, whether your brand is associated with excellent customer care or high quality or that extra mile you are willing to take. However, it can also be associated negatively which can stick far longer than any positive aspects in memory. How often has anyone bought a car for example?, not because of the car itself but because the accommodating salesman whose ethos represents that of the company he or she works for. A brand strategy certainly helps connect that experience with their ethos.

Okay, so now that we’ve established that a company’s brand can have significant emotional impact, ‘how do I develop my own one that’s effective long-term?’, you might be asking. You certainly can do that by knowing exactly what your business is all about. What I mean is that you should have a clear ‘manifesto’ that is the source of your objectives and defines your purpose. You, as a business owner, have surely ventured in this business direction because of what you can offer and having a unique way of delivering that.

Leave it to the Pros – if you want to avoid the cons

The next thing you should do is to leave the visual design work to the professionals. If you do not have any graphic design background or any clue about how to use the tools that can achieve it, dabbling is one of the worst things you can do. I’ll tell you at least two reasons; one, your time can be better used in activities that you know best to do and that is your core business. For those who might be hesitant in allocating initial capital on a branding strategy, trust me, you will lose much more if you choose to do it yourself. Focus on your business and the well-designed brand can offset the cost later on and have a great return-on-investment. It will save time and time is money. The second reason is, having a designer can mean having a mirror, a feedback provider that will ask fundamental questions which will compel real answers relevant to your business growth. This kind of exercise can be invaluable in terms of learning which paves way to the evolution of your business. The true value generated from this ‘brainstorming’ environment if you like, comes not in the form of just good visual graphics and ‘slick’ platforms at the end but also gaining a better understanding of the road map to success and of course, high revenues.

Find a good design company

A custom-tailored, branding design will sure to shape not only the visual aspect of your business identity but in that process, achieve far more long-term benefits. Of course, most of what I just said is subject to partnering with not only a competent creative design firm, but a one that has a willingness to learn and one that values their client.

We as a creative design firm, not only will we produce aesthetically and visually pleasing graphics, the development of the brand itself would have undergone extensive research on our part as the designer, we also position ourselves in a consultative role by learning through your business objectives, your target market, what’s effective communication and other unique traits of your chosen business area. A successful partnership therefore, does not end in a project end-date but rather continue to provide strategic services which benefits both parties.