What Is Corporate Branding and How Is It Done?

Nowadays people no longer want to purchase from businesses. They want to buy from people. This is where corporate branding steps in to showcase what your business stands for as well as your personal, human side. So, what is corporate branding? How does it work and how can you build your own corporate brand identity?

What is Corporate Branding?

First of all, your brand identity is supposed to showcase your mission and reflect what your business stands for. When customers think of your business this is the first thing that will come to their mind.

Your brand identity reflects what you stand for as a business, your mission, and who you serve. In short, it’s the brand image that comes to people’s minds when they think of you.

However, you need to remember that your corporate identity is a lot more than just your logo. You also need to showcase your visual identity, messaging, and brand voice. The end goal of building an efficient and authentic brand identity is delivering an outstanding customer experience.

Let’s quickly examine the three most important factors that essentially form a backbone of a successful corporate branding:

1.      Corporate branding requires planning

To create an efficient corporate brand identity, you need to do some quality planning. Your logo needs to be so much more than just a combination of colours, fonts, shapes, and a brand voice. Your logo needs to align with what your brand stands for and showcase that in an efficient way. For example, if your brand is all about minimalism and clean looks your brand logo should reflect that. You can use minimal amount of colours, maybe go for soft pastel shades and incorporate minimal text.

2.      Consistency is the key

After creating a brand logo that represents you and your company, you need to stay consistent with the message you are providing. If you produce vegan and cruelty friendly makeup and skincare products, you can’t just switch that overnight. People who have been loyal customers of yours from the beginning are probably here for the message you’re sending and because they share the same value and belief system. If you make drastic changes like that overnight, you’re going to lose a lot of customers.

3.      It’s not about you, it’s about your target audience

You also need to keep in mind that your target audience is the most important factor. After all, you are doing all of this to provide some kind of a service or a set of products that other people will purchase. So, you need to think about what your customers like and want to see, not what you would prefer.

How to Build a Corporate Brand Identity

Now that we have covered the basics of what corporate branding is and why it’s important, we should examine some of the crucial steps you need to take if you want to build a successful corporate brand identity.

Step 1: Outline your company’s mission, values and objectives

The first and most important step is about outlining your company’s values, objectives, and mission. Your employees need to know exactly what you’re doing this for. So, you need to start by getting everyone on the same page. Every successful corporate branding starts with a clear vision.

What does your business stand for? What kind of service do you plan to provide? What kind of communication do you plan to establish with your regular customers?

 Step 2: Define your target audience

The next thing you need to do is to define your target audience. You need to know exactly who you’re marketing your products and service towards. This will ultimately help you come up with the best possible marketing strategies for your business. Based on your target audience you will know what social media platform to use in order to reach out as many people as possible. It will also allow you to better understand your customers’ shopping habits and so on.

Step 3: Conduct a brand audit

Lastly, review what you’ve come up with so far. The more thorough your research is, the more prepared you are. Try to observe the trends but stay authentic as much as you can.

Conclusion

All things considered, if you follow these steps and pay close attention to what your customers want, your corporate branding will be on point. Just try to convey your message as best as you can and stay true to your loyal customers.