Guide to Branding: Create an Identity for Your Business

Branding is a buzz word. I don't like using it, but I don't really think there's a better word to describe what I'm talking about here. What exactly is branding all about? Simple: your "brand" is the look and feel of your business, instantly identifiable and easily recognizable. It goes beyond your business card. It goes further than your letterhead and website, too, though those should tie into the overall brand.

A good, strong brand is just as important and beneficial for the part-time crafter as it is for the full-time self-employed entrepreneur. A good brand makes it easy for customers to remember you, to recognize your products and services at a glance, and it goes even further in that it helps create an "atmosphere", a feeling, that surrounds your work.

Creating a good brand is much more than getting a good logo and slapping it on all of your communications. What's involved? What should you have, and how or where do you get them? That's what we're going to work out in this guide.

Branding Elements

When developing a brand for a business, it's essential to start from scratch. If you have a logo already made that you just can't bear to leave behind, drag it along with you but toss everything else out. Forget your preconceptions about what makes your business letterhead beautiful, or your business cards great. All of that needs to be left behind so you can start with a clean slate and develop something exciting and perfect.

Now that you've done a mental shrug and left the old behind, let's dig into the new. There are several key elements that should be included in any brand "package", and several more that you may or may not need depending on the type of business you run.

The Universal Key Elements

* Stationary: A great piece of letterhead and matching envelopes is necessary. Even if your business doesn't do a lot of written communication, there will come a time that you will - and you need to be prepared.
* Shipping/Mailing Labels: Same as above. You might not think that you need them, but you will sooner or later, and you want them to match your overall look and feel.
* Business Cards: These are usually the first thing any business gets; your business cards need to be as carefully themed with your brand as every other piece you create.
* Advertising Materials: Everything you use for advertising from post cards to fliers to brochures need to work with your brand as well.

The "Optional" Elements

* Packing Slips: If you know you'll be doing a lot of shipping, create packing slips along with the rest of your "brand" package. This reduces any problems later on.
* Gift Certificates: Any business can profit from a gift certificate program. Make sure that your design falls in line.
* Packaging: When you sell products, you'll want every single piece of packaging and labeling to match your brand.
* Uniforms: Service industries almost have to have a standard uniform. Whether it goes no further than a standard color scheme (black slacks, black shoes, and a short sleeve red shirt, for example) or includes screen-printed or embroidered work shirts, these need to be considered during your branding phase.

Choosing a Brand

Often, people find this step to be the most difficult - and not without good reason. Choosing your brand can be a nerve-wracking process because you know that the second you begin work on it, it's not going to be easy to go back and start all over again.

To ease the process, break this step down into a series of smaller ones:

1. Locate a Graphic: Your graphic will be the foundation of your brand. It can be a ready-to-go logo or an illustration that you think is perfect for your logo. The idea is that once you locate the perfect graphic that you feel represents your products and/or services best, you also have the beginnings of a color scheme and are already expressing a basic "atmosphere" through the style of graphic you've chosen.

Resources: www.stockxpert.com, www.shutterstock.com, www.bigstockphoto.com

2. Choose the Basics: With your graphic chosen, you can create a formal color scheme (use colors present in your graphic or that are complimentary to those colors and record their hex # on paper so that they are easy to reference), choose your official font(s), and finalize your logo.

Resources: http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html, www.dafont.com, www.logoworks.com

3. Note the Needs: Next, you'll need to decide exactly which elements you'll need to include in your branding effort. Make a list that includes your stationary, business cards, specific advertising materials, uniforms, etc.

Take notes beside each entry with ideas on how you think this could be handled most effectively. If your final logo is a sophisticated mix of navy blue, black, and orange, you might decide that instead of paying for "official" uniforms you'll require your employees to wear navy blue shirts and black slacks. Just remember that these decisions work directly into the atmosphere of the brand you're creating. Picture the difference between the navy blue shirts and black slacks uniform and an "official" uniform that includes navy blue denim jeans, an orange shirt screen-printed with the logo and company name, and a black hat. Every decision counts.

4. Make Decisions: Now that you've done all this background work, it's time to type up and print an official "to do" list and a sheet of "standards" that you'll follow. It really is important to type and print these two pieces - for whatever reason, we place more weight on things that have been printed ... even if we're the ones that printed them.

The to-do list should contain step-by-step directions to yourself (and anyone helping you) about what things need to be created. Stationary needs to be designed and printed, business cards finalized, and uniforms purchased or the regulations made understood by employees.

Your sheet of standards can contain a lot of things. What you want on it are things like the official color scheme, font, and logo you've developed, the precise uniform you've chosen, quotes that you feel should or do drive your business, etc. This sheet is your first real step in creating an atmosphere - a culture - behind your brand.

Finalizing a Brand

At this point, you've done a lot of work and should be very proud of yourself. Most people will never get this far. Sad, but true. They will never undertake the steps, and they will never develop a brand. Their business then comes to lack a cohesive culture, a feel that is stated in the logo and materials as well as the way that employees interact with customers - and with each other.

So pat yourself on the back. You've done something a good 80% of everyone else reading this guide will never do.

Now, finish up your work. There's not much left for you to do, except turn your ideas and creations over to printers. You'll want to go through your to-do list and have every paper material printed in a quantity that will last you (reasonably) at least one year, spruce up your website (if you have one) with the new logo, color scheme, and fonts, and you'll need to make sure that anyone who works with or for you is aware of your changes and understands what they mean for your business.

Make sure you look into your brand every two or three years and decide if it's still doing everything for you that it could or should be doing. You may need to update small details, but if you've gotten this far, you'll never have to start from scratch again.