Directions at branding your business are seemingly limitless and may cause the feeling of nausea from not knowing where to look first.
Do not despair, though: We got all the creative branding ideas and actionable tips on how to make them a reality right here!
Before delving into these, we will need to cover some basics: why branding matters to your business, what are the primary aspects of branding…
...and how to figure out your own business purpose by asking yourself the right questions.
After that, it’s onto these unique and sure-to-work tricks of the trade that help establish a long-term brand poised for success!
Table of Contents
12 Creative Branding Ideas For Your Business
1. Find Your Archetype
Psychologist Carl Jung has long ago defined the concept of archetype - specific characters whose collection of traits describe us all during different phases of our lives.
Applying Jungian psychology to branding? Yes, it works - and in fact, the strategy of telling tales featuring these characters (the equivalent of our collective conscious’ manifestations such as folklore tales and myths) is used quite often by brands.
Choosing an archetype, or a character to tell you business tale with, defines who you are.
For instance, Taco Bell plays the role of a jester. Apple is the visionary while Windows is a boy or a girl from the neighborhood. They help create compelling, immersive stories that people can easily identify with.
2. Create A Personalized Concept And Content
Customers embrace brands that make them feel valued for their own unique personalities. If you keep constantly sending the same type of communication to thousands of them, if they’re all addressed the same way, as a collective, they won’t feel appreciated.
Since personalization when dealing with thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands of customers isn’t easy, you need to be very creative about it. Your social media managers should at least try and respond to your target audience in a way that doesn’t reek of sameness. Everyone should be addressed individually.
- Mention their name.
- Acknowledge their unique identity.
- Ask them questions.
- Talk to your audience in a way that makes your business look as humane as possible.
3. Make Your Logo As Good As Possible
Your brand identity visuals are all important. You should employ the services of an experienced logo designer to have a quality, fun, ell-embracing business logo.
It’s the subtle touches like the spark of genius creativity (like the arrow in the FedEx logo) that make a really good logo. So always go for something that is simple and effective.
Recent trends go in favor of minimizing. Try to minimize your logo as much as possible to go with the trends. And anyway, best logos are also the simplest. Just look at Nike!
Not only should your business logo be top-notch - it should also be omnipresent! Don’t be afraid to use it absolutely everywhere! The only way to really sell a product in greater volumes is if they have a logo on that can be recognized by everyone.
4. Perfect Your Social Media Positioning And Strategy
72% of consumers will make a purchase from a brand if they follow that company on Twitter
Social media is the best tool in the world right now for building connections. Not just between individuals - but between brands and customers, as well.
And by connecting, we mean create truly meaningful relationships with your customers. Engage with them. Talk with them. As you would do with your close friends.
The value of social media presence can simply not be overlooked today. Each of these - Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest etc. - have a huge base of users that are your business’ potential customers. By creating a social media page, you can have a marketing channel practically free of charge. Though you can ramp it up a notch by using Facebook ads.
Small budgets and fully customized campaigns on social media sites can build brand awareness steadily.
Also, be wary that you need to choose the RIGHT social media network:
Certain social media sites attract certain demographics. Facebook isn’t the hip, cool thing among teenagers anymore, but then others, older and more discerning groups may sneer at the thought of Snapchat.
When using ads on these, define your customers’ personas. This makes your targeting stand a better chance of being successful and increase engagement and ROI.
5. Embrace Online And Email Marketing And Banner Ads
Most people - and, therefore, businesses - neglect the significance of a good email campaign. This is a mistake. Professional email design - with the proper paragraph payout and images - can be used to deliver all the relevant information straight to people’s inboxes in an eye-catching manner.
There is another great reason why taking to online marketing platforms such as Google Ads is a good idea: keyword research!
On there, you can find keywords related to your niche market that can help you build content with more effectiveness and success.
6. Resort To Brand Influencers
In relation to social media, there are those who are using them and excel at them wildly. Who have thousands if not millions of followers and are making a living out of it. Those people are called influencers.
Among influencers, there are those that create content relating to one specific industry. For example, YouTubers who review cosmetics and make-up products. They are focused on one particular niche - in all likelihood, there must be at least one influencer in your niche, as well.
Try to locate and connect with those individuals and team up with them so you can get more exposure to a huge number of people. This branding strategy works wonders and smaller businesses can become household names in a shorter period of time.
You can easily locate these brand influencers by taking a look at who your followers follow. That may take some time and is an extensive search as it is - but an influencer can expose you to thousands of potential new customers. Just think of the gain!
7. Create Videos
54% of consumers want to see more video content from the brands they like.
As far as multimedia goes, there are two visually appealing ways that grab people’s attention the easiest these days: infographics and - videos!
Videos were always the preferred way of absorbing information by the general public - it takes less effort and goes by much faster than, say, reading an article. However, in the age of smartphones, we are watching videos more than ever before.
Therefore, this medium is a great asset when a business wants to showcase its unique personality. Using targeted videos, aimed at your specific audience, can do a lot for a business.
8. Connect With Your Customers And Ask Them Questions
Every now and then, conduct a survey among your customers and request their opinion on a wider array of subjects that may be of interest to you.
Do it tactfully, thanking them for their time and by making the survey as concise as possible. When you get their feedback, accept both good and bad things they may have to say.
Of course, the first instance of asking the right questions when it comes to an audience is doing the market research. After that, it’s all about getting to know them better: what motivates them, who they are and what they aspire to.
9. Communicate From A Vantage Point Of An Expert
Credibility takes time. Confidence in who you are and what you do may make that time much shorter.
It doesn’t matter if you think you need to know more about a certain area of expertise to be considered an expert. Act like one anyway. Create content that speaks from an authoritative point of view on things that you do and fill up a blog-worth of material with it. We’re not saying that you need to “fake it till you make it”. You WILL learn as you go and you will eventually become all that you strive for. But there’s no sense in modesty in business, big or small.
10. Give Back And Be Socially Responsible
Altruism and humanistic attitude pays back - and even if it doesn’t, it’s the right attitude to have. Audiences respect a brand that donates their profits to a charitable cause or sponsors initiatives that look to improve human lives or help those less fortunate.
This community service is great PR. This greatly enhances the perception of you as a brand in your customers’ eyes AND media outlets begin to sit up and take notice.
Your employees can thus become ambassadors for a brand that is known for its good-doings.
11. Consistency. And Again - Consistency!
Delivering your message, style and voice in a style that’s consistent and reliable is the cornerstone of branding.
When your brand has consistent imagery, design, messaging and values, it facilitates effective communication. There’s no room for ambiguity and second guesses - it’s all out in the open because it’s you. It’s who you are.
Consistency is what helps your customers choose you over all the others. People love this trait because it is akin to habit - another purely human feature that is much loved, because it provides a sense of structure, of order.
The same goes for your brand consistency. It introduces order in a chaotic world.
A handy thing to do is to create a company style guidebook. This is the surest way to make consistency in your brand run smoothly and freely. Because employee structure changes a lot, and your business will often work with different agencies that will need guidance in this area, having a stylebook is the best - nay, the ONLY way of keeping your brand consistent.
12. Be Authentic. Always
As a generally good rule of thumb for life as it is, not just business and brands - authenticity will get you there where you deserve to be.
The road may be long and winding, but it’s a road less traveled and more awarded. Your brand must have these three abilities:
- To be recognized
- To earn loyalty
- To define itself on the market
Align your creative branding ideas with your values, with your own persona, with who you really want to be. Don’t pretend your business and brand are something else if they’re not. Don’t act to luxurious if you’re not. Don’t act too serious if you’re not. Do what YOU do best.
Adopting to your own customers is good - but authenticity gets recognized, and your brand can begin attracting the kind of customers that get your authenticity and that you stand for what you believe in.
Creative Branding Ideas - Why Are They Important?
Branding positions your business and creates (hopefully) a positive perception of it. As most brands fail to live up to expectations and deliver on their promises.
Wouldn’t it be great to be among the 46% that are believed by target audiences?
Branding is about having a distinctive logo, imagination-catching colors, varied marketing approach and the way and tone in which business conveys messages.
Yes, it is all that…
...but it’s also much, much more!
The ultimate objective of good branding is to make people absolutely sure that it is YOU who is providing the exact kind of thing they need.
People form opinions on brands according to what they (brands) say and do, how their close ones perceive them themselves and they think of them, how you gauge their decisions and course of actions. It forms a general basis on whether they will like the brand or not.
The key here, of course, is to take steps (the right branding ideas) that will make people that matter to you the most (your target audience) think of you in the best way possible.
The Primary Characteristics Of A Brand
In order to keep the brand consistent and communicating the unified message, all of its aspects and characteristics must be in tune with one another.
This alignment of six primary characteristics of a brand was first observed by Jean-Noel Kapferer, HEC Paris professor and an expert in brand identity and brand management.
- Physical Facet - the visual manifestation of a brand, such as a logo, colors, a general image that comes to mind of a consumer
- Brand Personality - what personality as perceived by a consumer the brand possesses
- Brand Relationships - the manner in which brand and its audience communicate with each other
- Brand Culture - brand’s values and guiding principles
- Customer Self Image - the way a customer perceives him or herself when using the brand
- Customer Reflection - about consumers who use the brand; how they reflect with it
It will never be quite easy to estimate why your brand matters. There are as many answers to this question as there are individual souls out there! Your brand will mean a different thing to every different people - but that’s just it:
Every customer must feel as if your brand exists just for them!
A good branding position is constituted by the unwavering belief on behalf of your audience that you are helping solve their problems like no one else. That they search for a business that can give them what they need is over and done.
This is something that can be defined only with a thorough corporate introspection (keep on reading for more on this in the next segment), assisted with a branding agency with enough knowledge and experience to help.
Our site can be of great assistance with this, as it hosts expansive directories of branding agencies.
Defining Your Unique Branding Ideas: 5 Questions To Ask Yourself
Businesses with poor company branding pay 10% higher salaries.
Famous astronomer and popularizer of science, Carl Sagan, once allegorically said that in order to create an apple pie from scratch, you first need to create the universe.
Similarly, to really know what steps to take in regard to branding, you first must have a clear vision of who you are. Or rather, what your business and brand are.
Then and only then does it make sense to dig deep into 12 creative branding ideas we have prepared for you.
Consider these questions:
What Does Your Brand Do - And Why?
Paradoxically, the answer to this question seems much clearer when starting out and then it gets muddier over time. Notice the emphasis on present tense - there is no need to dwell on what your brand used to do or what it will do (we’ll ask that later). Try to write down the answers you can think of.
Also - why does it do whatever it is doing? Is it a long-term or a short-term goal? Was it for the revenue or for brand perception and presence? What was the initial plan once you started out?
Who Is It For?
Have you defined your demographics yet? Who are your customers? Are they the RIGHT customers for your business? Also - WHERE are they? What are their habits and what do they like?
Try to identify if your message and values are coming across the right people and what you can do (and are doing already) to appeal to them.
What Problem Does It Solve For People?
The brand is not selling a product - it is selling ethos, said the president of BE Branded Tony Fannin. Ethics can be defined as values common to your audience’s, yes - but in a more broad sense, this ethics caters to people’s needs.
Think of the act of conceiving and creating products as an act of altruism. What do your products or services do to help people? Do they solve a real-life problem? Have you thought about approaching your market from this standpoint of problem-solving at all?
What Does My Brand Stand For?
Answering the above may get you closer to the answer to this piece of introspection. Get your beliefs in check. One major tip for increasing any enterprise’s brand awareness is to live your belief.
Whenever you plan your next step as a company, try to make it consistent with your brand’s ethos. Ask yourself is it in line with your values and beliefs. Knowing exactly what you stand for and sticking to it will shape not only your decisions but the way your brand conducts business.
Where Should My Brand/Business Go?
Reminiscing about why your business exists and what prompted it in the first place should lead to another revelation - where your business and brand should be in the future.
This can be anything from having offices worldwide to becoming an influential power in your own niche. Anything goes - as long as you remember that long-term objectives such as these serve as a driving force for short-term objectives, and vice versa.
So when you are faced with a short-term decision you can always look up to your main objective and ask whether what you’re doing now serves this purpose. Think big!
Takeaways On Generating Your Creative Branding Ideas
Following these 12 creative branding ideas does wonders for any enterprise - and there is evidence enough to provide backing for this claim. As everything evolves - the market, the products, the people’s expectations - so will the philosophy of branding and these tips.
However, some of them are there to stay. Most of these will never become obsolete and will be a staple of any successful branding enterprise.
Knowing about them in one thing - but making them happen is another. There are plenty of amazing branding agencies around that can help you with both coming up with even MORE creative ideas and with implementing them in your business.
Take your time to skim through our colossal register of branding agencies by their expertise, industry or location and your search will be at an end! Best of luck with your branding endeavor!
