Are you building a business or a brand? You might not be able to answer that until you wrap your head around the difference between the two.

A business is an organization that sells a thing, whether that’s a product or service.

A brand is the perception of your business in your community and to the people you serve. It’s the feeling someone gets when they think about you.

As you might imagine, building a business is a far more straightforward endeavor than building a brand. Developing a thing is easier than developing a feeling. But there are steps you can take to create a holistic, cohesive brand image and set your business up for success as both a company and a brand.

What is a brand?

A brand is your business’s identity.

If I asked you who you are, you might tell me where you’re from, what you do for work, who your family is, or what you like to do for fun. You might also tell me some of the roles you hold, like sister, dog mom, daughter, business owner, artist, athlete, or comedian.

But in addition to what you tell me, I’d also form a picture of who you are based on other clues, like how you carry yourself, the way you speak, the clothes you wear, the words you say, and the body language you use. I could then take all of those inputs and begin to form a picture of you, and based on our interactions, I might start to feel some kind of way about you.

Maybe I’d feel warm and welcoming since we bonded over a shared love of dogs, or maybe I would feel a little put off by the fact that you’re a Steelers fan. (Just kidding…or am I?)

A brand is all these things about your business that trigger a feeling in your consumers.

It’s the way you show up in the digital space, your logo, your colors, your font, and the way you show up in a physical space if you have a brick-and-mortar location. It’s the things you say about your company, whether that’s your brand story on your About page or your company’s tagline that’s splashed across your home page.

Part of your company’s brand is also the emotional connection people form with your product or service; how do they talk about you on other channels? What words are commonly used in reviews or social media posts and comments?

Big Bad To-Do: Take a few minutes to see how people are talking about you online, and then see if you feel good about what they’re saying. If yes, keep reading. If not, keep reading. 😀

Diving into brands and how they make you feel

Let’s play a game. I’ll list the name of a well-known brand and you read it out loud and take note of the gut instinct you have.

Trader Joe’s
JP Morgan
Dollar Tree
Vanguard
Chewy
Amazon
Walmart

What feelings came up for you reading each of those brands? Were you overly positive or negative? Did anything surprise you about the gut feeling?

Now think about your own company. What are some of the emotions you want people to feel when they hear or see the name of your business?

In the next few sections, we’ll talk through the key aspects of your brand and actionable ways you can change the perception of your company in the market.

But before we do, allow us a second to plug our annual marketing calendar. It’s a handy, FREE template you can use to wrap your head around your entire year of marketing efforts that’s going to help you get that consistent brand you’re after. Go ahead, just plop in your email below, and you’re on your way to greatness.

Key aspects of a brand

A brand can largely be broken down into tangible elements (things you see) and intangible elements (things you can’t see).

Tangible elements

Name: Your name should be easy to say and easy to spell. For a great book on naming, check out “Hello, My Name Is Awesome: How to Create Brand Names That Stick” by Alexandra Watkins. She talks through the importance of naming your company well and avoiding some of the common mistakes businesses make with naming, like spelling stuff absurdly, i.e. calling your dog grooming company Dawgs Git Gruummed.
Tagline: The tagline supports your name and provides a succinct description of what you do in a way that’s easy to understand. If you are the proud owner of Dawgs Git Gruummed, your tagline might be “Mobile dog grooming for large breeds.” Ensure your tagline is no more than 7ish words and expresses what you do without question.
Logo: Your business logo is a visual representation of what you do. It can be words or an image, but whatever you do, make it easy to read and understand. In the case of our mobile dog grooming business, make sure it’s something easily recognizable as being related to dogs, like a leash or bone. Don’t use flowers or trees or other animals that have nothing to do with your business.
Colors: Your brand colors can be any that you want, but be sure they work together, and they’re relevant to what your business does. A pool company might opt for aqua blues, while a landscaper might use green. Of course, you can think outside the box when it comes to colors, but whatever you choose, make it make sense and ensure it’s consistent across everything you do, from your logo to your business card to your website to your merch.
Fonts: Your font is a subtle way to tell about your brand. Bubbly fonts might be best for a business that’s more relaxed, while a CPA might stick to a serif font like Times New Roman. Serif fonts are the ones with little lines on the end of letters that look more stuffy. This here is a sans serif (meaning without the serif) so it looks more cool and fun and relaxed, like us, right? There are approximately 7 billion fonts that exist, so don’t take too much time; look for one that feels like you and go with it.
Voice/tone: Your brand voice is the words you use, and the tone is how you say things. For example, if you want a more professional voice and tone, you might use an email greeting like “Good Morning, Client A, ” while a brand looking for a more fun, casual, and light voice and tone would say something like “Morning, friend!”. Your tone can change based on circumstances (even the funniest brands need to be serious sometimes, like when talking about legal stuff), but your voice and your perspective rarely will.
Packaging: If you ship physical products, packaging is part of your brand. You might want to choose packaging that uses your logo colors or fits your overall image, whether that’s simplicity, sustainability, or otherwise.

Intangibles

Identity (mission, vision, core values): Your mission, vision, and values are the foundations of your brand, but you’re rarely going to speak about them directly. Instead, they provide the base for everything you do. For example, if your health company is on a mission to help introduce 1,000,000 people to fitness, that becomes the guiding light for every decision you make. But you may not say it out loud every day, like you will, with your name and tagline. Similarly, your vision is the long-term outlook for where you’re headed in the next few years. Your values are what you build your team on. For example, a value might be accountability. But how that plays out within your organization is that people stand up and admit when they’ve made a mistake, and instead of judging them or punishing them, leadership appreciates the accountability and helps resolve the issue.
Reputation: Like your personal reputation, your brand reputation takes time to build and very little time to destroy. Your reputation will come from your community, which includes customers, suppliers, vendors, prospects, and employees. Lucky for you, we’ve done an entire episode and blog post on managing your digital reputation (available Feb 17th). You’re welcome.

How to make it all consistent

The best way to ensure consistency in your brand is to do the foundational work upfront. Think about your tangibles and intangibles. Is the way you talk about your brand what you see reflected in the colors, fonts, and graphics you’ve chosen? If not, what do you need to do to create a cohesive experience?

Think about the holistic user journey, from the various ways people first hear about you until they’re customers for life. Is the message they get in physical mailers the same message they get when they see you on social media? (The presentation may differ depending on the platform you use, but the message itself is the same.)

That was a lot; I get that it can feel overwhelming since there are literally so many aspects of your brand. But as we take a beat to think about companies that do it well, it might help you think through building your own brand.

Amazon is a company that comes to mind as having a cohesive brand experience. Finding items is easy, and they have every product you can imagine or darn close to. Because it’s easy to find things, it should track that it’s also easy to buy, which it is. You get what you order in a flash. Then, if you need to return something that’s also simple, you’re given 4-to 5 different ways to make the return based on what’s most convenient for you. After purchase, you’ll get personalized emails with recommendations that, at least in my experience, are spot on for what you might want next.

But for real, we all know that “just Amazoned” feeling.

It becomes very obvious that from end to end, Amazon has thought deeply about how to make the customer experience insanely easy. Have you thought through what that looks like for your business? If your brand is sustainable and environmentally conscious, does that reflect in everything you do, from how you create and package your products to the way you manage your website? If not, what can you do to ensure brand consistency across the entire journey?

Adapting and evolving as you grow

Your brand grows as you grow, and there may be times that call for a major brand refresh. Say you start as a mobile dog groomer for large breeds and decide your passion is really in dog training. You might do a brand refresh complete with a new name, logo, and colors and take on a more professional mission, voice, and vision as you project a brand that is the expert on wrangling seemingly uncontrollable mutts.

No matter if you’re tossing around ideas for a business or hiring your 5th or 500th employee, it’s never a bad time to sit back and think about how your brand is being perceived in the market. Ask your customers and prospective customers what they think of your brand, and then use that feedback to create the brand identity you desire.

And if you need help, holla at Big Bad Marketing for guidance or schedule a free 15-minute consultation so we can discuss all things branding.

What Goes Into Building a Brand?