3 Simple Secrets to Branding Your Business in Record Time

Your business has been in operation for some time, and now you’re ready for an official launch, complete with logo, for your publicity materials. Somehow, conjuring up a single image to represent your company seems like a weighty task. You ponder hiring a marketing firm to handle your branding, but their processes seem so involved. Yet you’re not really sure how to get started by taking a stab at it on your own.

But guess what? A few simple secrets will aid you to get your branding off the ground without much ado.

Below are three keys to get going on a brand for your business. We focus here on the central aspect of branding – the logo – but the keys apply to easing the branding process across the board.

1. Steer clear of the perfection mindset.

Sometimes branding takes forever because you feel pressure to have your design be perfect, and it doesn’t feel that way to you yet. So you try again, and again, and again…

Stop. Don’t even go there.

Keep branding in its place – your goal is to get your business going, not to wait for the so-called perfect image. One reason for this is that perfection is an elusive goal. If you wait for perfection, you’ll wait for nothing.

The second – more important – reason is that your branding is meant to grow with your business. While you want to start out on the right foot, be aware that your present choice is not set for eternity. Instead of thinking of branding as a be-all-and-end-all, approach branding as one piece of your overall business plan. It’s a key element, but one that is malleable.

2. Brainstorm from the heart.

Another reason branding takes longer than it should is because it “still doesn’t feel right”… but you never concretely defined how it should feel. Save yourself heartache: Define the feeling first.

Ask this one question: If my products or services could provide one feeling to customers, what would it be? First, ask the question of as many people in your target audience as you can in order to gain an honest grasp of the feelings they’d like to have from your offerings. Then, come up with an image or font to represent that feeling. You want to appeal to the heart and soul, via a simple image or font.

3. Choose one image for the graphic designer.

The third reason the branding process feels overwhelming is because you’re trying to get lots of concepts into one logo. So you tell your graphics person that you want this image, and that image, and maybe get a third one in also… Or you bounce around from one to the other, asking them to design logos with each to see what looks better.

Graphics people are digital artists, not marketers. You’ll get better results if you have them focus fully on one idea and getting maximum potential out of it. After you’ve had a few brainstorm rounds, for crying out loud, force yourself to just. choose. one. image. This will not only help you hone in on what you feel really matters about your message, but will ease your process with the graphic designer.

You see? Branding doesn’t have to be such an intricate, drawn-out process. By focusing away from perfection, brainstorming from the heart, and choosing only one image, you’re on your way to simple branding. By following this straight-forward path, we hope your branding upgrade will be as easy a process as possible.

Submitted by Chaya Leah