How does the world perceive your company?
This perception is your brand identity.
You have a brand identity even if you haven’t intentionally designed one. It is built every time a potential customer experiences your company’s name, logo, product, or service quality.
But brand identity is more than just visuals. When someone interacts with your company, they form perceptions and emotional responses based on their experiences.
All these perceptions, whether positive, negative, or neutral, add up to define your brand identity in the marketplace.
We’re all familiar with the brand identities of big companies like Apple, McDonalds, Amazon, and Starbucks. Successful companies carefully and clearly design their brand identities.
You can picture their logos and advertising in your mind. But more importantly, you have an emotional reaction to them—you like them, or you don’t, or you have no real feeling one way or the other.
Your brand identity is the combination of recognizable imagery, the words you use, a certain associated feeling or emotion, and everything else the world perceives of your company.
Even if you are not a big company, you must carefully and clearly design, control, and share your brand identity. It’s what the world thinks of your company’s character.
Character matters.
I’ll fill you in on what it takes to define, design, and share your brand identity.
Let’s begin.
Define Your Brand Identity
Brand definition is the crucial first step in designing and sharing your brand identity. You must define what your company stands for and provides to the community marketplace.
Understand Your Core Values and Mission
Why was you company started? What are its core values? What is its mission? What message do you want to send each time someone sees or interacts with your company’s brand?
If you intend to be trustworthy, high-quality, and reliable, your brand design should reflect these core values.
The important point is that you define these values upfront because you must live up to them, or the marketplace will reject you.
Identify Your Target Audience
Intimately knowing your target audience is the foundation of any business. Without this knowledge, you’re likely to fail.
Your brand must resonate with your audience. Who are your ideal customers? How do they think about the products or services you offer? How can you offer solutions that they’ll buy?
You will design your brand around and for this particular audience.
Define Your Brand’s Personality
If your brand were a person, what personality would it have?
- Professional?
- Playful?
- Innovative?
- Compassionate?
- Wise?
- Helpful?
- Understanding?
Knowing your brand’s personality helps you create a look, voice, and tone that matches your values and character.
Analyze Your Competition
How do your competitors position themselves in the market? What does their brand identity convey?
Now, you can determine how to stand out in the minds of your audience.
Choose Your Visual Elements
Quite a few elements of your brand are visual.
- Logo
- Color scheme
- Typography
- Image use
- Videos
- Layout and graphic design
All these visual elements should reflect your brand’s personality and be designed to be attractive to your audience. They must also be useful—if you’re not helping them solve problems, then they have no need for you.
Develop Your Brand Voice and Messaging
Brand voice means the style and tone of your verbal communication, whether spoken or in writing.
Words matter.
They should align with your brand’s personality, be consistent throughout your company’s communications, and clearly convey your brand’s unique value.
Design Your Brand Identity
Either by yourself or with the help of other professionals, you are well-served to create a brand style guide.
A brand style guide is a document, often a PDF, that defines your brand’s visual, verbal, and all other elements.
It is highly detailed and gives justification and explanations for how and why to use each element.
Most importantly, the use of your brand style guide ensures consistency in how your brand is perceived in every circumstance, location, and medium.
Consistency matters.
Learn more about brand style guides.
Share Your Brand Identity
Once you’ve defined and designed your brand identity, it’s time to implement it across all your communications. It should be part of your website, social media, marketing materials, product packaging, and customer service.
Sharing your branding is your most effective tool for shaping the perceptions of your target audience. Keeping a clear and consistent brand message builds trust and loyalty in your company.
Brand recognition and awareness are also enhanced. A well-designed and widely-shared brand promotes your unique value in the marketplace.
Sharing with Tiiny.host
One way to share your brand is to host marketing, promotional, or other media online using a custom domain name that reflects your image.
Our service, Tiiny.host, makes sharing any file, static website, PDF (like your brand style guide), or presentation as simple as it can get. With our Solo or Pro accounts, you can use your own branded domain name.
Other professional quality features include:
- Customized branding
- Password protection
- Built-in analytics
- Editing mode (don’t need to leave the site to fix something)
- Integrations with Zapier
- Team member collaboration
We even have a free tier on which you can host one project, PDF, or website for free as long as you are on our free account.
Sharing your brand guidelines for free makes them accessible to whoever needs them. Password protection makes them secure.
Visit Tiiny.host today to try us out for free.
All you do is name your website, drag and drop your file, and click the button.
1. 2. 3. That’s it.
It’s the simplest way to host and share your brand identity online.
FAQ: Brand Identity
How do I define my company’s brand identity?
Defining your company’s brand identity involves understanding your core values, mission, target audience, and competitive landscape. It’s about deciding how you want your brand to be perceived and ensuring that all elements of your brand align with that perception.
What are the key components of brand identity?
Key components include your logo, color palette, typography, imagery, brand voice and messaging, packaging, and online presence. Each element should cohesively represent your brand’s personality and values.
How can I design a brand identity that stands out?
To design a standout brand identity, focus on uniqueness, relevance to your target audience, consistency across all platforms, and flexibility to evolve with your brand. Engage with professional designers or agencies if necessary to create a visually compelling and strategically sound identity.
What steps should I take to share my brand identity effectively?
Share your brand identity by consistently applying it across all customer touchpoints, including your website, social media, marketing materials, product packaging, and customer service interactions. Ensure your team understands the brand identity and communicates it effectively.
Can a small business benefit from investing in brand identity?
Absolutely. A well-defined brand identity can level the playing field for small businesses, helping them to stand out, build credibility, and attract their ideal customers even in competitive markets.
