Creating a Brand Strategy: How to Stand out From Competitors

If you typed a query in the search box and that led you to this article, then there is every likelihood that you have a new idea for a startup or maybe you have already started working it. Most likely, it is keeping you up nights and that is not strange, because the beginning of the business process is one of the most difficult stages to pass through. You have to do a lot of work and one of the most important tasks right now - the creation of corporate identity.

You have likely heard such terms as corporate identity, brand, and logo, and may have mistakenly considered them as synonyms of each other. In this case, let's connect A to B.

A brand is an emotion, attitude, memory, and expectation associated with a personal or shared experience of using a product or service. These things appear after we distinguish a unique image of the company apart from many others.

Corporate identity is a set of graphic elements agreed in a single style, the main task of which is to promote by creating a unique and memorable image of the company. This is the color scheme, the font style, and the “look” of the company that makes it recognizable right away.

The logo is the main visual element. Among its functions, we can point out the identification of the company, its memorability through high-quality icons, and distinctiveness from competitors. The logo is a major element used to develop the entire corporate identity.

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[tweet_box]How to create a #brand #strategy. #Guide + #graphics [/tweet_box]

Create your own brand positioning strategy

No doubt that creating a brand is a necessary thing, but it is equally important to objectively assess how effective it is. To keep the ears open and the attention on your business you need to conduct a thorough analysis.

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Step 1. Determine the current brand positioning

“If you want to determine the current position of your brand, start with yourself.” It's a pity a proverb like this doesn't still exist. However, now it seems to be very reasonable. Before creating polls for customers and the target audience, or doing a Google search of the larger companies' secrets to success, and monitoring competitors, ask yourself a few questions:

• What is your category of goods and services?
• How can they be useful to the client?
• What can you do to attract a client?
• What are the benefits of working with you?
• Who is your target audience? (Gender, age, occupation, etc.)

A number of issues that contribute to the analysis of the brand help to determine the future direction of development.

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Step 2. Who are your competitors?

Competitors are not just companies that sell the same product as you. Among them, there are those who do not occupy your niche, but fill their blogs with similar content and are in the same search result with “your” keywords. This distracts the attention of your potential customers and the competition for position can push you out of the top search results. Thus you should distinguish between your direct and indirect competitors. Both of them are dangerous because they make it difficult to convert your target audience into customers. So, start revealing the competitors. Performing a market analysis, collecting client feedback, and investigation discussion forums can help.

Market analysis.
Analyze the market for the presence of competitors using keywords in the search box, keeping an eye on things, and asking your business team which competitors they have interacted with in the work process.

Client feedback.
Use your chats and social media pages as a tool to communicate with customers and ask them about whose products/services in your niche they have used before meeting you or are still using.

Discussion forums.

Using your primary keywords, find forums with discussions about who provides similar services or products to yours. Then, try to learn about these companies in more detail.

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Step 3. Undertake a study of competitors

Figure out your competitors - this is only half the battle; the second one is to analyze their activities. If getting in the middle of anything is considered immoral, in marketing - it is part of the business strategy, without which it is difficult to assess any positions in the market. So without confusion look for answers to these questions:

• What do your competitors offer?
• What are their advantages and disadvantages?
• What strategies do they use and how successful are they?
• What is their market position?

The analysis of competitors will help to bypass a rake, to find inspiration, and to estimate yourself.

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Step 4. What makes your brand unique?

Once you see certain consistency about your competitors, ask yourself: How do you differentiate yourself from them? Do you have any original and strong points? What new can you offer? Having established this, you will be able to place accents and create your own unique winning value proposition. But do not turn your strategy into a competition. Otherwise, you risk losing your identity. Logical analysis and a couple of objective conclusions will be enough.

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Step 5. A way to make your voice heard in the world

Ordinary white sneakers often tell us only that they quickly get dirty. The same white sneakers, but with three stripes on the tongue tell us: “These shoes will serve for a long time...Dudes will check them out...They are comfortable and of high quality.” For products with a recognizable logo, there are even fewer claims and there is no doubt about quality. And just a small graphic sign can convince us to give priority to certain products or services. Therefore, it is not necessary to boil down the importance of logo design. This is especially true nowadays when there are many online services to help you create a corporate identity, such Logaster.

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Start creating your company's logo

Select the style of the logo

The style of the logo depends on the overall style of your company. What industry are you in? What products do you offer? If it is an activewear store, the classics would look out of place. But it will play in a particularly favorable light; as an example, for a jewelry store. Make a portrait of your target audience and focus on its general tastes.

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Pick the fonts

Fonts for the name and slogan can both emphasize and spoil the appearance of the logo. Therefore it is necessary to study typography with all its "must have" and "no way" options. It is also important not to use more than three different fonts on the same logo.

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Define the color scheme palette

Choosing the color for a logo is a whole science that you need to study before starting the process of developing your own brand. Relying only on personal tastes and intuition makes no sense. After all, according to statistics, most people love the color blue. If you are one of them, and you also possess a delicious fast food cafe, then according to this logic, use a blue color in your logo. Sadly, blue colors have the ability to spoil the appetite.

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Try the logo on the elements of corporate identity

Rate your logo on the elements of corporate identity: favicon, business cards, letterhead, envelopes, banners, office supplies, clothing, etc. Also, do not forget to check it as an element in the design of the website and social media pages. Perhaps in some cases, you will need to simplify your logo or vice versa to add more details. Test if it is attractive and comprehensible in all sizes and formats.

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How to create a logo online

There are really a lot of ways to create a logo, but the most accessible is the use of online services. And now we will examine the step-by-step process of creating a logo using the example of online service provider, Logaster.

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Step 1. You need to fill in the field “Сompany name” and click “Create logo” to start your logo creation.

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Step 2. The generator will provide a lot of ready-made layouts. To narrow them down you need to select the industry and color scheme (if you want, add a slogan) and click “Create”.

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Step 3. The best options can be marked with a heart when you choose the final one-click “View and download” to download it. At this point, you can also see how the logo will look as a favicon, printed on business documents, etc.

1. If you are satisfied: scroll down and click “Download”.
2. If edits are needed: click on the pencil in the right block. In the editor, you can change the text, colors, icon - in a word, completely transform the original version. After editing, click “Save” in the upper right corner.

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Step 4. The service will offer you the option to register in order to not lose your job. You can share your design with friends or just take a break from the creative process, and then come back to your personal account with all your created designs.

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Step 5. After saving the logo, read the standard tariff plan. You can always upgrade it by clicking "change plan" if needed. Learn the pricing policy of the service. For example, a small logo can be downloaded for free. Select the kit you need and click buy.

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Step 6. Make a payment with PayPal, WebMoney, credit or debit card, etc.

The result of this simple sequence of actions is a high-resolution logo. This is what you can love online services for, in particular, Logaster. There are other ways to create a logo: designers, design agencies, graphics editors. In this case, you definitely need to invest either a relatively impressive amount of money, or a lot of time, but no one will guarantee a perfect logo. The choice is obvious, but everyone has his own preferences.

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