There’s a lot that is confusing about branding a new business. This is especially true if you’re a first-time entrepreneur.

For instance, you’ve probably spent many hours reading through tons and tons of content that tell you about branding your business, but none of them have actually told you what to do. Why does it have to be so hard to get actionable, practical guidance on branding your company?

It doesn’t.

That’s why I decided to write this series blog posts. Honestly, since I’m starting a new business myself, I could use some actionable guidance. So researching this posting will help give me practical steps I can take to brand Artisan Owl Media.

The good news for you is this: you won’t have to do all the research! I’m doing it all for you. This series should give us some practical steps to follow in order to start branding our businesses effectively. No please, no need to thank me. If this post helps you, just share it!

Defining your Brand

Whether you are branding a service, product, or a person, you need to effectively define the brand you intend to build. The way you define your brand will dictate the way you manage it. If you take a look at all of the major brands, you can see that they are very clearly defined. You know exactly what they offer, what they represent, and how they are different.

Here are some examples:

• Nike: They sell shoes and other sportswear. They represent excellent athletic performance.
• Papa John’s Pizza: They sell pizza. They represent a higher quality pizza.
• Apple: They sell electronics. They represent innovation, ingenuity, and high quality devices.

Successful branding means setting yourself apart from your competition. There are a few things you will need to do to effectively brand your business.

Differentiate your Business

In order to differentiate yourself from your competition, you will have to figure out what makes your company different. What would make a consumer choose your business over another? Your business may do a lot of the same things as your competition, but you need to provide a benefit that is unique to your company. This is what’s known as the Unique Selling Proposition (USP).

Here are some key factors to consider when determining your USP:

• It must be a benefit that other companies don’t provide.
• It must be something that can genuinely benefit your customer.
• You must be able to show that it can benefit your customer.

Differentiating yourself means not being another “me too” business. Do you give the customer something extra? Do you do what other companies do more effectively? Are you more affordable? Are you more fun to work with?

What main benefit does your company provide and why do you do it better? Answering these questions will help you set your business apart from the others.

Present a Concise, Easy to Understand Message

Now that you have figured out what your USP is, you will need to figure out the most effective way to communicate it to your audience. You will have to create a message that is easy to understand, but impactful. A large part of defining your brand is brand messaging; learning how to communicate your company’s USP in a way that sticks in your customer’s mind.

To make things more challenging, you have to make sure your message is as focused as possible. You need to brand your business as one thing. Not several. Adam Kleinberg, Co-Founder of Traction wrote the following in an article for Entrepreneur:

“In the mind of the customer, you get to be one thing. One. That matters because the customer’s mind is where your brand lives. Not in your headquarters. Not on your website. Not in your PowerPoint deck.”

Kleinberg goes on to propose that we subject our “one thing” to a 4-point test that will indicate whether or not the message is going to be effective enough.

Here are the 4 points that your message should meet:

• The message must appeal to both the emotions and rational thinking of the customer. You have to speak to both the heart and the mind.
• The message must be believable. Don’t promise the impossible…unless you can really make it possible!
• The message must be relevant. It must actually relate to the customers you are speaking to.
• The message must be simple. The customer should be able to easily understand what message you’re trying to convey.

A great example of a brand message that fulfills all four of these points is Papa John’s slogan “Better ingredients, better pizza, Papa John’s.”

It appeals to one’s emotions and rational thinking. If one is in the mood for  pizza, they will like the idea that they can get one that is made with better ingredients. It’s a no-brainer.

It’s definitely believable. It makes perfect sense that better ingredients would make a better pizza. The slogan is relevant. It’s tailored towards people who like pizza, which is pretty much everyone.

The slogan is six words long and tells you that Papa John’s uses higher-quality ingredients to make a higher-quality pizza. That’s it. Not hard to understand at all.

Great. Now I’m craving pizza.

Top-Notch Content

The third component in defining your company’s brand is producing high-quality content. Your website isn’t just there for show. It is a vehicle by which your business should be engaging with your audience.

There is one caveat to this though: your content should be designed to provide value to your customer, not sell your product or brag about how incredible your company is.

Customers are self-interested. They aren’t reading your content or approaching your company just to do you a favor. They’re doing it because there’s something in it for them. Use that. You must take every opportunity to provide value. Without pushing your products or service.

The content you produce should be relevant, creative, helpful, and informative. When you craft each piece of content, your objective should be to make your reader better than they were before they read it.

Here are some tips for producing content:

• Make sure the content addresses a particular problem the reader could be having.
• When you produce content, use a more creative approach. Tackle the issue from a point of view that hasn’t been covered yet. The more unique it is, the better.
• Try to make the content as practical is possible. The reader should be able to take the information you provide and easily apply it in their lives.

There you go. Now that you have some practical tips, you can start the process of defining your brand. These are just some of the guidelines you should follow when building a strong and successful brand. If you are successful at defining your brand, you are off to a great start. What other tips for defining a brand have you heard of?

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Keep moving forward.