10 tips to brand like a boss

Ryan Mark Smith from LivePrint, Salt Rock has made branding his business and gave us ten tips to perfect your branding in 2017.

“People often get confused about what branding is.

“It is not just flyers or advertising – it is a journey to develop your business’ image.

“This requires a solid foundation with continuous tweaking to make sure you are up to date,” said Smith.

1. Logo design
Use professional graphic designers to help you with your logo. Comic Sans and similar fonts do not cut it anymore. Get in touch with one of the great graphic designers in Ballito or try freelancer.com

2. Be unique and be you
Think about what makes your business unique and run with that. Do not mimic other brands. An example of being unique is Apple’s relaunch called “think different”. It is immediately catchy, because it is not strictly correct English, but it works and it stands for what they are – different, forward thinking and unique.

3. Grow your community/tribe
Social media is a must, but choose carefully which platforms you want to use and focus on those. Start with Facebook and Instagram for example and make them great instead of going for all social media platforms and doing them badly. Create brand loyalty amoung your tribe and aim for a long term relationship with your customer base.

4. Know your brand’s personality
Live your brand personality in everything you do. If you are going to be witty, stick to that. Nando’s for example always have humour in their branding and it works. Know what values your brand stands for and make sure everyone and everything connected to your business lives those values and share your brand’s personality.

5. Brand position
Decide whether you are going to be quality or price driven and stay with that. This will determine what customers think about your company in relation to your competitors.

6. Be flexible
Today quick reactions are key. Companies that can adapt, update their technology and keep up with all the fast pace changes in the world today will be the ones who win. For example, Nokia was one of the top nine most valuable brands in the world, but they did not keep up, missed the train and look where they are today.

7. Connecting
Create a great website. Get assistance with this. Remember very often people will turn to your website for more info on your company and if they do not like what they see, they move on. Websites need to look fresh, updated, be easy to use and be informative. Make sure your email address is professional. Do not use a gmail address unless you pay to have your domain.

8. Quality print media
Woolworths is the perfect example of a company that takes pride in their print media. Make sure your print media does not look cheap, so don’t go for unprofessional printers or the cheapest option when it comes to paper and so on. If it looks good, people will like it.

9. Advertising
Focus on your market, so advertise in your local paper rather than in a much more expensive national paper. Digital advertising is a must to boost your online presence.

10. Create a great customer experience
You might think that this is not part of branding, but making sure that your customer is happy is key to making your brand popular and ensure brand loyalty.