Nothing great is ever born out of sheer luck – and a successful brand makes no exception.

Most of the famous companies we have all welcomed into our lives have worked very hard to get where they are, to become a successful brand. In fact, they had ups and downs, they worked on plans that didn’t work out well, they had good times, and they even had times when they almost ran out of business. But through it all, their message, their identity, and everything they stood for stuck with them.

Apple is a very good example here (as it is in most branding lessons). What started off with a great idea soon went downfall when the idea didn’t materialize into reality the way it was initially envisioned. As a result, Steve Jobs himself (founder and CEO of Apple at that time) was fired from the company.

Apple remained the same successful brand, though. Simple, clean, beautiful technology delivered with inspiration, creativity, and forwardness at its fundamental pillars.

There are, of course, many other examples – but most people can relate to Apple because, in many ways, the company’s entire history is a lesson in marketing and branding like never before. We are not debating the quality or the efficiency of the products, of course – but we are bringing forward the greatness of the message behind Apple itself. And if you are ever in doubt that they really made it in terms of branding, just look at their fans and how they line up for hours on an end to get their hands on the newest iPhone, every single time it’s released.

So, how do you get there?

How do you build a successful brand that sticks to the collective memory like Apple does?

We have some tips for you – so read on and find out more.

Understand the Complexity of Building a Successful Brand

To many people, a successful brand is nothing but an image – in the most literal sense of the word. A lot of businesses create a random logo and end all of their branding efforts there.

A genuinely successful brand is much more than that, though.

It’s the way you crave a Coca Cola after a big meal with your friends and/or family.

The same way you instantly think of fitness when you see the Nike swoosh anywhere, with no reference to sports.

It’s the way you, like 59% of the consumers interviewed in a Nielsen study, reach out to products sold by brands you are already familiar with.

A successful brand does not rely solely on the logo, the fonts, or the colors you use for your marketing, regardless of the channel you use. It relies to the underlying message behind it. It’s all of this and much more at the same time.

A brand is an idea, a vibe, a view on your product and on your target audience.

A brand goes beyond words and colors and transcends to reach deep into the souls and minds of the consumers to make them associate your products with positive emotions and experiences.

Your brand is the energy you send out on the market.

Think big when it comes to your brand and its success – this is what all the big entrepreneurs before you did, and this is why they did reach big goals in the end.

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Understand WHO You Are Selling To

This is a step many marketers skip, for some reason.

But in a world filled with products like yours and where you are fighting for the same customers, you need to stand out.

You need to have real conversations with your customers – they are your bread and butter and you need to dedicate time to understanding them, who they are and what they want from you.

Why is that?

Because this is the only way you can create a truly successful brand, one that is completely relatable to them. This is the only way you can create marketing campaigns that work for your target audience. Otherwise, you are just pouring fantastic amounts of money into paid advertising and organic marketing campaigns that simply do not establish a bridge of communication with those who matter most for your business: your customers.

Don’t just sketch your target customer. Make him/her a real person – imagine their habits, the kind of food they eat, the kind of music they listen to, the way they dress and the way they talk. Yes, it might seem like a child’s game here – but in reality, putting all of this on paper and creating a true buyer persona is crucial when you want to create ads and messages that really reach their receiver.

Don’t create buyer personas out of thin air, either. Whenever possible, create them based on real data: the groups that visit your site the most, the survey answers, the discussions you had face to face or over the phone with previous customers, the deep dives you took into Google Analytics, and so on. These methods of quantitative and qualitative research will help you paint an accurate picture of who your customers are and what they really want to hear from you.

 

Write Down Your Mission Statement

Again, this might feel like a complete waste of time for an energetic and busy entrepreneur like you.

But it isn’t.

Your clear mission statement, on paper, will be easy to relay to anyone working and creating content and imagery for your brand. From a freelance graphic designer you hire for a specific task to the journalist writing your advertorial in the local paper, everyone will be able to read this mission statement and truly understand your brand, so that they can incorporate those ideas into their work.

A clear mission statement will also help you understand yourself and your own business better. It will give you clarity and direction in everything you do. It will motivate your employees and help them understand that they are part of a bigger picture, a bigger story – one they can really contribute to with their work, regardless of what that may be.

Understand What a Successful Brand Is Comprised Of

Once you have created the “bigger picture” in your mind and once you have established what you want to say with your branding, it is time to deconstruct the big idea into small elements you can stack one on top of the other – just like Lego bricks.

To cut it (a little) short, you need to make sure the following adhere to your branding guidelines:

1. The physical environment of your business. This includes both physical stores and, many times, it includes the offices as well – especially when you are running a B2B company and clients show up at your office.

2. All the stationery, the signage, the print, and the packaging that goes out of your business.

3. All of your content marketing and social media efforts.

4. Your customer service and your sales teams.

5. The company website you have created for your business.

6. Your digital marketing and advertising efforts.

Everything above (and pretty much everything connected to your business) should be fully adherent to your branding guidelines. This means the fonts, the wording, the way you write your company name, the colors to be used in everything brand-related, and so on.

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Understand Your Competition

Just to make it clear from the very beginning – this is not to say that you should steal ideas from your competition.

On the contrary, a clear understanding of your competitors will offer you a huge advantage: that of knowing what works for them and spotting their mistakes, so that you don’t repeat them yourself.

A SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis of your competition can go a very long way in identifying who you are on the market, what your brand’s position should be, and how to interact with your main competitors.

Run in-depth research on who your enemies are, so that you can do better, and so you can stand out as a successful brand in your own right.

Yes, this will take time – but branding in general takes time. Its separate elements might be easy to handle and not time-consuming. But to get there, you first have to create the skeleton of your future brand – and your competitor analysis is in the composition of that.

 

Understand Yourself

….as an entrepreneur and as a company.

Now that you know what your competition is doing, it is time to put down on paper what YOU are doing.

What makes your brand stand out from the crowd? Why is your product special and why would anyone buy from you, as opposed to your competition? What is it that makes you shine through and reach out to your customers, making them buy from you not once, but recurrently, every single time they need your product?

It might be the quality.

It might be special features you have and others don’t.

Or maybe, it might be the pricing scheme you offer.

It might as well be a combination of all of these and much more.

Whatever it is, make sure it’s clear to you and to all those who work with you.

Going back to the Apple example, they were not the only ones (or the first ones) to release a computer. But they were among the first who wanted to bring personal computers into every home. And then they were the first ones to make these computers look beautiful as well. They were also the first ones to integrate certain types of software into their computers.

And ultimately, they were (and probably continue to be) the ones who get the right message to the right audience. For Apple, it’s all about cutting edge and innovation – and while it might be debatable whether or not they actually do that, their branding says they do. And for the millions of fans out there, it’s enough.

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Understand That the Times, They Are A’ Changin’

What worked ten years ago will prove highly inefficient today – especially when it comes to online marketing.

Sure, the basic principles of building a properly successful brand stay the same (and they were touched upon in this article).

But when it comes to the channels and means by which your message is delivered, you really need to keep up with the trends.

A For-Instance

Take video marketing, for example. What started off as an expensive branding tool is now more affordable than ever (and video making tools really show this). Videos can bring your marketing game to a whole new level – and you don’t have to take this for granted from us. There are heavy studies showing that companies using video as a marketing tool get 66% more leads than those who don’t use it.

Furthermore, studies also show that large companies are more inclined to do video marketing – but there is no actual correlation between the size of a company and whether or not they decide to proceed on this path.

In fact, there’s no real reason not to do it, regardless of how large or small your business may be. With video makers being accessible both from a financial point of view and from a usability point of view, you can really pull off excellent videos for your marketing campaigns – and you can do it for a fraction of the price it used to be done for, and in a matter of minutes.

 

Bringing it All Back to Branding

Once you have your branding guidelines in tune, you will be able to create videos that connect to your audience at a whole new level.

You will be able to produce content that keeps the audience watching and listening, as opposed to content that’s simply skipped through and doesn’t offer value in a world with a diminishing attention span.

You will be able to see actual ROI from your marketing efforts – because, yes, video marketing can be used at every level: from the moment you try to engage users into your sales funnel to the moment they buy (and you convince them to buy again from you). No matter what you sell and no matter what you do, video marketing can change everything for you – and it will do it with a minimum investment in terms of time and money.

You will be able to do marketing that actually works.