In today’s digital world, you don’t want to be known for having a lackluster digital brand. Your identity is everything and you need to develop a powerful brand identity if you want your target audience to relate.  You may be thinking about starting or already in the throes of the process. Either way, you’ll find useful information right here. Let’s get started!

There are several ways to solve a Rubik’s cube, but building a powerful brand identity doesn’t have to be that difficult.

In this post, I’m going to give you six simple tips for developing a powerful brand identity. Take notes as it will help you achieve your business goals.

Let’s dive in…

Developing A Powerful Brand Identity

I’ll start with probably the most important part of a powerful brand identity…your purpose.

1. Understand Your Purpose

All brands serve a purpose. What’s yours? A brand purpose is an extension of its positioning. It’s the tangible benefit that makes a product or service desirable. Today, consumers connect with brands that have a purpose outside of simply doing business or keeping investors or shareholders happy.

It is the duty of the brand owner, founder, or CEO to establish this purpose and ensure that it permeates throughout the organization. If done correctly, this purpose can be used to motivate employees as well as potential customers. And, when these people are motivated, they will assist in helping you build a powerful brand identity.

SEE ALSO: 4 Reasons Why Consumers View Brands As Relationships

If you’re having trouble communicating your brand purpose, try to understand how your product or service is changing lives, making lives easier, solving a challenge, or being a resource. At the end of the day, this is why people do business with you. Not simply because you offer the best product or service.

Understanding that will bring you one step closer to developing a powerful brand identity.

2. Carve Out How You Stand Out

As you may know, focusing on differentiating yourself from the competition will help your business in the long-run. When developing a powerful brand identity, you must consider your uniqueness.

I’m sure you can think of at least three other competitors in your market (direct or indirect).

What separates your brand from theirs?

Well, I’m sure you guessed it. It’s your uniqueness.

Make this the focal point when communicating to your target audience.

Reverance = Recall = Revenue

I’ve come up with an acronym to help you build a powerful brand identity. It’s called the three R’s.

• Reverance – Merriam-Webster defines reverence as “honor or respect felt or shown.” This should be your goal when developing a powerful brand identity.
• Recall – Brand recall is the extent to which a brand name, product or service is recalled. Having a powerful brand identity will make this process much easier.
• Revenue – Once you have the reverence and the recall, it will ultimately result in increased revenue.

SEE ALSO: How to Tell Your Digital Brand Story

3. Establish Your Beachhead

Establishing a beachhead is an important component of building a powerful brand identity. Essentially, these beachheads are an extension of your brand identity.

beach·head ˈbēCHˌhed/ noun 1. the area that is the first objective of a military force landing on an enemy shore. 2. a secure initial position that has been gained and can be used for further advancement; foothold: The company has won a beachhead in the personal computer market. – Dictonary.com

Regardless of industry or occupation, you are constantly trying to increase market share (or in some cases, be a known in your local area). This act is similar to a strategy the military uses during the time of war. This may not be the most positive analogy to use but I want to ensure you’re getting my point.

Soldiers fight for a strategic position so they can begin to advance forward. Today, Facebook has taken this same approach as they are attempting to take away market share from YouTube and weaken Snapchat. In this instance, YouTube has established its beachhead in the video market and Snapchat in visual storytelling. Facebook’s encroachment on these markets only strengthens its already powerful brand identity.

You may be asking yourself, “What does this look like for my brand? I’m not Facebook.”

First of all, you can be anything if you put your mind to it 😉

Second of all, you may want to prioritize one social media network, build or advertise on one channel, or sponsor one major event, or work with one key influencer. There are plenty of beachheads your brand can build. If you strategically place your brand in areas conducive to future advancement, you are on your way to creating a powerful brand identity.

How To Find Your Brand Beachhead?

Where will your brand live? What platforms work best with your brand identity?

In order to make this decision, you need to gather as much information as you can about your target audience. Some key questions include:

• How large is your target audience? Dozens, hundreds, thousands?
• What platforms do they tend to engage with, mobile, desktop, or both?
• Where do they get their information? Newspapers, blogs, emails, or social media platforms?
• Are they even tech savvy or do they prefer more traditional methods of communication?

Once you have this information, you can move on determining their preferences in the format of the content:

• What platforms does your audience use regularly?
• Do they prefer long or short form content?
• What is the best format for the content they consume? Videos, blog posts, e-books, images?

The next step involves looking at your competitors. Examine where their brand is focused and see how they are engaging:

• What makes your competitors successful?
• Where do they have room for improvement?
• How can you outdo their execution?

Once you have all of the information in order, you can get down to execution and acquire all your beachheads.

SEE ALSO: Finding Your Customers Desired Path to Purchase

4. Focus On Your Visuals

What people see should reflect your brand message.

Iconic brands like Apple and Nike are all-stars when it comes to aligning their visual identity with their brand message.

And with a simple understanding of a few things that contribute to your brand’s visual identity, you’ll also start to stand out in an exceptional way.

Consider the following questions to build a visual identity that reflects your brand message:

• How do you want people to feel or act in response to your brand message? Tip: An exploration of color psychology can set you up for success in aligning customer sentiments with your brand message.
• What can followers expect to see from you in their feeds? Tip: A host of online and mobile image generation tools make it simple for anyone to batch visual content like quote images. Share a themed post on a consistent basis and people will begin to expect and engage with your content.
• What story are you telling with photos? Tip: Create photo editing workflows or even your own photo filters with your smartphone. A more customized look and feel to your photo feed will help you communicate the tone, style and mood of your story in a unique way.

SEE ALSO: 5 Ways to Make Your Blog Visually Appealing

5. Watch What You Say

The concept of building a powerful brand identity is relatively simple. In order to gain power, you must have respect. To me, respect is established by what you say and how you say it. It’s how you actually speak or write anything that’s a part of your brand communication.

A headline that captures social media attention, the content on your website or a conversational email to your audience – it’s all part of a powerful brand identity.

Consider the following questions to get a clear sense of what it takes to best communicate your brand message:

• What things stand out about the way you speak? Dictate your content using a notes app on your phone, first, to understand your own voice more clearly. Notice the subtle nuances in your speaking style and implement a few in your writing to build brand recognition and an eventual raving fan base of people who feel like they really know you.
• Is your content ready for its big break? Even if your style is less polished, it pays to communicate your message in a way that would make sense to some industry authorities. Especially in the beginning, it can pay to at least be semi-professional in your style and clean up those typos. It will give you confidence in asking for or accepting an opportunity to scale your impact by delivering your message to a larger audience.
• How click-worthy are your headlines? Think of your headlines as an invitation asking people to receive your brand message. Headline SEO + social shareability seriously influence the number of people who will RSVP “yes”.

SEE ALSO: How to Use Social Media to Develop Your Digital Brand Voice

6. Bring Value

The way your products, services and/or offerings benefit people is at the core of a powerful digital brand. What value are you bringing them?

Consider these questions to identify, communicate and improve your brand value for exceptional impact:

• What are your strengths? Knowing what you do well is the first step to identifying the defining elements of your brand value.
• How are you sharing your superpowers? Discover what the world wants from you. Discovering how others see you will help you make branding decisions that speak to your core audience.
• What are you doing to consistently increase your value? Even if you’re a thought leader in your industry now, you’re never done learning. Stay on top of what’s happing in your industry, your audience’s industry and/or your clients’ industries. A well-rounded perspective will give you a more powerful brand identity.

Final Thoughts

Building a powerful brand identity doesn’t have to be that difficult. Try to understand how your product or service is changing lives, making lives easier, solving a challenge, or being a resource. Consider your uniqueness when positioning your digital brand and establish a beachhead that will advance your digital brand in the future. Earn respect by watching what you say and how you say it and bring value so that your brand is undeniably considered as having a powerful brand identity.

What do you think about these steps? We’d love to hear your thoughts below!