Hello WU Friends!
This week WU Learning about Branding Strategies for Startups will be focusing more on telling the story of your startups, and how to deliver the image of your startups to the market.
At this point, you should have a lot of the information you’re going to need to inform and enhance your startup branding strategy. That means that you’re ready to start working on your "presence" and what you’re going to mean to your customers when you eventually start marketing.
1. Begin by telling your story
Startup branding should always start with a story. Human beings are natural storytellers, and we’re wired to listen to stories that establish an emotional connection in our minds. In fact, one study found that reading a story activates the same parts of your brain that would come to life if you were experiencing the events for yourself.
For years, teachers, politicians, and parents have understood the power of stories. To take advantage of a strong narrative in your branding strategies for startups, think about where your company came from, and what caused you to create the products or service you’re offering. The deeper you dig into your background, the more you’ll learn about your company’s motivations, values, and purpose.
2. Determine who you want to be
Branding startups can be a confusing process because it often involves giving human attributes to a non-human entity. You need to give your business a personality, or your customers will have nothing to resonate with.
Thinking of your organization as a person should help you to come up with words and phrases that are best suited to describe it. For instance, would you rather be welcoming and friendly or formal and professional? While it might be tempting to create a word cloud full of positive terms, it’s better to narrow your identity down to just a few key phrases that will form the basis of your personality.
3. Share your brand narrative
Eventually, you’ll reach a point with your branding agency where you need to stop researching your identity, and start sharing your narrative with the world. This is often the most frightening and complex part for most companies, which is why we’re going to design another guide to help you figure out what you need to do to earn the right attention.
For now, just remember that your marketing strategies will often include a range of different media, including:
Offline branding and experiential strategies.
Social media marketing and influencer posts.
Content creation (including blogs, videos, and images).
No matter what you do, the key to success with marketing and growing your startup brand is “consistency”. Once you’ve decided what you want your brand to be, you need to stick with it, at least until you decide to rebrand.
Source: http://fabrikbrands.com/branding-strategies-for-startups/