When building a recognizable brand, a professional service business must be able to define itself, its customers, its goals, its look, its voice, and its marketing strategy. This knowledge and foresight are imperative to stand out from the crowd and create a long-lasting, memorable brand.
If you build it they will come.
That famous phrase is a bit misleading to the average professional service business owner of today. These days, simply building a business is only the first hurdle in a long race toward the finish line.
A key component of reaching the metaphorical finish line is building a recognizable brand that customers can readily recall and distinguish from competitors.
So what exactly is a brand?
A brand is more than a logo or business name. Rather, it is a culmination of every design decision, customer interaction, and message a business sends out. It is how a business is perceived by everyone that interacts with it.
This all-encompassing meaning is why it is so imperative your brand be clear and recognizable.
Six Steps to Building a Recognizable Professional Service Brand
1. Define Your Busines
Defining a business goes beyond simply knowing the product or service. Some things that can help define a business including drafting a mission and values statement, identifying the competition, and acknowledging what makes the business special or unique.
This is the foundation for the rest of the steps. It is imperative to know and understand every aspect of your business inside and out.
2. Identify Your Audience
The second step to building a recognizable brand is defining the brand’s target audience. This means researching who your ideal customer is. To answer that question, consider what problems your product or service solves and why a customer might choose it over that of a competitor.
Many people find it helpful to niche down when describing the ideal customer. Consider creating a persona with a specific age, income, career, and personal traits that best summarize the ideal customer for the brand.
3. Determine Your Goals
Memorable brands are focused and clear. To achieve that, a business must set short and long-term goals. These goals will carve out a clear and defined path forward. Goals make it easier to stay on track and make sure the customer can always understand who your brand is.
Try breaking down each goal down into small, incremental steps to prevent them from becoming too overwhelming or daunting.
4. Decide and Design
This step is probably what most people associate with branding. It includes the logo, brand coloring, and any other additional design elements needed to get started. While many business owners may be tempted to start here, that would be a mistake. This is because all of your visual material should call to your customer base and effectively reflect the core of your brand. That would be impossible to achieve if the business hasn’t yet defined itself, its audience, or what it is trying to achieve.
It can be helpful to start this step with a little bit of research. A good place to start is finding logos and brand colors that appeal to you and your target audience.
5. Find Your Voice
A great way to stand out is to give your brand a clear voice. Taking the time to personify your brand allows you to reach customers in a new way. Think about how your brand answers questions from customers, how you’ll describe your services, and other day-to-day encounters. Will you be factual or fun and snarky?
People respond well to authenticity and personality. A voice makes it easier for customers to care and relate to a brand.
Consider selecting a few adjectives to help keep the messaging of the brand focused and authentic.
6. Market Your Brand
The final step brand building strategy is to market your professional service business. Once you’ve laid down all the necessary groundwork, it’s time to take what you’ve learned out for a test drive. The information learned while building your brand should be at the root of all the social media and advertising you do.
Building a recognizable professional service brand requires plenty of patience and hard work. It may be a slow process, but every step in the right direction is another step toward standing out in the minds of your customers.