- August 31, 2022
- By Joshua Reid
- Advice , Company Structure
- branding , company , digital marketing , marketing , start-up , startup , strong brand
Why Is It Important For A Start-Up To Have A Strong Brand?
When it comes to businesses, marketing plays a crucial role in drawing in potential clients, customers, and business partners. However, marketing can’t be the only thing that draws in potential customers. A company or business has to have a brand that distinguishes them from others, but also something that can be marketable. For example, think of tech companies like HD or Apple. Their brand focuses mainly on computers and ensuring that they are not just marketing them in a way that draws in customers, but also looking at current and future business trends to ensure they can continue updating their brand.
For start-up companies, they must have a brand that works for them. However, there are several questions that I feel start-up company founders should ask themselves when figuring out the brand that works best for their business:
- What kind of statement does the brand say about the start-up company?
- How does the brand fit into the mission statement of the company?
These are just some questions that start-up company founders could ask themselves when determining what kind of brand works for them. In a 2019 article on LinkedIn titled, “Building Strong Brands: Why The Basics Matter More Than Ever Before,” author Dave Turner argues that there are three basic building blocks to creating a solid brand: Authenticity, consistency. and frequency. However, Turner notes that in the context of the increasingly digital marketplace, where do these three building blocks fit?
“With there being so many digital platforms now, not only do you need to know WHERE to place that message, more importantly, you need to know WHAT that message should be.”
Dave Turner
That is an essential point that Turner makes.A start up company must know where they want to place their brand, what the message should say, and how that brand speaks to their target audience. By having a target audience in mind when crafting their brand, a start-up company ensures that the message they are sending with that brand reaches the intended audience.
For Turner, a strong brand is not just one that is what it says it is, but also provides an “authentic solution for the needs of its targeted customers.” Additionally, a brand is only as good as the target audience it’s for. Take, for example, a cruise liner and a restauranteur. What each business needs is different, so marketing them the same won’t help one or either reach their intended audience.
“If you are inconsistent as a brand, you can be assured the world will soon recognize it.”
Dave Turner
A start-up company must have a strong brand, but one that is also consistent. Consistency allows potential customers and your target audience to know that you are trustworthy. For Turner however, in our digital world, “a brand’s reputation is built globally and has to be viewed that way. Even brands that may only do business in a single country or region they, too, have very quickly a global reputation.”
Having a global reputation should give start-up companies the ability to understand the reach their brand could have. But, as Turner notes, having a consistent brand is paramount for a start-up company. As I mentioned, the brand not only tells your target audience that you are potentially trustworthy, but also allows the message the brand is sending to reach a larger audience.
Due to the digital workplace and landscape, companies are no longer just competing with localized competitors. Now, companies are competing with international businesses, and as such, having a strong brand that tells a story that people can hear worldwide can bring demand for that product or service that the start-up company is offering.
“No matter if you’re a small regional brand or a large global brand, you are competing with brand messages that your customers are receiving from – literally – all over the world.”
Dave Turner
Bibliography
Turner, Dave. “Building Strong Brands: Why The Basics Matter More Than Ever Before.” LinkedIn. Accessed 20 July 2021.
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash
