When setting up a business, one of the most important things that can determine whether it will be profitable or not is the branding. Branding speaks about you to the potential and current customers, and the message has to reflect the mission of the business. What makes a brand? The brand is a combination of the business logo, website, marketing materials, and delivery of goods and/ or services. In this article, we are going to take a look at some basics when branding your business.
Branding Your Business
Brand Strategy & Equity
The first thing that you need is a brand strategy, which can be determined by how you want to do it, what you want from it, where and when to advertise, and whom the brand is meant for. You will need to figure out the distribution channels you intend to use, and whether you will communicate visually and/ or verbally. The strategic branding needs to have consistency if you are to bring value to whatever you offer.
Defining Your Brand
What is your brand about and how can you define it? You first need to answer the questions below as a starting point:
- What is the mission of the business?
- What unique service or product do you provide?
- What do other people think of your business, and especially customers and prospective customers?
- What qualities would you want them to see within your business?
It is imperative to do a thorough research whereby you can identify the needs, habits and desires the current customers, as well as the prospective ones. You need to get into their heads and understand their way of thinking. Once you have discovered your brand, it is now time to work on it, and below is a guideline you could use:
- Start with the logo and make sure that it is all over.
- Come up with some sort of messaging for the brand, something about what the brand is about.
- Integrate the brand into everything about the business such as how employees dress, how they answer phone calls, email signatures, etc.
- It is now time to come up with a voice for the business, whether written, online, on visual imagery, and offline. Is the brand friendly? Is it formal, informal? You need to figure that out.
- A tagline always works like magic as long as it is memorable, meaningful, and catchy in reference to the brand.
There is a lot that can be added regarding how to create a brand for your business, but we will stop here.
Healing River Acupuncture
One company that has gotten its branding right is the Healing River Acupuncture Center in Richmond, BC. The company offers acupuncture services as listed below:
- Moxibustion, which stimulates better blood circulation by burning a mugwort herb over the acupuncture points of the body.
- Cupping
- Acupuncture
- Traditional Chinese medicine
Their rates are as listed below:
- Initial Acupuncture Treatment- (60 min) at $95
- Subsequent Acupuncture Treatments – (45 min) at $80
- Facial Acupuncture – (75 min) at $140
Summary
With the right branding strategy, you can create a successful brand such as the Healing River Acupuncture. They combined good branding and excellent acupuncture healing treatments.