The Five Stages for Solid Brand Building in Turbulent Economic Times:

 

In the last blog post, I explored five elements for practicality and functionality in your brand-building process. So, with many people becoming jittery in economically turbulent times, recessions, and uncertainties, entrepreneurship has become the best escape zone for economic hope and salvation for personal freedom and financial security in self-sustenance. Though it is not always easy, it is doable with a creative and innovative mind willing to read and learn how to build a business into a brand of recognition and reputation. The big secret is your mindset change and thinking out of the box. And adopt the new mindset of building a brand, not just a business. The business mindset limits creativity and imagination to create an innovative system based on the purpose and value of your business idea. Here are the five stages towards developing a brand-building mindset that boosts your confidence in the creative entrepreneurial economy. Before digging into that, let’s look at why opting for a brand, not just a business.

Why Building a Brand? 

Businesses survive, and brands thrive. A brand is a business model that has all its systems and strategies put together solidly and sustainably to fulfill its purpose and value in the digital economy. That must be unique and brandable to inspire creativity and imagination of what you want the business landscape to be through your business idea. And how it will contribute to making the world a better place to live, learn, work, and do business. 

Most successful entrepreneurs and creators swear, “Never build a business; build a system.” That is fast evolving into not a system but a network of systems seamlessly integrated for streamlining your business processes for effective execution. That’s it, and you will be on your way to becoming a success story of creativity, innovation, and influence in your industry and niche market. That should be enticing and inspiring to imagine for any entrepreneur who needs a challenge to build a brand, not just a business. Here are the stages to follow to build a brand.

Identify a Problem:

 The problem is the business idea. Challenges in our societies are where you should get inspired to search for issues that can become your business idea. With a brand-building mindset, you see problems in the business landscape of your community, society, nation, and the world as opportunities. When people complain about anything, apply some critical thinking to realize that there is an opportunity. The problem you identify, like the mayhem marketing strategies in the business industry, should inspire you to picture what business idea and model would be suitable to enable you to make entrepreneurship a creative and innovative game where you need to streamline systems for the execution of your solutions.

Your business idea should direct you to build, apply or use relevant apps and programs for effective execution in building it into a brand. A brand-building mindset will make you develop a critical mind about problems around you in life and business. That way, opening your eyes and mind to how things should be and how best entrepreneurs should do them in life and business. Why life and business? Someone might want to ask when we are discussing marketing and brand building. Well, brand building does not happen in a vacuum. But in the context of life and business. That means business ideas come from spotting problems in life and business and converting them into valuable solutions in the market.

Find a Need

The need is the pain point. These are gaps in the market. So, thoroughly research your industry to identify gaps in the market. Needs signify the demand for the product or service. It points to a solution you can provide in the market. It suggests an opportunity to create and build a brand that will satisfy the need. Here is the thing; people are lazy to think and observe their surroundings for needs., But good at imitating other entrepreneurs and duplicating ideas long back identified, explored, and practiced by nearly everyone worldwide. It happens like that because most people are scared of starting new things, but the game of copying, pasting, and duplicating is what most businesses are like and are surviving on, not thriving. You can’t brand a business idea that already exists and has already been practiced by billions of people who were there before you and call it a brand unless you do it in an innovative way that makes it have some uniqueness for what is already flooding the market.

That is why The Joyful Copywriter always emphasizes brand building based on the purpose and value of your business. Identifying needs will inspire and empower you to come out with something different and valid as a solution to the needs of your target market. I have always heard some YouTubers and Course creators hammer on the Validation of products and services in the market. Validation is non-existent because most businesses are multiple duplicates of an already validated business idea. That should start with identifying the needs and pain points aligned with the business idea’s purpose and value in the market.

Design the Solution

The solution is the product or service provided and its features and benefits for solving a problem which is your business idea. A well-identified problem in life and business will spell out a need and define what you can do to provide a solution and how you can design it to suit the challenges in the market. Is it going to be a product or service? And what business model is brandable for that solution. In what industry can the solution identify? And what niche can be defined to make it more visible to its target market? And is the target market going to benefit from the solution? Do they have the money to spend on the solution? How do they feel each time they use your brand solution? 

I always feel happy with the following brands, which I hardly do without. Google search, Canva. Grammarly, and Microsoft. And other social media platforms like LinkedIn to boost my networking.  A well-identified problem, well thought out and closely aligned with the identified needs, will optimize confidence in brand building. Knowing that you are providing a solution through a product or service in your industry and niche promotes developing a big picture of building a brand. That is an inspiring feeling which should make any entrepreneur understand their contribution to making the world a better place to live, learn, work, and do business.

Define the Value

The value is the benefits. The desire to fulfill expectations in providing value is where the brand-building game becomes interesting. Products and services are flooding the market. So, that is when you should go back to your design solutions and see how to create a product and service that will wow the target market and capture their attention and hearts. That is not easy if you lack the creative and innovative power. And the passion to create a unique and influential brand. If you copy and paste, you are bound to lose the purpose and value of your brand. That way, losing your brand identity, personality, and influence. And that will automatically make your business just a business, not a brand in the market.

Value-centered business is what validates it as a brand in the market. Value potential makes a business sustainable, survive and thrive in the market. That is why you need to be clear with your value proposition as reassurance of why you are doing what you are doing and what your business provides in the market. At a glance at your brand, your target audience must grasp your brand value spelled out in the brand promise that defines the benefits of your brand. You must tell your ideal customer why your business product or service is the best choice. That must evoke some emotional and functional awareness in your customers. The value you promise and provide forms the first impression of your brand in the market. So, it must be well articulated to evoke loyalty, trust, and credibility for solid brand building.

Define the purpose

The purpose is the transformation impacted by your business idea, solutions, and benefits through your brand. There is nothing in entrepreneurial business that provides direction for your brand and shapes its influence more than knowing and having clarity of its purpose. When you are clear about the purpose of your business, your imagination of possibilities becomes limitless. And you become unstoppable in pushing the boundaries of what your brand needs to do and transform your industry. That helps in building a powerful brand identity. Clear purpose means clarity in the business model you want to create and the brand-building strategies you will apply aligned with your skillset, capabilities, and systems that will suit the business's processes.

Most successful entrepreneurs have experienced that clarity in the purpose leads to clarity in strategies, goals, and objectives in execution. Does the purpose align with the business idea, problems, and needs you have already identified? Your business purpose should trigger a desire and drive to help and be a solution with a deep sense of feeling accomplished and fulfilled and bring some deep sense of purpose and accomplishment. Does it ignite your superpowers and align with your skills, knowledge, experience, abilities, and strengths? Your well-defined purpose will make you different. And find it easy to position your brand in the market. That is why as copywriters, we believe in creating content based on the purpose and value of your business for solid brand building.

Build Business Systems

The business landscape is now a virtual economy with possibilities of global buying, sales, pay, delivering, traveling, and touring for business opportunities. Systematic business processes and marketing strategies mean optimizing productivity and achievement of goals. That reminds me of my favorite comprehensively advertised app, Monday.com. Systems help to define where you are going and how to get there. Some entrepreneurs see it as a document that outlines how to do things. However, in marketing, it is a standard strategic marketing plan for brand identity and brand awareness in the market.

That marketing system can have various digital marketing channels and tools like Content marketing through, Email, SEO, social media, Blogging, and Text and Video Advertising. HubSpot is a robust marketing platform for CRM systems. Business systems help in creating brands of value that are easy to manage. And with the human touch behind the well-selected channels and tools, the sky is the limit in touching the hearts of your customers and clientele.

 That promotes scaling your business to unimaginable heights and impact in the saturated market. They save time and optimize productivity which is a trade-off for the effective use of time. Consistency is the most factor in realizing and raising the value of your brand. Systems promote consistency which should be the number one goal for any business that wants to build a strong brand of high value and influence. That makes me think of food and hospitality brands like McDonald's and how important it is to maintain consistency in taste, appearance, and how they prepare the food. 

Systems also help keep your costs low, and you can limit errors and losses from their efficiency and reliability. So, adopting a brand-building mindset of applying automation systems and software programs in your business processes and procedures without compromising the human touch of your brand optimizes and boosts brand building for the sustainability and longevity of your brand in the market.