4 Steps To Building a Brand

Your brand is your reputation, and it can reflect the relationship between your action campaign and your current or prospective participants.

Why is it important to build a brand?

The way a company builds its brand will determine how the public perceives the business and its products. Successful brands can influence the way people perceive a company’s name, story, logo and marketing campaigns. In many cases, the brand is just as important as the quality and price of a product. When people buy a product, they are also buying into the lifestyle that the product represents. 

If a company creates an exciting and memorable brand, the public will recognize its products or services more easily and have a clear understanding of the value that the goods can add to their lives. Branding is also one of the most effective ways to gain the trust of customers.

How to build a brand

1. Determine your target audience.
2. Position your action campaign.
3. Define your campaign’s personality.
4. Choose a logo and slogan.

Position your product and business

Positioning an action campaign involves deciding how to distinguish it from other similar campaigns. Gather as much information as you can about your campaign's direct competition. Try to determine possible shortcomings in their campaign, areas in the market that they are not satisfying, and use this information to your advantage.

After you have investigated your competition, you should develop a unique selling proposition. A USP is a concise statement that tells participants what the campaign is offering. Your USP should highlight the features of your campaign that make it unique and add value for participants. 

Define your campaign’s personality

To a large extent, a brand conveys the campaign's identity. An important step in building a brand, then, involves determining the campaign’s personality. Apart from a campaign’s goals, its target audience will also help establish its personality. If your target audience is cycling enthusiasts, you would most likely want an active persona.

Deciding on your campaign’s personality will require creative brainstorming with other members of your team. You can start the process by thinking of the campaign as a person. For instance, if the campaign’s is a backpacker, you could describe what this person looks like and how they act. The use of descriptive words such as “traveler,” “independent,” “revolutionary” or “fun” will help you and the your team to verbalize your abstract thoughts. 

You could also try to associate your campaign with any image or idea you think of. For example, if the campaign generates food donation, you may think of a scale or grocery cart or cupboard and use these image to generate more ideas.

These kinds of creative thought processes will allow you and your team to provide your campaign with a distinctive voice.

Choose a logo and slogan

An effective logo can make your brand visually appealing, while a successful slogan can help customers remember your product. 

Logo: A logo conveys the image and personality of a campaign. Your logo needs to be tasteful, effective and well-crafted. Font, color, iconography and general design reflects you campaign's personality. Your logo should reflect or complement your campaign name.

Slogan: A slogan is a short, catchy phrase that you can employ during action marketing campaigns to give your campaign an extra edge. It’s not a permanent feature of your campaign, so you can adjust and change it for new marketing campaigns. For example, if your campaign is to drink more water, your slogan could be, “bottoms up.”