Many matrixes and models can help you identify the brand, the industry it's entering, and the penetration you'll have into the industry. You can think about these things before launching any brand linked to a product or service.
First of all, consider the brand you have and ask why it exists in the first place, as many people will ask this regarding its relevancy and scope within that industry.
You can also ask yourself what makes your brand different from similar ones, what problem you want to solve, and if there are many other businesses offering the same kind of product or service.
Can you offer a better or more diverse product than the others?
At this point, you may be implementing different kinds of marketing, either through paid ads or search engine optimization. Here you have to consider the consistency of your message and experience wherever your brand appears.
Examples include any website advertising, sales and customer service, any print or packaging where your brand appears, content you post online, and internal websites maintained by employees or 3rd party contracts hired through other services.
With this in mind, you can begin to ask yourself what the story around your branding is, as potential customers can have something to associate with your business. This will determine how likable it is and its values surrounding the product.
One of the issues of branding is that it can cast a wide net over a demographic, as aiming for a range like 18-30-year-olds is too broad, as this doesn't give you a clear representation of who your brand appeals to.
When looking at a target audience, you'll want to consider more specific demographics based on gender, location, education level, income, or a common problem that a particular age group has, so you can narrow your focus to what is relevant to your target audience.
This is so there isn't any ambiguity over your message and what it offers people. If your branding is focused on lifestyle, you may want to be more specific about what you intend to provide within this category.
You may even branch out into a unique sub-category.
If you think about any big-name brands, they have a word or phrase that can be applied to them, and even if they don't have a slogan now, but may have a mission statement or a clear-cut reason why they exist in the first place.
A tagline can be around 3-8 words. At the same time, a slogan can be up to 2 sentences, so if yours goes over this, you may want to rethink what your brand offers.
Over time, people can identify your brand with words like reliable, affordable, refined, or authentic.
Be sure to be clear in your taglines, as something like 'making your work life easier' is too broad and could refer to many different processes, so instead, you could use something like 'spreadsheets, simplified,' which is much clearer to your audience.
Even if you decide to stick to a mission statement instead, you want to be able to identify in 2 sentences what you want your audience to achieve and how you intend to offer this product, so make it as simple as you can.
Once you've considered and implemented these methods, you can start to build a marketing strategy that is relevant to your audience and offers a more unique or useful product than similar products on the market.
This means you have a decent base to work from, and you can make this process a continuous one, as it can take many years to garner customer loyalty, so stick with it.
