BrandBuild™ is Creatitive’s trademarked process of developing an athletic company’s brand identity and buyer persona and building brand awareness to increase revenue for businesses.
From brand discovery to development, strategy, implementation, and analysis, let’s go step-by-step to understand its purpose and value to athletes, athletic company owners, and sports brands.
Brand Discovery
Brand discovery is the process of studying the brand and understanding the unique value that it offers about customer needs, competition, and the marketplace. Brand discovery will disclose a brand’s strengths and weaknesses and identify the most valuable brand offerings.
The brand discovery phase is essential in digital marketing because it allows a sports marketing team to learn more about your company. Participating in discovery also gives your agency a way to become familiar with a client’s long-term goals and any concerns you have for the present.
You want the best for your company—that means consistent growth, better reach, and a leading edge against your competitors—as well as the best experience for your customer. But getting those things isn’t always easy. It takes patience, dedication, and most importantly, someone who understands the ins and outs of marketing.
It would help if you had a marketing consultant that’s experienced and dedicated to gathering data, increasing revenue, and creating a well-developed strategy to get you to the top of the industry.
Consultation begins with a process called discovery. During a series of one-on-one meetings with your marketing consultant, you discuss your company and your immediate and long-term goals. You’ll speak with an expert marketer and will have the chance to express your concerns about your consumer’s experience, including what’s worked for you and what you want to happen with your presence on the internet.
Once your marketer understands your business’s objectives, key messages, visual identity, and brand voice, you can dive even deeper, examining your audience, competitors, analytics, and other data pertinent to the growth of your website.
Each component plays to your brand value and must be analyzed as part of the branding process. Your goal is to increase brand equity and build branding strategies for the future.
Ideation & Research
Ideation is the creative process of generating, developing, and communicating new ideas to existing customers, new customers, and potential customers. An idea is understood as an essential element of thought that can be visual, concrete, or abstract. Ideation is a part of brand strategy and comprises all stages of a thought cycle, from innovation to development, to actualization.
Research is explorative and systematic work that increases an employee’s stock of knowledge. It involves collecting, organizing, and analyzing information to advance understanding of a topic or issue. A research project may be an expansion of past work in the field.
A great brand understands the importance of research—it makes sense as a critical component of developing a good brand strategy. Time is spent researching marketing materials, brand guidelines, other brands in the same industry, new customers, new business, branding, logo design, cutting-edge technology, and more. It is time-consuming but necessary to build a recognizable brand amongst your target audience.
The goal of a marketing professional or agency when developing a brand strategy through ideation and research is to help companies find their way, supporting them in building the foundation for campaigns that resonate with their target audience and create an emotional connection, lasting loyalties, increasing revenue, and making a difference.
Brand Development
Brand development is a strategic part of the branding process. You create and distinguish your company’s mission, visual representation—color-palette, visual identity, and logo design—products and services from your competitors.
The strong brand development includes:
- Aligning your brand identity with your company objectives.
- Creating your brand identity and communicating it to your target market.
- Updating or strengthening your brand identity, as necessary.
By taking the necessary time to develop a strong brand identity, you will ensure that customers become loyal customers. You win against the competition, and people perceive the right things about your packaging, website, employees, advertising, and product or service.
Understanding Your Why
As mentioned, the key of any good branding agency is to help the company understand its why. This seems like common sense, but your why is not as simple as listing your product or service; it’s not your brand identity, but it does distinguish a successful brand from an unsuccessful brand.
When developing a new brand or updating your old brand strategy, you need first to understand your customers. Ask yourself what problem you solve. Why should your brand resonate in consumers’ minds in a constantly changing world? Is your brand user-friendly, do you create a solution, and are your services niche?
For example, an athlete might decide to branch into the advertising world, open an e-commerce website, or develop a small business. However, before launching said business, they will spend time engaging with their desired customers, exploring their competition and small business in the sector, developing a relationship with an accounting firm, working with a designer to develop a great logo, and ultimately creating a brand that solves a problem.
In this case, the brand can expect to find some degree of success in the industry because the athlete took the proper amount of time to understand their customer and create a brand that has a clear purpose and vision. They understand their brand identity.
Additionally, by partnering with a branding company, you can ensure you have brand governance. In other words, your brand is presented consistently, that branding guidelines are properly executed, and that rules regarding services, customers, and packaging are followed.
Communicating Your Way to Your Audience
Once you understand your why, it is essential to communicate it well to your customer. In the end, you don’t want them to be a silent ambassador, but rather a customer that proudly wears your logo and color palette and supports your company and business. To accomplish this, good branding is essential. And a robust presence online via advertising is also critical.
To assess whether or not your brand identity is creating buzz, your short-phrase vision is connecting with consumers and propelling your business into stardom, you must analyze the effectiveness of your written and visual advertising via Google Analytics. Expect to make adjustments over time and develop new packaging as you understand how to better communicate your why to your consumers.
Coca-cola is an excellent example of a company needing to update its brand identity and logo over time. While consumers appreciate nostalgia, they also love companies that prioritize creating an updated logo and branding year after year. It shows they are responsive to the market and desire a fresh brand identity.
Coca-cola has adjusted its logo many times over the years. Their consumers value brands that create an authentic experience. Coca-cola has dedicated professionals in charge of just that—maintaining an apparent and appreciable brand identity and timeless logo.
Web Discovery
After your marketer understands your company’s brand identity, they can help create the best website for your specific needs and goals. The first step is to develop a user flow.
The user flow is the information you provide about your business when creating an outline of your website, the pages you want to include, and any subcategories you want to build out. This is known as creating a sitemap.
An optimized user flow via a sitemap is the best way to guarantee that search engines view your site and direct qualified leads and queries to your services. For example, Google will still consider your site without a sitemap, but it may not focus on the pages you want it to. Instead, you’ll face the wrath of all other companies in your industry and have a more difficult time communicating your brand identity.
User Interaction, User Experience
The key to any good business brand website is to have a memorable logo, clean branding, and top-notch user interaction and user experience (UI/UX). Your business logo should be included on each page of your brand website. Make sure that your website visitors find what they’re looking for quickly and easily. Use simple, concise language on your website, and make sure all web pages load quickly
.If you’re looking to create a brand website that is visually appealing and easy to use, consider using a professional web design company. A good web design company will have a team of experienced designers to create a custom website that meets your specific business needs.
When choosing a web design company, be sure to ask about their experience in creating brand websites. You want to work with a company with a proven track record in designing successful brand websites. Be sure to also ask about the company’s web design portfolio so you can see examples of their work.
When you’re ready to launch your brand online, be sure to promote it through social media and other online channels. Use paid advertising on Google and Facebook or use free SEO and article marketing methods.
With a little bit of effort, you can quickly develop a brand website that is memorable and useful.
User Flow & Navigation
Your brands’ user flow and navigation should be clean and straightforward. It must be intuitive for users to increase their experience with your brand, associate a positive emotion with your logo, and ultimately return to your web page again and again.
Use clear, legible fonts on all of your web pages. Stick to a limited color palette so that your web page has a cohesive look and feel. Make sure all web pages are properly formatted for different screen sizes and devices.
For example, your brand’s web development employees should create a clutter-free, simple navbar that includes your branding and represents your brand’s messaging, vision, and identity.
Your web design team should also focus on creating a visually appealing layout and easy to navigate. For example, visitors should find the information they are looking for quickly and without any trouble. Use clear headings and subtitles to break up your content and make it easier to scan. Ensure that your images and videos are correctly formatted and sized for different devices.
Preparing for Future Growth
Finally, your brand development employees must prepare for future business growth. For example, plan to make an architecture that can easily accommodate new business pages, products, and services. Keep your user flow and navigation simple to quickly make changes and updates without negatively affecting the user experience.
Design & Development
Brands and websites for businesses are more than just words—they are also art and images. Graphic design is an essential aspect of any business marketing strategy. Engaging with your target audience without colorful and attractive imagery isn’t easy. Employees at a sports marketing agency can take creative design to another level.
For example, colorful, high-resolution, and illustrative graphics help potential buyers understand your services and products better. With graphic design, you allow them to visualize the benefits your company offers. Talented employees make eye-catching images that tell the story of your business perfectly. They can also help you make a unique brand identity that will set you apart from other companies.
When choosing the right graphic designer for your business, there are a few things to keep in mind. You’ll want someone with plenty of experience and who is up-to-date on the latest design trends. They should also be able to make designs responsive to all devices, from smartphones to desktop computers.
The best way to find the perfect graphic designer for your business is to ask around. Your friends and colleagues may have someone they can recommend. You can also browse online portfolios to get a sense of a designer’s style and potential to match well with your business branding.
Executing on Preparations
Once you find a few designers you like that match your business branding, reach out to them and ask for quotes. Be sure to explain your project in detail so they can give you an accurate estimate. You must also inform them of your business branding and strategy so they understand the importance of executing on preparations.
As you can see, graphic design is an essential element of any business brand strategy. It can help you engage with your target audience, create a unique brand identity, and set you apart from other companies.
Implementation & Management
After brand discovery and development, it’s time to implement the processes and branding into your business via a marketing strategy. The key here is to not only follow through on execution but also complete detailed brand analysis. This will help you track your progress and ensure that you’re on the right track.
If you notice your business branding is performing well, excellent. There is no further action needed at this time. But, if you see your business branding is performing poorly, it’s essential to dive in deeper, understand why, and make adjustments. This is where brand analysis comes into play.
The business brand analysis will help you understand how well your branding performs and what changes may need to be made. By taking the time to complete this analysis, you’ll be able to make more informed decisions about your business branding—and that’s always a good thing!
So, what goes into business brand analysis? Here are a few key things to consider:
- How well is your brand recognized?
- What does your brand stand for?
- How well does your brand align with your business goals?
- How strong is your brand identity?
- How well does your brand resonate with your target audience?
These are just a few of the questions that should be considered part of the business brand analysis. By taking the time to gather data and answer them, you’ll better understand how well your branding is performing—and what changes may need to be made.
If you’re unsure where to start, consider working with a branding specialist. They can help you understand the business brand analysis process and ensure that you’re on the right track.
Analysis & Adjustment
Once you’ve completed your brand analysis, it’s time to take action. If your branding is performing well, great! There’s no need to make any changes. But, if your branding is performing poorly, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work.
Making changes to your branding can be difficult, but it’s worth it in the end. By taking the time to understand your brand and make adjustments, you’ll be able to improve your business branding.
So, what are you waiting for? Start brand analysis today and see how your branding is performing.BrandBuild™ is Creatitive’s trademarked process of developing an athletic company’s brand identity and buyer persona and building brand awareness to increase revenue for businesses. From brand discovery to development, strategy, implementation, and analysis, it’s a step-by-step process to help athletes, athletic company owners, and sports brands leave legacies beyond the game.
