10 Branding Terms Every Entrepreneur Should Know

1. Brand:  Your brand is everything that your customer sees, reads, experiences, interacts with as it relates to your company. Think of it like how the 5 senses helps to frame the world around you. All of them are working together to create all of the single moments in your day. Your name, logo, colors, company verbiage, website, culture, customer interaction — all of it together creates the value and influence your brand has on your customers. Much like if one sense is damaged or lost, if one part of your brand isn’t reflecting the same message as the rest of your brand, you are potentially confusing your customer and you may need to adapt and reengage in order to regain their loyalty.

2. Brand Strategy:  Brand strategy is the foundation of why you’re doing what you’re doing and who you’re doing it for. Your brand strategy can be thought of as pillars that hold the structure of you company, helping to guide you in all business decisions. Often these pillars are your mission statement, your unique selling proposition and your core values. These pillars need to be front and center at all times to be sure your decisions are aligning with why you exist and to ensure you’re delivering on your customer promise.

3. Brand Identity (the visuals):  Comprised of your Brand Assets (the individual pieces like your logo, colors, fonts, brand graphics, etc.), your brand identity is created directly following the brand strategy. It is everything that visually communicates the strategy and the connection you want to make with your customer. It’s how your social profiles and posts look, how your website looks and functions, how your app looks, your business card, your print and online marketing materials — it’s everything that’s visually created to reflect your message. In order to effectively connect with your target audience, your visuals need to reflect the style and personality of the company and remain consistent throughout your organization. It’s through your brand visuals that you make the very first impression on potential clients.

4. Brand Image:  Different from the brand identity (which is what you put out there for the world to see), your brand image is how your customers perceive your company (so what they pick up from what you’re putting out there). It a set of beliefs and impressions in the minds of your target audience. You certainly want your brand identity and your brand image to match and if by listening to your customers you find that it does not, it’s time to reevaluate where the disconnect is.

5. Brand Awareness:  This is simply how many people in your potential market know you exist. When you’re just starting your business, you have very little brand awareness. After creating your brand identity, you’ll want to follow up with some sort of brand awareness campaign to gain exposure in your arena. Gaining brand awareness often takes time and you can start by simply getting active on social media. Remember that what you post, how it looks and the value of the info you provide should all reflect the authentic connection you want to achieve with your target audience. Consistency will become your best friend in the brand awareness game. To become aware of a brand, your customers need to experience the same level of quality in both messaging and visuals every time they are exposed to your brand.

6. Brand Standards:  We often refer to brand standards or brand guidelines as a “brand bible.” It is the comprehensive document that outlines everything visual about your brand. This document is so important because it helps keep your brand looking and sounding consistent, no matter what changes might be happening within the organization. Brand consistency is crucial to maintain the style and personality of your brand. Your Brand Standards is the glue that holds everyone, including both internal and external partners, together. Anyone who works on the strategy and visuals of your brand and marketing should have access to your Brand Standards. When you’re first starting out, your Brand Standards will most likely be fairly simple, consisting of your logo and various orientations, color palettes and brand fonts.

7. Brand Architecture:  The architecture of your brand is like your brand’s family tree. It outlines the parent brands as well as any sub-brands and acquisition brands. Usually, this information is used internally to align partners and business goals, but your brand architecture can also be a marketing tool to provide company reach to your prospective target audience. Some companies choose to make their brand architecture known — Gap (parent), Old Navy, Banana Republic, Athleta (all large brands within their own right but still under the corporate parent of Gap Inc.). However, some use it to help separate their brands to more closely hone-in on their target audiences. The Loreal Professional haircare brand is also the owner of other professional brands like Redken, Matrix and Kérastase as well as many other store brands like Garnier and Maybelline (at the time of this writing). You can structure your brand architecture in a “brand house” (Amazon.com, Amazon Prime, Amazon Echo, etc.) or in a “house of brands” (Walt Disney owns ABC, Marvel, Star Wards, ESPN, but does not associate the Walt Disney name to its other brands). If you have a collection of brands or intend to have them in the future, keep this in mind as you create your initial company brand.

8. Brand Equity:  This is the recognition power your brand has, earned over time. High brand equity is what allows Nike to just have the swoosh icon without the Nike name. It’s what also allows companies to rebrand under a similar name without losing its loyal customer following (Federal Express —> FedEx). And when done right, it provides brand expansions and new products instant equity out of the gate. Brand equity is the result of maintaining brand consistency and by creating easy to recognize products/services, memorable content and value-added experiences for your customers.

9. Brand Extensions:  Brand extensions can be a direct result of high brand equity. A brand extension is simply using the existing brand to launch a new product or service in a different category or area of your business. Essentially, you’re using the existing customer base and brand loyalty to gain exposure and sales for the new product/service. While leveraging the equity of an existing brand can be highly successful when the new addition makes sense, it does not mean Bob’s Apple Farm should slap a horse stable between the tress and call it a successful brand extension. Extensions should be carefully researched, planned and launched so as not to defuse or confuse the main brand.

10. Rebranding:  Companies rebrand for a host of reasons (read more about that here) and when they do, it usually means they require a significant change in the brand. Whether that’s a noticeable alteration such as a new logo or name or a more subtle change such as new messaging, it’s important to engage a strategist and brand designer to work with the company to make the process as seamless as possible. Remember the #8-Brand Equity above? If there is valuable brand equity in place, you want to do everything you can to preserve as much of that as possible. A proper strategic plan, powerful messaging and high quality, conceptual visuals will make the transition far more successful.