How to Brand Plan in 2021

Planning a brand is never easy. You need to look at everything from how you look, how you present yourself and your morals/ethics of how your business runs. If you begin to plan your brand, you need to make sure you get it write first time.

What Do You Offer?

Planning a brand requires you to have something such as a product or service that is appealing to others. You will need to ask yourself is it needed? Will it be wanted this year? Can it drive custom with the current market? People always ask for more and demands are ever-changing, if you sell something that people will need or desire then you will reach more people and your conversion rate will increase. Let’s reflect on the beginning of the pandemic to now. We started off running around supermarkets like lunatics, stocking up on toilet roll, bread, and milk. As time went on, we stopped buying these things. Even without COVID, there is always something that becomes a trend and favourite amongst people. You need to cement your brand into the minds of people and keep them coming back for more so what you offer needs to be what people want and need. You then need to look at the quality of what you offer and the price, people love a good bargain and that will never change, but the quality needs to be of a high standard. The quality will differentiate your brands from others and generate good reviews.

Research. Research. Research

No brand is ever going to compete without knowing who they are up against, their target audience, or knowledge of the product market. Research allows you to analyse your competitors and see the types of things they are doing to drive traffic and custom. It also enables you to get an idea of how industry-specific businesses brand their company. If you aren’t sure how to figure out a target audience, search for the product or service you plan to offer and look at the reviews. Sometimes reviews offer insightful information such as age to see who is purchasing what and also offer extra information such as gender and location. I recommend that when you do your research, make notes or make some sort of planning document. Whether that be a table, list, or mind map it doesn’t matter as long as you can refer back to the document when you are working on elements of your brand. So many research tools are available out there, digital marketing agencies tend to be a valuable asset. They do the research for you and can consistently work on your business when it does launch and even beforehand. You need to know how to get to your audience and create the right messages and content to engage them. An efficient marketing strategy from research conducted will be your best friend throughout your entire branding process.

Appearance Online

You need to look good and have a good message behind your brand to attract potential customers in 2021. Branding isn’t just building people to like what you do, you need to look stylish whilst sending off a clear and important message. First, let’s start with how you look. Everything from your logo, image themes, and colours should be consistent throughout. Colour theory is a real thing… click here. With more indications showing that shoppers will stay online even when the high-street market opens back up, more shoppers will pay attention to how you look online to get an idea of your brand. If you are shopping on the high-street, it isn’t often you look at the font of the shop sign, the logo, the CTAs, or the motto. Whereas when you look online, you pay more attention to how a brand looks usually before you decide to browse further at what they offer. When online, everything from the size of your text to the font becomes a key factor in branding. It needs to be readable but attractive and not overdone with several different types of font on a page. Your logo needs to be unique to stand out, no automated online template or one you randomly chose off of Google. That may also not be legal either due to copyright issues. This is why it is always best to bring the professionals in, especially if you are dedicated to creating the best for your brand. A good brand in 2021 will need a good mission statement. Why are you doing this? What do you believe in? What do you want to achieve? This will make you more appealing and connect to people better.

Future of 2021

No one is too sure what the future holds, and we can’t be sure about any consumer trends or how things will go. As we ease out of the lockdowns, we believe that many people will still choose to stay online and shop online. Specific industries will have a large surge in custom such as the tourist industry because who doesn’t want to go on holiday after the year we’ve had? A lot of habits will change and some may prefer to stay in more, some individuals will be ready to go to festivals or clubs. This could be a good opportunity for businesses to drive more sales. We also believe that with more people transferring back to work, more people may be spending to prepare themselves more. Of course, later in the year, the typical seasonal business trends will still be there but with an added factor of how the pandemic is panning out. This is why when planning your brand you need to make sure you are prepared for different circumstances and bumps in the road.

If you need help with your brand planning, Prototype Creative are here to help you!