In today’s digital world, if you want your business to thrive, you need to find a way to stand out. Unless you’re first to market in your space, chances are you’re entering a very crowded market. And the key to standing out? Developing a distinctive brand identity.

But how, exactly, do you do that? What are the steps for developing and designing a distinctive digital brand identity that puts you a notch above your competitors and shows your potential customers you’re the kind of company they want to do business with?

Here are some essential tips that you need to keep in mind while creating a distinctive Digital Identity for your brand

• Get clear on who you are as a brand

Before you know what tangible elements you want to make up your brand identity digitally, you have to be clear on who you are as a brand. The important questions that you need to ask yourself before creating your digital brand identity are:

• Mission
• Values
• Brand Personality
• Unique positioning
• Brand voice
• Customers

When you think about all these factors, you will get complete clarity about what you want from your brand and what is your ideation for your brand to be showcased to the public.

• Study the competition

A little competition hurts no one. But when you are in the marketing business, it’s very important to know about whom you are competing with. So before making up your brand identity, explore the market you’re into and study your competitors. This will give you an idea about what’s working for the people and what’s not. How can you differentiate your brand from others? There is always a scope of improvement. 

• Decide the medium

Deciding where the marketing of the brand will take place is a crucial step because some people want the traditional way of marketing while others want modern mediums like social media to publicize their brand. Once you have decided that medium, traditional or director digital, make sure you have the right kind of content for each medium. Start with understanding each medium and your audience’s habits in that particular medium channel. Use each channel appropriately and as a part of a cohesive overall strategy.

• Conformity with your Logo identity

A logo is a graphic symbol that is very essential in your branding process. It represents everything from your website to your business cards to your online ads. Basically, it is the face of your company, which has to be perfect because it is the most visible thing about your brand or company. Your logo should communicate whom you are as a brand, your uniqueness that makes you stand out from all your competitors and should be able to have a strong and positive impact on the audience.

• Don’t overcomplicate things

When it comes to logo designing or marketing the brand, staying as simple as possible is the key. When you start to make the logo or elements with too many design elements, the visual representations of the brand looks cluttered and overwhelm your audience. This cluttered look comes out as a negative branding of your brand and you might lose some customers. So stay simple and unique in your own way.

• Think about the graphics you choose

When you create a graphic to represent your brand, it should be strong enough to communicate your message to the targeted audience perfectly. The graphics chosen ensures that brand is consistent throughout any collateral you produce. An entire checklist of choosing the right graphics starting from dictating your logo size and placement, choosing the color palette, fonts that reflects the unique identity of your brand, any icons you want to introduce, web specific elements and your brand voice is very important to make your brand stand out.

• Incorporate your point of difference into everything you do

Incorporating your brand identity in whatever you do is the right process of building a brand. Adding “your own spice” is the thing that should make your brand unique and different from the other brands in the market.

• Stay consistent

Your brand identity should be consistent no matter where or how your audience interacts with you. It is a well-known fact that “consistency in branding builds trust”, which means that once you have established a guideline for your brand you should stick with them no matter what. Even if you run a company, it shouldn’t give you the power to change guidelines because you felt like it. Do not deviate from the proper usage of your brand design elements, as your distraction would confuse the audience and make you lose customers.

• Make a good first impression

“The first impression is the last impression”, it might not be the last but it surely creates an impression for the rest of your life. Your brand impression has to be felt by the customers at a personal level so that they never forget what your brand has to offer. The first impression of the brand depends on many factors like structure, colors, spacing, symmetry, amount of text, fonts and more. According to studies and research, the first impressions are influenced by the visual appeal of the website. It eventually helps in user usability and performance of the website or brand.

• Remember whom you’re talking to

When you create a brand identity, you should ALWAYS remember whom you’re talking to. Who is your target audience? If you don’t understand your customers, everything else you do to build your brand identity will not have a positive impact on business goals. Sometimes you have to tailor your mission and message to meet the needs of your customer’s demands. You obviously want the right person consuming your content, clicking on your ads, opting into your email list, etc. So always, determine whom you’re talking to when preaching your brand identity.

These 10 Tips are the basic, yet essential steps to make a distinctive digital identity for your brand. Follow the tips to create a unique brand identity for your brand.