Whether you are starting a business from scratch or taking your existing business in a new marketing direction, branding your company is one of the most thrilling, and most important endeavours you will take as a business owner.
Your company’s visual brand is everything! It communicates with your intended audience, with your current customers and your potential clients a lot about your business: who you are, what you do, and how you do it. That might sound like a lot of pressure for a simple logo and a few words that make up a tagline, but your branding really can make or break your business.
From your colour choice to the words that you use, your branding will have an impact on your business’ success. Once it’s all in place, then you can really start to have fun with it. One of the best things that we do at Totally Chocolate is help companies advertise their businesses with chocolate. It’s effective and fun, and can work for anyone.
Worried about where to begin? Don’t be – it’s just one step at a time.
Building Your Brand
Most people already have a sort of personal brand, even if they don’t totally realize it. Everything from the color palette of the clothes a person wears, to their haircut, to the brands they buy and where they shop conveys something to the public about the type of person they are. Of course, this has become a whole industry in itself with influencers on social media – everything is curated down to the last detail, in order to share a message or idea, and ultimately result in sales.
Once you have the inkling of an idea for a business, you can start considering your brand. Here are some common questions to ask yourself to begin building your brand from the ground up.
1. Who is your target audience?
This will help you decide on how to shape your visual messaging. Are you going to be reaching your potential customers online or with posters around the neighbourhood?
2. What are your competitors doing?
A great place to start is to get a handle on who is already occupying the landscape you want to succeed in, and what is the difference between the businesses that are doing well and those that are struggling. If you want to open a coffee shop, for example, do a research trip and visit all the coffee shops in the area. What are the differences between those that are busy and those that are empty?
3. What is your company’s personality?
Endless options here, but what resonates with you? Do you want to give off a chipper, happy vibe or set up a mysterious mood? Are you on trend or do you have a retro focus? Boho or brainy? Once you have this in place, you can really start to narrow things down. From here, your colour scheme, your business name, your logo and your slogan can have a proper foundation to land on, making everything more cohesive and helping you really be able to decide on the specifics of your branding.
At this point, it may be a good idea to invest in hiring a marketing professional to help you market your brand more effectively. You don’t have to go over the top, but an extra set of experienced eyes can help make sure you are moving in the right direction. Because the last thing you want is to forge ahead with your brilliant marketing design, only to realize you’ve made a mistake somewhere along the way.
From Branding to Business Success
Now that you confidently have your branding in place, you can move forward with some really fun marketing campaigns. Again, there are endless options here. Of course, our favourite campaigns are the ones that incorporate chocolate!
At Totally Chocolate, we create custom chocolates for all kinds of occasions – from celebrations and holidays to sweet, unique messages from one person to another. But some of our favourite chocolate creations are customized for businesses using their unique branding.
We help businesses of all sizes market themselves by laser engraving their logo directly onto chocolate. From there, the businesses distribute the customized chocolates to their clients, customers, staff.
They take them to trade shows to hand out to attendees in order to create a lasting impression and stand out in a sea of networking professionals. Or they create campaigns and hand out their customized chocolate to customers that shop in their stores. Are the wheels starting to turn for you? How would you use a custom chocolate gift to connect with your current and potential customers?
Any idea that you have, we can try and make it a reality. From large chocolate bars to a trove of chocolate coins, Totally Chocolate makes it simple and straightforward to create the customized chocolate that you didn’t even know your business needed!
Here’s How
Most successful businesses find a unique and interesting way to stand out from the crowd, both through their branding and how they decide to use it. You don’t even have to think about the businesses that have gone global, instead consider the success that you notice on a local level.
What makes the restaurants, salons, shops, and businesses excel? Once you put your mind to it, one of the first things you can probably envision is their branding – it stands out or is memorable in some interesting way. With the right process in place, that path to success can be yours!
Business ownership is a thrilling endeavor, and it will have its ups and downs. The main thing is to stay true to your vision while being flexible enough to know when to pivot and adjust. After that, it’s all about being creative and finding ways to connect with the people who are going to support you. And one of the best ways to tie this all together is through the magic, uniting power of chocolate!
