In a recent episode of A Little Marketing, we chatted with Sacha Brant, owner of Brand Scrubbers, about branding for businesses. Sacha spoke with us about what’s involved with branding and how to get started. Every business needs a brand. Your brand is the memorable impression you leave on customers and lets customers know what to expect from your company.
Sometimes it takes trial and error to establish a brand that works for your business. And that’s okay. Branding can be a learning curve.
Here’s what Sacha had to say:
Defining Branding with Sacha Brant
Sacha Brant from Brand Scrubbers talks branding as our guest on A Little Marketing.
Sacha tells us that branding is about what you, as a business owner, like and what your customer likes. So, when she’s first working with a client, she asks them questions about their business and customer to learn as much as possible about what the brand should look like: “We gotta know about the customer. Who are they? Where are they? What are they looking for? What are they selling, and why are they selling it?”
The next thing Sacha does is ask the business owner, “What do you like?” So whether it’s specific colours, fonts, designs, and other factors. “Then we take the two groups and marry them together.”
Sacha says the reason that she takes the business owner’s interests into account when branding is because “You have to get excited about your brand. You have to be passionate about your brand. If you’re not, it will not go where you want it to go.”
So essentially, branding is the marriage between what the business represents and how the business owner wants its brand to look.
Factors that Go into Branding
One of the first factors of branding is colour. “A lot of what colouring is, is an emotional response,” says Sacha. So for Sacha, colour is an integral part of branding, influencing how the business owner and customers feel about the brand.
Other factors include your business’s logo, message, tone, language, voice and name. Figuring out what direction you want to take all of these factors goes back to those original questions – such as who is your brand? What are you selling?
Sacha also mentions that branding is about a “vibe.” Sacha says, “People purchase things because of how it makes them feel…so when your branding plays upon that emotional impact piece, it’s opening the door for people a little faster because you’re making that connection just by the things that they’re seeing…this creates that feeling.”
Your branding should create a particular feeling or vibe.
“The more you can work [feeling] into your message, branding, look, and how you do everything, the better you’ll end up,” says Sacha.
Rebranding
When starting a new business, you have to establish a brand. But even established businesses sometimes need to rebrand. Whether your brand isn’t performing how you want it to or your business has changed since initially branding, sometimes rebranding is necessary.
Regarding rebranding, here’s Sacha’s suggestion, “Even if you’re doing a complete overhaul, we recommend keeping some of those original pieces because we don’t want to cause a complete system shock to your customers.”
Sacha suggests returning to those original questions and answers about your business during the rebranding process and asking, “Is all of this still relevant? If not, what is it now? That will then shape what you change the brand into.”
Dive Deeper into Branding for Your Business
We’ve only scratched the surface. We’d be here for days if we wrote down all of the valuable information about Branding that Sacha shared on our podcast. So be sure to check out the full episode here. And don’t forget to subscribe!