You’re the best at what you do, and you’ve just created the best product there is. You’re confident everyone will want to buy or experience it, but they don’t. How do you show them what you have, convince them you’re worth their time and dollars while you’re starting out, while you’re still fresh and young and green?

Before you launch your awesome idea to the world, you need to have a well thought out branding strategy in place. A major reason so many start-ups fail is because they rushed their product or service without planning how they were going to market themselves.

It is a daunting task, but it’s nothing compared to putting everything you have into your business and watching it fail because you ignored something essential. A strong branding strategy is crucial.

Here are 5 steps to help guide you in the right direction:

1) Define yourself. What are you offering? To who? You need to know your target audience and how to appeal to them. Define your strategy.

2) Choose the right name. Your name needs to appeal to the market you want to break in to. When choosing a name, don’t forget that times and trends change. Avoid choosing a name that is timely, as the relevance is likely to pass and seem dated before long.

3) Uncover your brand personality. You’ve got the product and name, now you need the look and feel.  The brand personalities gives consumers something with which they can relate, effectively increasing brand awareness and popularity. An effective brand will increase its brand equity by having a consistent set of traits.

4) Create a list of touchpoints. How are you going to let people know you exist? How do you want to communicate with your target audience? Build awareness for your brand and determine which tools will be most effective in communicating your messages; your website, social media, presentations, marketing materials, business papers, advertising, exhibits, signage or another platform.

5) It’s time for design. A designer takes your strategy notes, list of touchpoints, and brand workshop results to create your brand identity. This includes creating your logo, tagline, mood, voice, color palette, and creating a set of brand guidelines which will serve as the key tool to consistently communicate your message.

We hope these steps will help prepare your brand strategy for the first leg of your journey. Check back next week for tips on building a strong brand identity.