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Using Your Company Name and Logo to Establish Your Business's Startups Brand
One critical but often overlooked aspect of planning your startup is developing your brand. Branding is more than just the name of your company. In fact, good branding not only promotes your company's image and personality but becomes the heart and soul of your business venture.
Image and Culture
The image and culture you choose to develop for your business should be reflected in the name and logo you select. Everything from font to color selection to logo design should work together to provide a mental image consistent with the type of business you run. There are a million fonts available these days, and it is essential that your business name be not only readable, but also come across as consistent with your idea of the venture's image. Psychology studies have established that different colors promote different emotions and have different inherent meanings to people, so be sure the colors you select make sense with the image you want to convey (even if they aren't your own favorites).
Designing Your Logo
Designing the right logo can be difficult, but there are several options for those
who are not particularly artistically inclined. First, there are professional designers
and graphic artists who will listen to your ideas and design several logos for you
to choose from. This option can be expensive and sometimes frustrating -
There are also a number of good logo design software programs that are reasonably
priced and easy to use. Anyone with basic computer skills can figure out how to use
these programs, and the better ones include a wide range of styles to choose from.
If you design the logo yourself, come up with several samples and share them with
friends and family -
Use a Tag Line
In addition to your business name and logo, consider developing a tag line to further describe the work you do and identify key words or phrases that are meaningful to your target customers. A tag line can be particularly useful if your business name does not clearly explain what the company does or if you have a particular aspect that sets you apart from the competition. Identifying key words or phrases is also important in building your brand.
If your business lends itself to creating a new term, so much the better. The drink company Energy Brands coined the term enhanced water and they use it on every piece of marketing that goes out the door. If creating a new word or phrase is not feasible, then at least find the words and phrases that accurately and memorably describe what you do and how you do it. Then work them into your marketing materials.
Protect Your Image Assets
Once you have developed a comprehensive identity package, spend the time and money to protect those assets. Filing for a federal trademark is not particularly difficult or expensive, so it is surprising how few business owners protect their primary asset under federal law. If your business name is a term in the common use, you may not be able to protect the words, but you can protect the logo design, jingle, or any other proprietary identification of the venture. The trademark doesn't guarantee that no one else will use your name, but it does provide you the ability to sue them if they do...a definite advantage if any copycats try to infringe on your business idea.
Use Your Image to Build Your Business
Creating a branding package is an absolute must for any new business. The key to
effective branding is to maintain consistency, both in terms of reflecting the actual
image and culture of the business and in terms of the marketing materials you develop.
But developing the identity package is just the first step -
About the Author
LaunchX.com is dedicated to training entrepreneurs to turn their good ideas into
great companies. The LaunchX System provides step-
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