How to Build a Brand: A Complete Step-by-Step Guide For Marketers & Entrepreneurs

Do you want to build a memorable brand but need help figuring out where to start? You’re in the right place. Building a brand isn’t overly complicated, but it does require a clear methodology and some dedicated time.

The creation of a brand from scratch involves five essential parts, and we’ll guide you through each one of them, from conducting research and developing your strategy to bringing your brand to life, measuring results, and making thoughtful adjustments.

While this guide provides a solid foundation, check out our comprehensive course and 60+ page brand strategy template to delve deeper into brand building and save time in the process.

Understanding the Fundamentals: Brand, Branding, and the Branding Process

Before we dive into the exact steps to build a brand, let’s review some key concepts: what a brand is, how it differs from branding, and the stages of the branding process.

This small overview will give us the clarity and foundation we need to tackle the second part of this guide: the step-by-step process of building a brand.

What is a brand?

According to the American Marketing Association, “a brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.”

You can consider a brand as the sum of personal impressions people have about specific products, services, and activities of a company or organization, both in a practical and emotional way.

This combination of physical and emotional cues is triggered when exposed to the brand’s name, logo, product, visual identity, or even the brand’s actions and message communicated. The popularity of particular brands can rise or fall based on how people collectively feel about them.

What is branding?

Branding is the strategic process of creating a brand and influencing how people perceive and experience it over time. It is the combination of many elements, including defining the brand’s essence, positioning, identity development, and communication. The goal is to help people quickly notice, identify, and connect with the brand, choosing it over competitors.

Branding aims to create a unique and cohesive brand presence that attracts and retains loyal customers and stakeholders in the long term through a combination of brand-building steps and brand management techniques.

What are the five stages of a branding process?

There are many different branding frameworks and ways to build a brand. However, a complete branding process should comprise five main parts:

• Part 1: Research & context analysis
• Part 2: Brand strategy development
• Part 3: Brand strategy execution
• Part 4: Brand measurement
• Part 5: Brand strategy adjustments

👉 Want a quick reference guide? Download our free Brand Strategy Cheat Sheet to keep these steps handy.

In the following sections, we’ll guide you through these five stages and outline all the essential steps to build a brand from scratch.

While there are many distinct brand-building methodologies and frameworks available, what you will see in this guide is our straightforward and practical methodology based on academic readings and our own experience. We’ve kept it simple so you can easily follow along while ensuring it covers all the essential steps of brand-building.

Now, let’s start with the most fundamental part of the process: research and analysis.

Part 1 — The Research Phase

The creation of every successful brand starts with thorough market research. You need to know exactly where your brand fits in the bigger picture and get the insights you need to build your strategy.

This research phase is crucial because it will clarify how to build a unique brand that truly matters to its ideal audience and provide insights into preparing it for the future.

Step 1: Clarifying your market

Start by clarifying which market or industry your brand belongs to. For example, Nike started as a running shoe company but positioned itself in the broader personal achievement market, opening massive opportunities beyond footwear. And Red Bull defines itself as part of the high-performance market, not just energy drinks.

This important decision will influence who you compete with, where you can grow, and how you connect with your audiences. The clearer your market view, the stronger your brand decisions will be.

Step 2: Mapping your stakeholders

Your brand touches many groups beyond just customers. Think about everyone who interacts with your brand. This includes team members, business partners, competitors, local communities, and even the natural environment. Understanding these relationships helps build a brand that creates value for its entire ecosystem – beyond customers. Then, note how the brand can better serve each group.

Step 3: Studying your competition

Take time to study your competitors. Try to look beyond the obvious competitors. Study both direct ones and companies solving similar problems with other products or services. You can focus on analyzing the products they offer, who they sell them to, and what makes their brand unique and special. The idea is to notice what they’re doing right, where they’re falling short, and most importantly – where there’s room for your brand to stand out.

Step 4: Understanding your customers

Strong brands are built on deep customer understanding. During this step, research what your customers truly want and need – not just who they are. Look for patterns in their behaviors, frustrations, and desires. Break your market into clear customer segments (or groups), then choose the most relevant for your brand.

Following, dive deep into these target segments to truly understand them. Ask yourself: What keeps them up at night? What do they value most? What inspires them? What are their biggest frustrations? The more you know about your chosen customer audiences, the better you can serve them and stand out from competitors.

Step 5: Anticipating market changes

The biggest brands lead their respective markets because they keep an eye on both market evolutions and cultural shifts. While it’s impossible to predict the future perfectly, you can try to anticipate important trends shaping your business landscape. A good example is Kodak, a brand that missed the digital revolution because it didn’t adapt to changing consumer habits and technological evolutions in photography.

So, try to spot shifts in your market or industry that could impact your brand’s future. By understanding these changes, you will build a more resilient brand ready for tomorrow’s challenges.

Step 6: Mapping additional external factors

Because your brand exists in the broader world, not just in a specific industry or market, it’s essential that you analyze and anticipate broader societal factors that could affect your brand’s future. Here, we’re talking about economic changes, technological evolutions, environmental threats, social trends, politics, and legislation changes.

For example, could upcoming regulations change how your brand operates? Could your brand be impacted by future natural disasters or pandemics? How would a change of government or political decision affect your brand?

Step 7: Internal reality check

For this last step of the context analysis, think of what the organization behind the brand can actually deliver. Before making any brand promises, you need to know what your brand is capable of doing and what it can’t do. Look closely at your team’s capabilities, resources, and challenges. Your future brand strategy must reflect what you can deliver today and realistically develop tomorrow.

Step 8: Connecting the dots and preparing for the strategy

Now, it’s time to bring all your insights together. What story does your market research tell? How do your audiences’ needs align with your brand’s capabilities? What are the most significant opportunities and threats for the next 5-20 years?

Before diving into the second part of the process, we recommend you take some time to think about how you could create the best possible brand. Ask yourself: how can my brand better answer its audiences’ needs, offer innovation, and be more ethical and sustainable?

Part 2 — Brand Strategy Development

Now that you’ve collected insights from your context analysis, you’re ready to develop a comprehensive brand strategy. This involves four key components: defining your brand’s essence (its heart and soul), positioning (what sets it apart), identity (what makes it unique and how you want it perceived), and architectureBrand architecture defines the role of each brand and acts as a guideline for the interrelationship between the brands in your organization. (its place within the organization).

Take your time with this crucial step. Use your research insights to feed your strategy, keeping in mind your future forecast analysis, ideal audience, stakeholders, and capabilities.

Step 1: Defining your brand’s essence

The brand’s essence, also called core identity, is like the heart and soul of your organization. It drives everything from within, ensuring alignment with your values. Although it may evolve, it remains a stable element of your brand strategy—a foundational pillar that keeps your brand authentic to its core.

Purpose and vision

Understand why your brand exists in the first place and where you want it to go. These elements will guide your strategy and inspire your team. Your purpose is your brand’s reason for being (beyond making a profit), and your vision sets the direction for the future. Try to keep them concise and inspiring.

Mission and values

Your mission summarizes how you plan to achieve your vision concretely. Values are the principles that shape your brand’s culture and clarify what your brand stands for. They are both key factors in connecting with your ideal audiences and making people better connect and trust your brand.

Ensure they are authentic and reflected in all aspects of your business. Every action of your business must be aligned with its core mission and values to ensure consistency and reliability.

Step 2: Defining your brand positioning strategy

Brand positioning is another essential part of the brand strategy process. This is where you will define what makes the brand truly unique and set it apart from competitors in your market or industry. Your brand should stand out authentically, not just be a ‘better version’ of others.

Because this step is crucial and involves several aspects that are not easy to summarize in an article, we invite you to preview the brand positioning chapter of our course for free. The preview includes dedicated video lessons and corresponding workbook sheets. Here, you will learn:

• How to create a brand positioning map
• How to write a brand positioning statement
• How to clarify the added value of your brand
• How to develop a clear brand promise, deriving from its positioning strategy and value proposition.

Step 3: Creating the brand’s identity

Brand identity is everything that makes your brand unique, influencing how it looks, sounds, feels and behaves. It includes tangible and intangible elements such as the brand’s story, name, personality, and visual identity. Your brand identity must be clearly defined and consistent across all touchpoints, acting as a stable aspect that shouldn’t change or fade easily.

To understand this concept, it can be helpful to think of what it means to have an identity as a person. It means being true to oneself, including elements like the person’s name, origins, personality, beliefs, and physical appearance. Similarly, brand identity involves defining these elements clearly, making it a vital step in your overall brand strategy.

Brand story and origins

Stories are powerful ways to connect with people on a personal and emotional level. To give depth to your brand, define its story. Ask yourself: What parts of its story can build a connection with your audience? How can you showcase this better? Which culture does it belong to, and how can we make it part of the brand’s identity?

Brand name

The name is an essential part of your brand that will help people identify and connect with it. If your brand still needs a name, find one that aligns with its essence and positioning while resonating with your ideal audience and standing out in the market. Explore different types of names and take all the time you need to make this decision. Remember to check for trademark and domain availability before committing.

Brand personality

A brand’s personality corresponds to “its way of being” and helps generate attachment among its audience by making it more human. People will connect better with its values and behaviors when it has unique character traits. This forms the basis for building the brand’s verbal identity, visual identity, and behaviors. To define a brand’s personality, you can ask yourself: If the brand were a person, how would it behave, think, and act? What emotions would it feel? You can use personality frameworks like personality dimensions or brand archetypes to support you in this process.

Communication style

With your brand’s personality defined, establishing its communication style becomes easier. Consider where the brand prefers to communicate, how it engages, and whether it leans more factual or emotional. This clarity helps refine the brand’s tone of voice and develop communication or editorial guidelines. Remember to use customer feedback to refine your tone and style continually.

The brand as a product or service

Your products and services are vital parts of your brand’s identity. They embody it through the entire customer experience. Every element should reflect your brand’s core values, from design and functionality to packaging.

Let’s take Apple as an example: its products and packaging perfectly represent its brand through a beautiful minimal design, intuitive use, and a premium look and feel.

Your brand identity should be present in every aspect of the product experience, ensuring it communicates your values and meets customer expectations. If you notice a disconnection, refine your offerings to align with your brand promise.

Visual style and sensory identity

Now comes one of the most exciting parts: designing your brand’s visual and sensory identity.

Your visual identity should include logos, colors, typography, imagery, and graphic layouts. All these assets need to look professional and attractive to your audience. When working on your visual identity, make sure to seek help from a design team or agency.

Then, you can consider adding sensory elements like sound or scent to enhance your brand’s uniqueness. For example, Abercrombie & Fitch uses a custom scent in their stores, while Hilton Garden Inn offers signature welcome cookies to engage guests’ senses during check-in.

Step 4: Defining your brand’s architecture

If your organization owns more than one brand, it is important to understand how each brand connects to the others and how they are organized within your organization.

Check the different brand architecture models (House of Brands, Branded House, and Hybrid Model), their corresponding advantages and disadvantages, and choose the most appropriate architecture for your brands. This will give you clarity and help you increase the coherence of your business.

Step 5: Summarizing your strategy in brand guidelines documents

Now that you’ve got a complete strategy for your brand, it’s time to pull it all together in a document or online platform. You can keep separate guidelines for the overall strategy and visual identity or combine them in one spot.

Use pre-designed templates tailored to your brand, and/or try an online brand guidelines platform to keep all your brand assets in one place. This way, everyone on the team can easily refer to it. And it’s the perfect preparation for the next step: executing the strategy.

Part 3 — Brand Strategy Execution

With the brand strategy in place, it’s time to bring your brand to life!

Step 1: Aligning your business with your brand

Now, we must ensure your brand offers a coherent brand experience across all touchpoints. For this, make sure your brand strategy is fully communicated internally and integrated within your entire organization.

Get your team, departments, and operations aligned with your brand. Ensure they embody it and deliver on the brand’s promise. When everyone is on the same page with the brand strategy, you’ll have control over the brand experience and ensure consistency.

Step 2: Creating a brand communications plan

It’s time to communicate your brand externally to your different audiences and see it come to life!

First, develop a brand communications plan by identifying your target audiences, defining key messages that resonate with them, and choosing the most appropriate communication channels for your brand, like social media, email newsletters, or outdoor billboards. Decide on an advertising strategy, such as using Google Ads or working with influencers, and create a content strategy through blog posts, social media platforms, or video content to engage with your audiences effectively.

Step 3: Investing in high-quality communication materials

Your brand’s communication materials, such as product shots, packaging design, video content, business cards, and website design, are the face of your brand.

Ensure they are professionally created to match your brand identity and overall strategy. Depending on your budget and industry, you can, for example, invest in a professional photoshoot or a stunning website design to build trust and create a professional image among your audiences.

Part 4 — Brand Measurement

Brand measurement is a crucial part of the branding process, and it’s also often overlooked by many companies. It helps you evaluate if your brand-building efforts are delivering real results. When tracking the right metrics, you can optimize your strategy and maximize your brand’s impact in the market.

Step 1: Understanding brand performance dimensions

Start by implementing a measurement framework that monitors four essential dimensions: brand awareness (market recognition), brand image (audience perception), brand preference (competitive advantage), and brand loyalty (customer retention).

Step 2: Establishing a brand measurement system

Then, define relevant KPIs that align with your business goals, establish corresponding measurement methods, set performance baselines, and determine optimal monitoring frequencies.

In our course, we provide an easy-to-understand guide on how to accomplish this precisely, including a list of KPIs and measurement examples for each dimension.

Part 5 — Brand Strategy Adjustments

Closing the brand strategy loop, it’s time to review results and fine-tune your approach. Your brand strategy should adapt based on how well it’s working and what’s happening in your market.

Step 1: Evaluating your options

When results don’t match your goals, you have several strategic options: improve your brand’s actions by strengthening commitments and delivery, adjust positioning to shift market perception, refresh your brand’s look while keeping its core intact, or undertake a complete rebranding if needed.

Step 2: Seeking professional support

Knowing which adjustment best fits your situation and how to implement it effectively is key.

We highly recommend getting support from expert brand strategists when it comes to more extreme adjustments, such as repositioning or rebranding.