Learning Center | Play.Interactive®
Why should you have a brand manual before starting your business?
Having a brand manual before starting your business is important because it will help you define how you want your brands and products to be perceived, both within the company by your employees and collaborators, and externally by your customers. Generate identity and establish from the beginning what you want to communicate about your company and even about yourself. Not only what you sell but how you sell it, the additional things you want to offer, and what you want others to feel and think, that is, the experience you want to create.
1: The brand manual communicates the corporate culture
Imagine the culture of a company as the “personality” of your business, even better, as its “soul” formed by the values, beliefs, actions, thoughts, all goals shared by all members of the organization. Preparing a brand manual before starting a business will ensure that you clearly transmit all those values and aspirations to your future clients.
People are not only looking for products and services, they are looking for experiences and support, so the brand manual will tell people interested in your company that it can provide the ideal solution for their needs. By capturing the essence of your company in the communication tools with customers, you will give them the certainty that they are on the right track. They will know that they have been looking for you and your company and that they need them.
2: Make your brand manual before starting your business
It’s about clearly and confidently showing that you know who you are and what you want to achieve. Like everything in business, the success of your company’s identity is largely based on planning. It is not something you can create on the fly, as it requires reflection and testing. Likewise, you cannot start a rebranding process unexpectedly, since that confuses the client. You must be sure that this is what you want to show and be willing to keep those elements for a long time.
A brand must establish the elements of the graphic composition that will accompany it during its attempt to break into a market, such as:
- Logos
- The color palette
- Fonts
- Effects and styles like gradients, black and white, overlays, etc.
- Graphic elements: icons, vectors, buttons, underlines, etc.
You want the success of your company to last for a long time, therefore, you need to plan the design well in advance and, above all, keep in mind the essence of your business (purpose) so that there is harmony between the need you are trying to cover and the How are you going to present it? Test and play around with variations until you’re sure you’re sending the right message to the right people.
3: Provides certainty to the brand
There are brands that are recognizable almost by instinct. Their presence is so natural and wide that they practically form part of the culture because they are familiar to everyone. Some even substitute the name of the object for that of the brand to be more present in the minds of their consumers. Perhaps, if your business is smaller, you will not achieve such deep recognition in consumers, however, thinking about your brand manual before starting your business will allow your customers to know that they can count on you once they know your solutions to your needs.
The brand manual will ensure that every time you try to communicate with your customers (new and old) they identify you and differentiate you from your competitors, and therefore help to create a meaningful and valuable relationship with them. Building a successful brand will give you benefits like increased customer loyalty, an improved image, and a recognizable identity. If you can be identified, customers will come to your business and, most importantly, they will return.
4: Come up with a strategy that says who you are
We have said that reflecting on the brand manual before starting your business is an opportunity to answer the question “Who are you as a brand?” This implies defining very deep aspects of the foundations on which your business is founded. Generally, companies are not formed to manufacture or distribute a product for utilitarian reasons but rather respond to deep needs, both personal and societal.
When making your brand manual, it is desirable that your company is consistent with its purpose, vision, mission and values, forming with it a coherent corporate identity.
- Purpose. Who is your buyer person? What need or problem is your company going to solve?
- Vision. What future projection does the company have? What ambitions do you have?
- Mission What value does your company offer? Where do we concentrate our efforts?
- Values. How do we make decisions when doing business? What values do we want to represent?
Likewise, you must choose the brand messages, find a tone, a brand voice, a personality, a slogan, and a value proposition. The tone of voice can be informal, warm, or technical, the important thing is that a meaningful relationship with the client is formed.
5: Achieve a uniform language
All the efforts of the company when preparing a brand manual will lead to reinforcing the identity, it is vital that your logo, your colors, fonts, iconography, and illustrative style are accurately described in the document that contains the brand manual. This facilitates your work processes: does the logo have any effect? Is the color palette respected in the advertising? Is everything the same in the packaging? Prevent art, marketing, and even sales teams from going their separate ways, as all of your teams will know exactly which elements to use.
Finally, having a brand manual before starting your business strengthens your communication in other media, when the company appears in external media, such as a digital newsletter or in advertising, it is necessary that the mentions have elements that are related to your brand.
If you need advice on how to create a brand manual, contact Play.Interactive® and we will help you.
