It’s time to empower business owners to brand their businesses themselves. Why? Because you care more than anyone else about how your brand turns out.

If you’re ready to create a brand identity for your business but you don’t know where to start, this post will outline how to move forward, starting from your first steps.

1. Know Why you do what you do.

Before you begin working on your brand, dig deep and find your motivation. 

Ask yourself:

• What do I want my brand to achieve?
• How long do I need this brand to last?
• What is my brand personality? 

2. Know Who your customers are.

Before you put a single pixel on a screen, or draw the first faint trace of a line on paper, you must understand who you want to reach with your brand. Here’s what you have to nail down about your ideal customer:

• Their age range: what age group do the majority of your customers fall into?
• Their gender: are there more men or women in the group you’re targeting?
• Their education level: is it high school, college, post-graduate?
• What type of employment they have. Are they self-employed, do they work for a corporation, do they own several business? Are they looking for work?
• Their lifestyle: how do they spend their work and leisure time?
• Their challenges: what do they struggle with? And how can you help them?

Even if you don’t have a single customer lined up, visualise who your perfect customer looks like. Who needs the solution your business provides, and what are they like?

3. Know How to get your message across

The verbal and visual elements you use to express your brand are next. You’ll have to figure out:

• What words you’ll use to express your offering. This includes your business name, tagline and “brand promise,” the short text you’ll use to explain what your company does, who you serve and how you help them.
• What colours you’ll use. I recommend developing a 2 or 3 colour palette you can use in all of your branding elements. It’s versatile, flexible, and will give you the right colour for every occasion.
• What fonts will represent your business but make sure they are clear and a good size to read. Once you’ve chosen fonts, be sure to use them consistently on the web and in your print materials.

Once you’ve created these brand elements, your focus moves to spreading your brand message.

4. Know Which tools to use

When you’re creating your brand yourself, take advantage of the inexpensive (and sometimes free) tools available:

• Open source website software like WordPress.org will help you create a website.
• Open source desktop software like OpenOffice.org will help you create branding materials like ebooks, web ads, graphics, and presentations.
• Online photo retouching and image creation is easy and inexpensive with Canva or Instacollage.
• Social media gives you a free venue to share your brand. You pay with your time, of course, but it’s less expensive than taking out ads, and usually more effective, too.

5. Know More by developing your skills

When you’re responsible for your own brand, it’s important to maintain a “learner’s mind.” Stay up-to-date with what’s working to build memorable brands today. Like visual marketing!

Visual marketing draws attention to your brand on the web, on social media, in email marketing, and more. And today, you can learn how to do it for free.