Build a Powerful Corporate Identity With These 5 Key Steps

January 2, 2019

For neophyte business owners, building a corporate identity might seem like a daunting task at first. But as with anything in business, coupling hard work with the right information are one of the key ingredients to achieving success. Today we’ll talk about what corporate identity means to your business and what steps you can take to build a powerful company image.

In essence, a corporate identity is any characteristic of your business that is perceptible by your consumers. These characteristics include your company logo, symbols, slogans, choice of colours, choice of company merchandise and many more. Basically anything that is identified with your business is what makes up your corporate image.

But it’s more than just the fonts, the styling, and the design. At its heart, a corporate identity is about who you are as a company and what are your internal goals, beliefs, and visions are. Startup owners often think that a corporate identity is only beneficial for large-scale businesses and enterprises, but that’s not exactly true.

Working on your company image from the very beginning brings a lot of advantages even for small to medium-sized business owners. The benefits of building your corporate identity from the start are:

Consumers will be able to identify your company much easier, especially your target audience. When customers are able to relate and understand what products/services you are offering, it helps achieve customer loyalty.
Aesthetically appealing visuals help garner interest from potential customers.
Establishing your own unique corporate identity will help separate you from the rest of the competition. Once you’ve gained a loyal following from your customers, your brand will suddenly go from unknown to prominent. This will help boost sales and reputation as your company grows larger.

These 5 key steps will help you build a powerful corporate identity that’s instantly recognizable from the eyes of your employees, your consumers, and your competitors.

Step 1: Look into your company’s history and find out why you decided to start it.

The first step in building a strong corporate identity is to dive into your company’s history and find out the reasons why you started it in the first place. Tracing the roots back to your humble beginnings helps you figure out what your main goals are and where you intend to take the company.

Internalizing your company values, philosophies, and missions will allow you to identify the strengths and weaknesses your business possesses. What are the things you are currently good at and how can you make it better? Have you identified any weaknesses in your company? How do you address it?

From there, you can make necessary tweaks to ensure that your company is where it needs to be. Businesses thrive by constantly innovating and evolving, but the most successful ones incorporate their main goals into these changes without losing their identity. This is the first step in building a recognizable corporate image.

Step 2: What your products/services mean to your consumers.

How your consumers relate to your products/services are vital in terms of building a powerful corporate image. When consumers are able to connect with your company’s story, they feel valued because they can relate to what you’re selling.

You have to tell your story and you have to focus on what makes your company different from the rest of your competitors. Being unique in your own way helps establish a strong corporate image because consumers can easily recognize you. You don’t want to follow what everyone else is doing. You have to stand out and paint your own corporate image by bringing meaning into what you are selling to your consumers.

Step 3: Envision your company’s future.

As previously mentioned, innovation and evolution is what sustains a company’s success. Being able to adapt to changes in the competition will help you stay relevant in the future. This means updating your visuals, the design aspects of your business, and improving your products/services so you can sustain customer loyalty.

Your primary values, philosophies, and visions shouldn’t change, but they should always be integrated into new adaptations for your company which greatly benefits your corporate identity as your business grows.

Step 4: Work on your visuals so that it conveys the overall vision of your company.

The design elements of your business are the first things consumers take notice. Does it portray the kind of message that you want your consumers to know? Do the colours, fonts, and logos embody the overall essence and vision of your company?

Utilizing unique designs will make your corporate identity more recognizable. Just don’t go too overboard with aggressive styling and bold colours. Keep it clean and simple so consumers know what you’re selling them right from the get-go.

Step 5: Take note of the changes you make with your company’s image.

During the process of shaping your corporate image, it’s important to keep track of any changes that you make and document everything properly. Whether it be the logos, fonts, the colours, or the styling, taking note of the various tweaks will enable you to identify changes that are effective and those that don’t work.

While change is good, you should avoid drastically changing your corporate image to the point that it’s absolutely unrecognizable from your previous designs. Make small, minor changes instead of drastic ones so that your corporate identity remains intact and your consumers will still be able to identify your company.

Conclusion

Building a powerful company identity requires a lot of patience and effort. It’s a trial and error process until you figure out what works and what doesn’t. It’s important to remember these questions when you’re on a quest to build a reputable corporate image: