Are you a startup that is struggling to convey your brand? Maybe this is because your business isn’t about your message—it is about your customer’s message. If this sounds unusual to you, read on to learn three essential branding strategies that your startup needs to know.
Above the Fold
Place your simple brand message above the fold. That doesn’t mean you should cram as much as you can above the fold. The term “above the fold” refers to newspapers, where the goal was to get your content placed above the horizontal fold. Customers would see this content first, even with just a glance at the newsstand or at the newspaper of the person next to them. For branding strategies and website design, this translates into placing content above the scroll. The proven theory behind this is that customers should be able to see your entire brand message with as little effort exerted on their part as possible, such as omitting the need to scroll down.
StoryBrand
Donald Miller’s StoryBrand is a company that instructs brands to tell a story in a different way than most brands. StoryBrand urges marketers to create an efficient, clear message to gain customers’ attention. Instead of brands creating a story around themselves, they build the story around the customers, structured so that the customer is the hero of this story. Psychologically, customers want their stories heard, which makes this a powerful strategy.
StoryBrand claims that by validating the customers’ story, you position yourself to step in and to be the solution, resulting in a happy ending. Donald Miller knows that stories are powerful, but they need to invite the customers in. It’s even an axiom of trial attorneys that, “the party that has the best story to tell wins the case.”
Keep It Simple
Keeping things simple may not sound like much of a strategy, but it is proven to be the best way to convey your brand for all demographics. Design your branding elements to be simple while simultaneously conveying an overarching simple brand message. Distill your copy to as few words as possible, do not use more than three colors for your visuals, and present yourself in a way that even a child can understand. Like a well-written pop song, simple is not as easy as it sounds.
Building your company’s brand is one of the most important things you can do to succeed as a company. Effectively conveying your brand from the start will help send your startup on its way to a successful launch. Make sure that your branding strategy is customer-focused, simple, and above the fold, and you will be off to a great start.
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