A common misconception of branding is that it’s just premium marketing, but nothing could be further from the truth. Before you start looking for the best branding agency in Singapore, you should have a better grasp of what branding actually does for you and know what to expect out of a branding consultancy.
Most people only see the glamorous creative campaigns and worldwide recognition in branding, but it’s much more than that. With COVID-19 taking the world by storm, it’s a make or break to ensure your business doesn’t go down. Great marketing coupled with a good brand identity helps you achieve wider goals on a corporation level and puts you in a much better position ahead of your rivals. Instead of diving headfirst and splurging on a branding agency, understand what is it that branding can help you achieve so that you’ll be able to work better with your chosen branding partner.
If you’re going to engage branding services, not only should you be considering the type of grants available for branding, you should also be looking out for these are objectives by the end of the project:
Refine Your Target Audience
Many brands make mistakes in curating their target audience, whether it’s too wide of a group or one too narrow for their own good. By refining your target audience, you’re able to put out a more personal and relatable message that is more impactful for your brand.
During the branding/rebranding process, your branding agency should be conducting research and keeping ears to the ground to understand the demographics, personality, and psychological traits within your target audience. The research process is paramount to any effective branding campaign and should not be overlooked. (That means you have to be willing to pay for it too!)
This will improve your understanding of your target audience and thus allow you to better target them as a brand. The results might even surprise you and provide some fresh insights into the various processes within your company.
Create/Recreate Your Visual Elements
Visual components are the key to storytelling and that goes for your brand story as well. Even if it’s typography, your logo, or a full key visual within a creative campaign, visuals help your audience remember the message and story.
A branding agency has to base the design of your visual elements on your brand profile and the initial research conducted, which looks to distinguish you from your competitors and stand out with a memorable image. The visual elements have to be applied across every collateral, product, and communication channel.
What it does is to reinforce a stronger brand identity in your target audience’s minds and ensures people can instantly recognise anything that has got to do with your brand. We would say that’s pretty important.
Pivot Your Brand Strategy
Brand strategy governs everything within your brand — day-to-day operations, products, services, and marketing, all of which are influenced by the brand strategy employed. It sets the direction for everyone to follow.
After determining your audience, it’s important to know what will motivate them and incentivise them to engage with your brand and become a fan of your brand, as opposed to your ‘meddling rivals’. The key thing is to set you apart from them, in terms of the perceived values you deliver for your audience.
Strategy is essential to all things communications and we firmly believe in that. Not having a strategy is like having a car with no steering wheel, you can move but with no proper direction at all.
Change Perception Of Your Brand
The whole point of a branding project is to do precisely THIS: Change the perception of your brand in the eyes of your target audience. If you can’t achieve that, then what’re you actually doing with a branding agency?
You approach a branding agency because something isn’t working on a brand level and you want to solve it. The initial research also puts forth a baseline of the existing sentiments, allowing you to understand how and what you need to change about your brand.
Regardless if it’s through the visuals, a new target audience, a new message, or a new strategy, a branding campaign sets out to leave a mark for your brand. It’s done to make people look at your brand differently and for the better, which hopefully helps achieve some of your business goals in the process.
Realign Your Organisation
Your brand doesn’t just improve externally, it also enhances your organisation internally. With a renewed branding, it reinvigorates your team and keeps everyone on the same page, which helps your brand look more consistent throughout every channel.
Branding agencies will provide you with a comprehensive branding guideline that decrees the dos and don’ts for your brand. By ensuring everyone adheres to it, it will realign your brand from within and present a united front. (Besides, new things always get people excited.)
Having everyone working towards the same goal and speaking the same language increases the camaraderie in your team and puts you in a much better position to achieve your business goals.
Approaching The Best Branding Agency In Singapore
We gave you the checklist and that means you can be sure that we’ll be fulfilling them and checking them off. If you’re into developing the best branding campaign you possibly can, then our team of dedicated brand strategists that will look to push the limits of your brands (and hopefully you won’t push our limits in the wrong way).
You can begin with a date, with you and our team. Let’s get this on the road!
P.S. If you aren’t sure about the grants you can apply for, check out our Enterprise Development Grant (EDG) guide!
