What is a Brand?

A brand is a marketing concept that helps an audience identify with a tech startup and its products/services. It also helps a tech startup engage with its audience and keep them interested. Brand identity includes colours, slogans and images which makes a tech company stand out from its competitors and their products.

When starting a tech business there are stages that need to be completed and done properly to be successful. This is where 3 Colours Rule’s approach, the D.A.C (Distinguish, Attract & Convert) system comes into play in 3 phases. So first, you start with developing your brand strategy for your tech startup.

Brand Purpose, Vision, Mission

To become a successful tech startup, you need to create a successful brand and most tech startups neglect this essential stage or find it too difficult. However, there are ways to tackle this task like a pro. For any startup in tech, you need to start with a clear vision, a mission and set the goals you want to achieve. Here is a list of questions you should ask yourself to develop a strong brand for your tech startup:

● Why do you do what you do?
● Where is your company heading?
● What are you planning to do to get there?

When you have asked yourself the big vision questions, here are the questions you should be asking yourself to attract your perfect target audience.

● Who is your ideal target audience?
● What do you believe your audience value?
● What are their biggest issues and desires?
● How are your products supporting them?
● Why are your products/services different from other competitors?

Competitors & USP

What does your brand do that no other brand does? – that is your USP. A USP (Unique Selling Point). It helps identify who your audience is and why they should care about you. It’s vital to find out what your USP is as it’ll help you differentiate who you are in a heavily competitive market. Ways that you can find this out by:

● Completing a competitor analysis
● Interviewing internal and external stakeholders in your brand

Once you have, you have conducted this brand workshop. You can develop a clear, simple and unique brand message that resonates with your target audience. It should articulate your purpose, what your brand offers, what impact it could have and a brand promise that your tech startup can fulfil.

Think about the type of customer you want to sell your products/service to, who you would like to work with, the benefits that your products/services have and the kind of style and story you want to tell them.

Storytelling

As a tech startup, you can create a very compelling story about your brand to define your relationship with your audience. A good story would stay in the mind of your prospects and make it easier to build a community with your target and keep them interested in your tech company. If you are able to keep your audience engaged with your brand story, they may become a customer for life and would keep buying your products and using your services.

Build your community

Another part of your strategy should be how to get your brand and yourself out there. By creating blogs, social media posts on all social media platforms, interviews, taking part in speeches related to your industry will help your brand get noticed. You have to keep constantly and consistently evolving your content so your brand’s reach will keep increasing and other competitors in the market may help in giving you opportunities to grow even further by collaborations. This will help with networking and building your brand community in the tech industry and your audience would continue to engage with your tech startup as you grow your brand.

Remember, be authentic with building your community for your tech company so your audience remembers your brands.

Your brand strategy is now solid and you have defined your market position, you have built your story and so step 2 is now building your brand identity.

Visual Representation

It is essential to have a unique design, symbol/s, tone of voice, slogans or colours, to create an image that appeals to your audience and differentiates you from your competitors. When this has been created, it will take the form of your logo for your brand and then follow all brand collaterals, which will then increase, if done well, your recognition, credibility and engagement of your audience.

It is essential to have a good logo for your tech startup as it is a reference point and conveys your company image through it. The design you choose for your logo aligns with your brand strategy and the meaning of your brand and is the start of the communication process between your startup and the audience. You want your tech company to have a creative, unique, positive brand so your audience can get an idea and understand the position that your company is in in the marketplace.

Recognisable Brands

To make your brand recognisable you have to make important decisions when creating your logo to make sure that you stand out.

Font

In the tech industry, certain fonts are associated with innovation, therefore technology. You have to make sure that the font you choose for your logo stands out. It has to be clear and readable so it doesn’t look unprofessional as your logo is a reflection of your tech company. If the font has hard edges, it can be perceived as aggressive; whereas, rounded fonts tend to be seen as peaceful. Cursive fonts lean more towards women and bold text lean more towards men.

Colour

Your audience could have different reactions to your logo depending on the colour you use. Remember, the colour of your logo would be a way that your audience identifies with your brand so it is very important that you pick colours that relate to your brand vision. Some colours can be related to different emotions like:

● Red/Pink: passion, love, excitement, anger, action
● Orange/Yellow: happy, fun, friendly, cheerful, positive, confident
● Green: natural, earthy, fresh, organic, calming
● Blue: trustworthy, peaceful, soothing, honest, sadness
● Purple: majestic, magical, creativity, luxury, mystical
● Black: sophistication, modern, luxury, seduction, authority

Shape

Certain shapes can give off different messages dependent on their shape. For example:

● Using circles can suggest community, unity, love, relationships.
● Straight-edged logos such as triangles and squares suggest stability. It can also mean strength and professionalism.
● Triangles are associated with law and religion – leaning more towards masculine logos.
● You can also choose a shape that links to your product.

Values

Your font, colour and shape of your brand logo can relate to the type of values that your company brand represents, which is why you have to take into consideration and make careful decisions when creating your brand logo.

Versatility

Due to digital marketing and the use of social media and mobile, you have to make sure that your brand logo can change depending on the format that it is being presented in. You have to make sure that your brand logo can be seen clearly on your mobile, desktop, TV or any electronic device that could be used.

Simplicity

Making your logo as simple and clear as possible makes it easier for your brand logo to be remembered by your audience.

Different

By making sure that your brand is different, make sure that you do some competitor research to see their logos and where you can make a difference and stand out as all markets are competitive. Make sure that it suits your brand and can be distinguished from other brands.

Timeless

When creating your logo, making it as simple and clear as possible can help in keeping your logo relevant for decades. Again, that’s why it is important as your audience will always link your logo to your brand and the values that you hold important to your company.

In conclusion

The first step to creating your brand is by having a brand strategy and brand identity. Having a simple, clear message and vision you can move on to creating that identity that would help you reach your audience and create a relationship that could last a lifetime.

If you would like to receive a complimentary brand assessment with the 3 Colours Rule agency
Would you like to find out what is preventing your brand from achieving your business goals? What if during a 30min call with us we could identify the areas of your brand that need improvement so that you can attract the right clients? We will use our D.A.C. (Distinguish, Attract & Convert) (explained in our YouTube video) growth system to swiftly evaluate your brand strengths and weaknesses. We will provide you with directives and your brand score so you can measure your progression. 3 Colours Rule will help you find your USP that resonates with your audience.