What’s your company’s brand? Can you easily write out its essence, its strengths and weaknesses, what makes it unique? If not, then maybe you need to re-think your branding strategy.

The importance of having a company brand isn’t new—it’s just becoming more vital. Entrepreneur.com
Courtesy of The Marketing Bit said it best: “Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be and who people perceive you to be.” When your branding is solid, so is your company. It cements your personality—who can think of Coca-Cola without imagining a polar bear? Who references Tiffany & Company without a blue box and Audrey Hepburn in mind?

It’s not hard to realize the impact of branding; rather, it’s just hard to get to that point in the first place. Branding requires hard work and more than a little bit of research. Branding is getting to the heart of who your company is and what you want it to be. This is reflected in your copy, your logo, your workers (or just you, if it’s a one-person company), and the work you put out. And it takes time to get there, especially if you’re a company trying to re-brand yourself.

If you’re re-branding your company, start your process by asking yourself these questions:

• What are we known for?
• What do we want to be known for?
• What is our logo? Does it accurately correlate with our mission statement, our vision?
• Does the voice in our copy reflect who we are?
• What are our goals for this company?
• How are we organized as a company? Does it run smoothly? If not, why?
• What do our customers want from us? Can we deliver it?
• Who are the competition we’re associated with?
• Who are the competition we don’t want to be associated with?

It’s easy to skimp on these questions, but don’t. If you want your company to reach your customers, you must know exactly who you are and what your customers want. Shallow research won’t do it for you. Branding is a marathon, not a sprint.