Here’s how to build a solid brand for your startup for free

You put your blood, sweat, and tears into creating an amazing product that will solve your customers’ problems and blow the competition away. The problem is: nobody knows about it.

Sound familiar?

You can devote any amount of time to product development, but without a well-defined brand, you will struggle to capture the attention of customers and investors, or differentiate yourself from the competition.

The question is, where do you start? You need more than a business card to get started in the big, wide world of business. Think: a logo, a website, and an impressive social media presence.

Are you panicking because you don’t have a full-time designer yet? Do not worry about it. Marketing platforms, design tools, and online tutorials have made it easier for startups to build an attractive brand with little or no budget.

We spoke to two experts from Vista Create, an easy-to-use graphic design platform for startups and SMBs, about how companies can create their own branding even if they don’t have a designer on staff.

Explore your path to success

Before you start comparing Pantone colors (can anyone actually tell the difference between peacock blue and ocean blue?), you need to find a benchmark. What are your competitors doing? How about your customers? What is your market’s unique branding approach?

Sandra Iakovleva, Head of Content at VistaCreate, recommends researching your competitors’ online behavior.

“Notice how they talk about their product or service, how they look and how people talk about the brand,” says Iakovleva. “Then notice where they’re getting the most engagement so you can replicate some of that success.”

It’s also important to decide which social media platforms you want to have a presence on before you start designing. Iakovleva has one piece of advice to find out:

Find out where your target audience is online, how they are consuming your content, and how best to reach them. Most importantly, you know what you’re doing differently than your competitors to attract that audience.

Find out your brand DNA

Your brand DNA doesn’t require a smear, but it does require you to dig a little deeper into the essence of your business identity. Oksana Tunikova, Brand Manager at VistaCreate, has a simple framework for figuring this out:

You need to define the following elements: Vision (what you want to achieve), Mission: (what you need to do every day), Positioning: (how you are different from everyone else), Personality: (what emotions your brand evokes and what language it is speaks) and values ​​(what you believe). This helps create an emotional connection with your audience.

Your brand needs to be clear and recognizable, not only to your audience, but also to the sales team building decks, developers building your website, and the many interns who will also be creating assets for your team. Tunikova suggests creating a brand book to ensure that no matter who creates content, the same brand essence is always maintained.

“It doesn’t have to be 100 pages,” assures Tunikova. “In some cases, a 10-page PDF is enough. Just make sure that the guidelines for visual communication (brand color palette, versions of the logo, brand typefaces) and verbal communication (tone of voice) are clearly defined. Once you set those rules, stick to them.”

This is confirmed by Iakovleva, who points out that building a branded kit for external distribution is another important step.

Make sure you include your message (positioning statement, values, tagline, etc.), brand attributes (traits that define who you are), all versions of your logo (including guidelines on how not to misuse it), and your logo’s color profile contain brand, typography used across channels, and any other visual attributes that define the look and feel and overall visual brand identity.

Design your logo

One of the easiest ways to ensure you stay true to your brand DNA with little or no budget is to stick to the brand kit basics: your logo, your colors, and your fonts.

The logo is undoubtedly the most difficult thing to create. Logos need to look good on your website, from a tiny little favicon to big on a billboard. You must work in color and in black and white.

There are many free design tools that you can use to create a great logo and choose the colors and fonts that best reflect your brand identity. And if you manage to tackle these tasks yourself, that leaves a little more room in the till for larger design projects (like your website).

“You can certainly do your basics on your own,” comments Iakovleva. “A lot of people take logos too far; They complicate things with too many design elements. “You’ll find that the most recognizable logos are often the simplest. The focus is on a standout visual or a unique font that’s super easy to read.”

If you’re stuck creating your logo or any other design asset, Tunikova suggests letting your brand story guide your design decisions.

Whether real or made up, a good story helps people remember brands and form a strong emotional connection with them. This could be a real personal story from a founder explaining the source of his idea. Or a well-crafted legend telling about the origins of the product or service.

Strive for timeless, not trendy

Think carefully about using trends in your startup branding. Just because Ryanair posted a sweet version of the corn song on TikTok doesn’t mean you should too.

Using a trending audio or filter on social media can help you reach new audiences, but shouldn’t replace building a unique social media presence.

According to Yakovlev:

Trends need to be balanced with well thought out design decisions. You want something that will last, and that’s why it’s more important to make design decisions based on the unique aspects of your brand, your values, and the message you want to convey.

Of course, consistently publishing content that fits your brand is a full-time job in itself. You can make this task easier with a decent design tool.

“Tweaking designs is easier than creating them from scratch,” says Iakovleva. “And by using pre-made templates, you always have something to fall back on if you’re not sure what to post on social media.”

Some websites also offer handy online tutorials as well as design features so you can learn on the go. And if design isn’t in your wheelhouse, there are online communities full of talented designers who can help.

Be patient but proactive

Unstoppable brands don’t happen overnight.

As Oksana points out, “brand development is something that takes time. It depends not only on your commitment, but also on the response of your audience. That’s why we often hear that a brand isn’t what the company says it’s what the customers think. It’s about perception.”

The good news is that you can influence this perception. By mastering the basic elements of a brand book/kit and using that as a starting point for all other assets, you can build a consistent, memorable, and authentic brand.