Freshly launched companies or products need a brand. This also applies to companies that want to change over time. It seems that there is a shared basic knowledge among business owners and entrepreneurs of what branding is and what it must include. What you would want to look for is a deeper understanding what your brand will be used for in the future.

The following questions and answers should provide information and an orientation for which directions you might want to take.

A good brand is much more than just a logo or a bit of decoration to make your company look pretty. A well-designed brand can build a company's core culture and lead to solidarity amongst its employees. It can perfectly position a company as an employer in the market. It can position a product or service within its own niche. And it is also the basis for internal communication, external communication, social media and advertising. As you can see, there are a large number of possibilities and touchpoints within these areas that can be designed. These touchpoints, i.e. the points at which the brand is presented and communicated, are what really bring the brand to life.

At best, the brand should not only reflect the status quo, but also leave space for development and further improvement.

Tip: At the beginning, it is advisable to make a list and check what you would like to achieve with your company, and how your brand should help you reaching those goals.

Having in mind what your new brand and the upcoming marketing should achieve for you, it is always helpful to draw up a budget. It's never advisable to just see what you can get with a certain amount of money. Also, it is very important not to spend your whole budget right at the beginning of designing a brand. A brand is an instrument. Of course, "music" has to be made with it in the future. That means you always need a certain marketing budget to communicate with your brand. It doesn't matter whether it's creating a newsletter, social media marketing, print or film.

Tip: How often do you need your brand in your day-to-day-business? Do you do actively market and advertise? Should your brand be a holistic experience? The more you say "yes", the more depth your brand should have. If you don't have the budget or resources to do marketing, you may not need to define a whole brand to begin with. Maybe a logo design will suffice. (Note: a logo is not a brand and won't help you with strategy)

With every new brand, it is always advisable to create a roadmap. A roadmap literally is a route plan that shows you milestones for upcoming achievements: for sales and for product or business development. This is important because days are short and business owners always are busy. It's easy to lose track of time and goals get lost in your daily business. At the same time, you should build up some KPIs (Key Point Indicators). These are fixed goals that can be defined and later empirically evaluated. This could be a number of completed sales, social media impressions, or new members on a platform.

Tip: Actively set goals, actively set KPIs and work towards these goals with your brand as an instrument.

This concludes all answers to the three most important questions when thinking of creating a brand or rebrand. You should always take these things into account when reachoing out to creatives. Branding means a step in a new direction and a commitment to follow this path.

Lastly: A brand is never final. As soon as it is launched, it becomes alive and then wants to be used and developed. This actually compares to software - or app-design. The app is used and then constantly updated with new features and improvements in version releases. Just like that a brand is best developed in agile cycles.

If you have more questions about branding, or if you need help finding your way around, please reach out.​