by Raghu
Branding, a concept which has no boundaries. Effective branding can be achieved using as less as few hundreds to as much as millions. My tiny experience running my startup helped me a lot, I wouldn’t say I myself have done all of it but I wish I had done all of it. I would say it’s always better now than never. Read on to know some branding you can do for your startups at manageable prices.
First, be patient and spend time to come up with a good name for your startup. The name should be either small, or catchy or related to what you are doing. Most importantly make sure that whatever name you come up for you startup you still have the domain name available (Bold, Underline, Italics and Star point). Then make sure you block the domain first even before you incorporate your company. Start creating your social presence on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Youtube, Linkedin and what not.
Pro tip: Maintain consistency across the web. Weather it is you website or your social network you need to maintain the same name and logo.
Spend lots of time on your startup logo, it isn’t essential that you need to spend loads of money. Your startup up logo reflects your personality and taste as well according to me. You need to have a good color combination in the logo which is quite important for various reasons. If your startup is not product based make sure you maintain a certain theme to your whole website with at least a part of the color theme matching your logo colors. Your office stationary like envelopes, letter heads etc. should all maintain the same theme. Search for the right person to design your logo and be personally involved in finalizing it. In case you have any suggestions just put it up on paper as a wire frame or as a rough pencil sketch to share it with your logo designer. Remember, your product/startup is recognized by your logo more than the name. As soon as your product/startup name is referred to the first thing that flashes on one’s mind is the logo.
Business card is one cool way to brand your startup. I often find many people cribbing about not wasting money on business cards but I concur them. You need to shamelessly market your startup and for that you always need to give your business card to anyone you meet and 90% of the times that person would not even look at your card unless it is unique and catches their attention instantly. I personally got a semi-transparent frost finish business card and it really did wonders. More than 90% of people to whom I had given my business card got attracted to how it looks and took some time to read what’s present on it. People will not forget your card or details so easily if your business card is catchy! Here are some catchy designs, though not all are cheap it still is worth spending money on rather than age old techniques like mass media or web marketing.
Once you launch your startup start distributing small and cheap merchandise like tees, stickers, refrigerator magnets etc. with your startup logo and web link printed. If your’s is a product based startup then it is even more important to go viral with such branding. If possible conduct small polls, quizzes and contests to distribute these merchandise.