When you’re launching a business today, there’s one crucial element you can’t afford to leave out: your brand’s identity. In fact, businesses who focus on building a strong identity around their brand have a higher credibility, integrity, and loyalty among customers.

Branding is essential to successfully market your business, but at first attempt, shaping a brand identity can be an overwhelming task. Traditional branding agencies can be expensive, especially for a modest start up budget.

Thankfully, ZeBrand is removing the traditional barriers to branding and putting the reins in your hands to take the first step. The platform’s AI-powered algorithm learns your preferences and goals, providing a more agile and streamlined approach that allows anyone to brand their way—regardless of skills, budget, or expertise. With ZeBrand, emerging businesses can find their brand voice for a fraction of the time and cost than when hiring a branding agency.

From building your brand story to crafting brand guidelines, and everything in between - ZeBrand offers accessible tools that eliminate the barriers that stand in the way of making the brand of your dreams a reality.

So what elements constitute a strong brand identity? The checklist below contains the essentials to get you started.

Mission Statement – A strong brand identity is anchored in an enduring mission statement. A brand mission statement determines your brand’s purpose, and explains WHY you exist. It’s the essence of your business’s goals and the underlying philosophy. This is the foundation of building a brand that truly represents your organization.

Vision Statement – Simply put, vision statements are an extension of your company mission statement, which describes what you want to do and achieve in the long run. Whether that’s five, ten, or even fifteen years ahead, your vision statement sets a definitive direction of what your company will look like in the future.

Core Values – Like a person, a company has a set of guiding principles that help you connect with your target audience and build trust. These are the values that you uphold and emulate through your brand and business. They are the heart and the soul behind your ‘WHY’ and help govern decisions – small and large – across every facet of the business.

Positioning Statement – In order to help your customer realize your brand’s value, you must identify and amplify what is uniquely distinct about your brand and offering. This is often referred to a positioning statement, which tells your customer, either explicitly or implicitly, what they can expect from your product or service.

Brand Story – Summarize your brand personality, what your mission statement is, and the vision of your brand. Define where you are and where you want to go. By reading this, users will feel inspired and have a deep understanding of the essence of your brand and what makes your business unique.

ZeBrand just launched their brand story module which takes users on a journey to craft their brand story and narrative, including background, mission, vision, core values, and solutions or offerings.

Brand Guidelines – As your business grows and you start to interact with more stakeholders, it’s important for everyone to be on the same page as you when it comes to communicating your brand identity. Brand guidelines instruct others on how your brand should be presented to the world. In addition to your brand story and some or all of the terms above, brand guidelines also include visual components such as your brand’s logo, color palette, typography, photography and specific use cases for other styles of content.

Start with this free 5-minute questionnaire to discover how ZeBrand can help turn your vision into a reality.