A strong corporate identity is an important part of helping your business to stand out from the competition. With strong branding, you can help your customers recognize and understand your business, making sure they know and trust you. Get your identity right to start your business the right way.

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1. Tell a story. Customers like businesses with purpose behind them, so tell the story of your business. In the early stages, that story will be about you and your co-founders. Create an interesting brand narrative by telling customers who you are and what made you set up your company. What inspired you to get started? This story can go onto your company website and begin creating a feel for what your company stands for. 
2. Don’t forget about creativity. Marketing can easily get bogged down in planning and number crunching, like analytics. Marketing should also be about creating interesting concepts that stand out from the crowd. Combine some creativity with your strategy to create marketing that isn’t the same as your competition. 
3. Use visuals that mean something. Design is an important part of brand identity, so make sure it’s more than just pretty. Visuals should also say something about your ideas. Create a strong logo for your brand, and invest some time in interesting, creative design work. Remember to allow for your logo to be used in different contexts, like web and print. How will it look on different colors and in different layouts? 
4. Set standards of communication. The right corporate identity will influence lots of company activity. Use your identity to determine the voice of your company. It decides what language is used in customer communications, leadership style of your management team and team communication. You can also use this code of communication to plan your marketing communications, creating loyal customers and attracting new ones.Press releases, slogans, video and brochures should all support each other, and applying your corporate identity will help them to do that.
5. Determine the value you offer. What is it that you do for customers? Are you solving a problem for them, or offering the best value price? Communicating this value is going to be an important part of your identity and all communications from your business. 
6. Build relationship. Investing in corporate identity will build brand, which aids a productive relationship with your clients. Take advantage of tools like social media and media networks to begin building a relationship with customers, creating trust and engagement. 
7. Keep it simple. Complicated communications only cause confusion. Build a brand identity that can be easily understood at a glance. Eliminate anything causing confusion, anything dull or anything that doesn’t contribute to your corporate identity. 
8. Stay consistent. Keep your branding consistent by using a uniform filter, font, size and style on all marketing platforms. This keep your brand cohesive, and means a customer can recognise your brand wherever they come across it. Create a template to aid in this, and make sure you that whether you’re creating Facebook posts or writing a press release, the communication feels like your brand.

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