How’s your digital brand? When people think of your startup or small business, do they think of your products and services on a surface level—or do they think of your holistic, recognizable, and personable brand?

Creating a brand is hard work. It involves strategy, planning, and multimedia components, from website design to structuring a voice and tone. When we think of today’s best brands, like the Apples and Coca-Colas of the world, we imagine the particular feeling they convey as well as their products.

Use these suggestions to take your company from a simple logo to a recognizable branding powerhouse.

Assess your current digital brand.

Answer a few questions to gauge where you are today. Approximately how many different styles of email signatures are represented in your coworkers’ emails? Would anyone be proud to wear your logo on a t-shirt or messenger bag? Does your brand have a personality conveyed in your social media accounts and website copy? 

Think about the brand you’ve already established and where you’d like to see it evolve in the next six months, year, and beyond.

Decide how your brand will be expressed through the written word.

A brand is more than a logo or slogan; it’s the message you communicate to the world. As the owner of a startup, you decide how your brand is perceived, and the written word plays a critical role in that perception. It’s up to you to choose how to approach these different matters of voice and tone: 

• Level of formality (BFF or reserved and professional?)
• Adherence to a style guide (your own or an established style guide, like AP or Chicago)
• Frequency and use of humor
• Instances of irreverence
• Will individual blog contributors have the freedom to use their own voice, punctuation style, etc.?

Create consistent, appealing design.

From fonts to photography, a brand’s design choices play a huge role in branding effectiveness. Your brand must select the look that’s most uniquely you, right down to the last pixel. You should be thinking about these aspects of branding design:

• Colors mean something. What will your primary colors be and convey?
• Will primary imagery be photography or illustration?
• How can design be supremely functional in addition to attractive?

Roll it out to every channel.

You can have the best branding in the world, but if it’s not well activated across every digital and real-world presence, your message may fall on forgetful or indifferent ears. Make sure your branding is visible everywhere:

• Email footer
• Facebook, Twitter, and other social media cover photos
• Mobile app
• Website, both desktop and mobile versions
• Brick-and-mortar locations
• E-receipts and hard copy receipts

Each of these should feel like an extension of the same brand.

Explain it to new employees.

You should define your branding look, feel, and guidelines to other employees, whether that’s in a presentation via deck or a PDF style guide. This exercise will also force you to think about the most important elements of your digital brand.

Of course, refining and polishing a brand is a process that lasts as long as the brand itself. Even the most established brands are constantly reinventing themselves.Branding should be a constant work in progress—and you’ll add new components as your company matures and takes shape.

Building your brand should also be one of the most fun parts of your job, as the brand takes on a personality and life of its own.

This year, think about small business success in a whole new way. Start with our free e-book to learn from successful entrepreneurs.