Regardless of size, mission or purpose, a corporate identity is important to any business.What you do for customers, partners and the public will be determined by your identity.It makes you stand out from the crowd.You will be easily recognizable through your design, actions, and communications.
Step 1: Your company's history, mission and methods should be reviewed.
Before establishing a corporate identity for the public, you need an internal consensus on who you are.If you want to know why you exist and how you are different, look at your business plan, mission statement, values statement and any other corporate documents.The value you bring to the market should be clearly identified in your mission statement.You should try to be as clear and concise as possible.Your customers and investors might not understand what you do if you have a vague mission statement.Keep your employees focused on your objectives and focus on what your company does for customers.
Step 2: Do you know what others think about your company?
Conduct surveys, ask questions, set up interviews and have general discussions to gain an understanding of how stakeholders view your organization or company.Do you want to change that perception?If you feel like you are sending the wrong message, your corporate identity can help change it.Apple gets feedback from users to better understand what people like and what they don't like.They use that information to create new products and make old products better.It's one thing to get feedback, but another to incorporate it.
Step 3: You can research businesses that are similar to you.
Look at their websites, read testimonials from their customers, and visit their social networking pages.If you don't like what you see, figure out how easy or difficult it is to understand their corporate identities.Look at companies that are doing well and those that aren't.They have different corporate structure, communications, and designs.While the other company is struggling, think about what might be making it succeed.
Step 4: A vision is needed for the future.
For the next 5 to 10 years, as well as the present, your corporate identity should embrace your goals.Employees, leaders and partners are included in your vision.If you want to know what people in the company think about your company's growth, ask the people you first hired.Try to identify how your business will create value over the next five years.Determine which ways of creating value you can do with your company's capabilities.Focus your resources on the areas you have identified.The purpose of this is to find the value you can create and the audience you could create it for.
Step 5: A logo is designed.
If you don't have the kind of creative talent on staff, you can put together a team of designers and writers.Everyone in the room should start thinking about a logo for their corporation.The logo needs to be designed so it can be seen immediately.The logo needs to be simple and clean.A good logo will not have a lot of meaning until it is coupled with other aspects of the design.The McDonald's golden arches don't mean much until you pair them with the red and gold color scheme and the products they represent.If you see Mcdonald's golden arches, you immediately think of their products.The Apple logo is an example.When you see the apple logo, you immediately think of Macintosh computers and Apple products.
Step 6: Choose from a variety of styles.
When creating a website, advertisements, or a product's packaging, you need to have a scuplture that is immediately recognizable and that conveys a certain feeling to people.Choose a style that is unique and readable.Your corporation's image and beliefs should be reflected in a typefaces.If your company is conservative, use Times New Roman.Consider the different ways in which your fonts will work.While a billboard may look good, it may not translate well to your website.Think about how the fonts will look on different browsers while creating your website.Depending on what type of computer you are using, some programs will portray your website's information differently.
Step 7: Look at different color combinations.
The colors you choose will make a statement about how you run your business.They need to convey your corporate philosophy.If you are a corporation tasked with creating sustainable packaging for products, consider using green as one of your primary colors.Green is synonymous with the environmental movement.If your organization is focused on restoring the water quality of our oceans and rivers, consider using blue as one of your primary colors.People will think about the ocean and water when they see blue.
Step 8: Your design has portray quality in it.
Quality products and services from a company can bring back clients and repeat business.The quality of your design should be reflected in your corporate identity.Think about how consumers will react to your website or packaging.If you look at Apple's website, it is simple and sleek.The website is a representation of what their products are.The silver color scheme makes you think of steel or metal, which most people equate with strength and quality.
Step 9: Bring people together.
The design of your company should bring the community together.They will be more likely to come back to your company if you can create a community for your services or products.Apple created a quality product that targeted a specific audience in order to create a community around their company.They encouraged their customers to meet each other.Apple focused their design strategy on a better user experience.
Step 10: Act in a way that is ethical.
One of the most important aspects of your corporate identity is your overall corporate behavior.Your actions have to convey trust.Conducting business morally is one of the easiest and most effective ways of refining your corporate behavior.Establishing systems that govern your corporation will ensure you are both transparent and accountable.Corporate guidelines or an employee handbook can be used.Bribery, corruption, and insider trading are not acceptable among those working with you.It is possible to make a policy that those taking part in such actions will be terminated.
Step 11: Protect them.
Customer safeguards must be included in your corporate structure.Ensuring that customers visiting your stores, websites, or offices are safe and secure is something that needs to be in place.If you run an online shopping forum, you may need to create online security.If you own a brick and mortar store, you need to make sure people feel safe while shopping.Before you allow people to work on your premises, make sure they are checked out and verified.
Step 12: Customer satisfaction should be pursued.
When your company makes a decision, keep your customers in mind.Customer issues should be handled in a fair and honest manner.Deliver high quality products.Make sure your products meet safety standards.Invest time and money to create better products.
Step 13: It is necessary to build a healthy workplace.
When opening an office or a store, make sure you have policies in place to help employees stay safe and healthy.Health and safety standards should be followed.If an employee needs time off, give them it.Provide your employees with break rooms.When you hear about discrimination, abuse, or violence, act quickly.Employees should be able to find a happy medium between work and their personal life.
Step 14: Teamwork and diversity are important.
Employees that work well together will make your company more efficient.When hiring, make sure you look for quality candidates based on their qualifications alone, not on race, gender, or other irrelevant factors.It is possible to create diversity by hiring people who don't think the same way.Try to find people with different opinions.The culture should allow everyone to speak freely and contribute in their own way.Employees should be given a way to take pride in their work and be rewarded for it.Employees can develop their skills with educational opportunities.
Step 15: Establish honest dialogue.
Speak honestly to your shareholders.These are the people buying your products.They will only do that if they are kept up to date.Let these people know how your business is doing.These people can give you their opinions about what you should do.When you report to your board, be honest about sales dropping in a specific quarter.Ask them if they have any ideas about bucking the trend and increasing sales.
Step 16: Hire communications specialists.
Whether your company succeeds or fails depends on how you communicate with your customers.If no one knows about the best product on the market, it doesn't mean anything.In today's world, a lot of companies have employees, even executives, whose sole mission is to create an effective communications strategy.Your company's products and processes should have deep knowledge of these people.Hire someone who majored in corporate communication from a good school.You should look for people with business degrees.Penn State University has a major in corporate communication.The field of study prepares people to be problem-solvers.At the right time, these graduates should know how to craft a good message.
Step 17: The communications function requires trust.
Listen to what your communications department has to say.A bad strategy may lead to a failing company.If you don't allow your communications team to do their jobs, you could end up fixing communications problems instead of avoiding them.
Step 18: Allow your communications team to educate others.
Throughout the year, your communications team should have meetings where they discuss their plans with other employees.It is easy to see why you need an engineering team, but it is more difficult to understand the benefits of communications.It's important to get everyone together in order to create a plan.If your communications team wants to run a social media advertisement, but your financial team doesn't think that is the best use of money, your web designers might not think it's possible.A cohesive corporate identity can be created by sharing ideas and educating others.
Step 19: Employees should be allowed to play a role in communications.
Allow your employees to communicate with you.They can get the word out about your company.Set up meetings where employees can ask questions about their visions and goals.Employees can use their social media presence to communicate with the public about your product.Tell Bob to post a picture of the new t-shirt on Facebook.
Step 20: Do you know your corporate identity?
Test your corporate identity in your market once you have created it.Use focus groups to talk with customers.How do you feel about your logo and color scheme?Are they interested in buying your product?Take feedback back to your employees so they can see if anything needs to be changed.After creating your corporate identity, do this as soon as possible.This information can be used to change your corporate identity.Follow up on the feedback.If you are hearing multiple negative reactions, talk to the people giving you feedback and ask them to expand on their thoughts.Thank everyone for their time and let them know you value their help.
Step 21: Determine your internal structures.
Make sure your business is running smoothly.Talk to employees about how they feel about professional conduct.They can be used to create a better workplace.This could include hiring new people, creating new employee guidelines, or even fixing your office space.Employees can speak freely about their concerns at quarterly or annual meetings.You can use this time to get feedback.Give people a chance to speak.
Step 22: Update when necessary.
As time goes on, you may need to update certain aspects of your corporate identity.In order to best serve your customers and shareholders, invest in constantly tweaking your identity.Do it if you see something that needs changing.A corporate identity is not static and should not be set to the side.As your business changes, your corporate identity will change as well.If you want to avoid tweaking your corporate design, you should try.Customers identify you by your design.You run the risk of not having your company recognized if you change your logo frequently.The longer you can sustain your design, the more recognition you will get.It is possible that your design needs to be updated.If your logo is outdated compared to other logos in your industry, you might want to change it.Maybe it's time to change the logo if you know that people identify with certain colors or shapes.Your corporate conduct and communication could change frequently.Over time, your advertising campaigns should change.If you are using print and television ads, you might want to consider using digital and social media to reach a broader audience.