Why Brand Building is the Beginning, Middle, and End of Business Growth

In the modern business landscape, there is a common misconception that “branding” is a decorative phase involving logos and color palettes that you complete before getting to the “real” work of building a website or launching marketing campaigns. In reality, building a brand goes far beyond visual elements—it’s about developing a strong brand identity that shapes how your business is perceived and remembered.

Branding is not a one-time event; it is the engine that powers every other department. When a brand development strategy drives the bus, it actively helps the website builder and assists the marketing strategist in converting leads at a higher rate.

If you want a website that works and marketing that scales, you have to start with a brand that is built to last. Here is the comprehensive, step-by-step journey of modern brand building, including a brand development strategy to guide your efforts.

Phase 1: The Problem and the Research

Every iconic brand starts by solving a specific problem. If you start your branding process by talking about colors, you’ve already lost. At Big Red Jelly, we start by identifying the Goal.

• Identifying the Problem: What gap exists in your industry? Why does the world need your business right now? We make sure this aligns with your overall business objectives to set clear direction and measurable KPIs.
• Industry Trends: We look at where the market is moving. If you build a brand based on where your industry was five years ago, you are already obsolete. We also analyze the competitive landscape using tools like Ahrefs and Google Analytics to spot opportunities for differentiation.
• Audience Psychographics: This goes deeper than demographics. We don’t just care how old your customers are; we care about what keeps them up at night, what they value, and what motivates their buying decisions. We use customer surveys and market research to better understand your target market and clarify your value proposition.

By starting with research, we ensure the brand strategy is rooted in data and human psychology, not just “gut feelings.” Understanding your target market is a key outcome of this research phase.

Phase 2: Strategy and the Guiding Idea

Once the problem is defined, we move into the Solution. This is the “Guiding Idea” or the North Star of your business. This strategy acts as a filter for every decision you will make. It’s crucial to get all stakeholders on the same page with this guiding idea to ensure everyone is aligned with the strategy and working toward the same goals. If a new marketing idea or a website feature doesn’t align with this central guiding idea, it gets scrapped. This keeps your business lean, focused, and incredibly potent.

Phase 3: Verbal Execution (The Brand DNA)

A brand must be able to speak before it can be seen. We follow a strict timeline of events to build your verbal identity, ensuring each layer rests on a solid foundation. Establishing a consistent brand voice is a crucial part of this process, as it shapes your messaging, tone, and personality across all communication channels.

1. The Brand DNA

This is the internal soul of the company. It consists of your Purpose (your “why”—the brand’s purpose defines why the company exists), your Positioning (how you stand out against competitors), and your Personality (if your brand were a person, how would they act?). When defining your Brand DNA, include a mission statement as a succinct declaration of your brand’s purpose and values.

2. The Brand Core

This moves into the “how” and “where.” We define your Brand Values, Beliefs, Mission, and Vision. Brand values play a crucial role in shaping your brand’s identity—they are not just posters for the office wall; they are the standards that your website and marketing must uphold.

3. Messaging (The External Side)

Now we translate the internal DNA for the world to hear. This includes:

• Unique Value Propositions (UVPs): What specifically do you offer that no one else does? Your UVPs should be informed by your brand positioning, ensuring they clearly differentiate you from competitors and align with your target audience.
• The Tagline: A distilled version of your entire brand promise.
• Voice: Are you authoritative and professional? Or witty and disruptive? Your brand personality should shape the tone and messaging, ensuring consistency and resonance with your audience.

Content creation is essential for communicating your brand’s message and values to the world, helping to build awareness and engagement.

Phase 4: Visual Execution and Brand Identity

Only after the verbal side is perfected do we pick up the digital paintbrush. Because we have defined the DNA and the Voice, the visuals become a logical extension of the strategy, focusing on developing a cohesive visual identity using key visual elements.

• Logo & Iconography: The visual shorthand for your entire reputation. A well-designed brand logo, created through thoughtful logo design, is essential for building an instantly recognizable brand image that stands out across all platforms.
• Typography & Colors: Selected based on the psychological response we want to trigger in your specific audience. Defining brand colors and a consistent color scheme as core branding elements ensures a unified visual brand identity and prevents deviations in branded materials.
• Imagery Style: Whether it’s custom photography or specific illustration styles, it must feel “on brand.” Incorporating visual content and creative assets helps shape brand visuals and reinforces your brand’s unique look and feel.

Organizing and managing your visual assets is crucial to maintaining brand consistency and a strong visual brand identity across all platforms.

Phase 5: Brand Application and the Customer Journey

This is where the strategy meets the pavement. We don’t just hand over a folder of logos; we look at the Customer Journey. We ask: What is the best way to apply this brand to solve the original problem? For some, the priority is Product Packaging or a physical Storefront. For others, it’s Trade Show Banners and sales flyers. For most modern businesses, the primary touchpoints are Social Media and Digital Advertisements—leveraging multiple channels and marketing channels, including platforms such as YouTube videos, to maximize reach. Every single one of these applications must be a seamless continuation of the brand story.

It’s essential to create cohesive marketing materials and organized brand materials for each channel, ensuring consistency and efficiency across all touchpoints.

The Brand Agenda: Why Your Website and Marketing Depend on It

This is the core of the Big Red Jelly philosophy: Your website and your marketing are how customers experience your brand. Achieving strong brand building requires brand consistency, which is maintained through clear brand guidelines that define style, tone, and messaging. Organized brand assets—such as icons, visuals, and templates—are essential for ensuring your website and marketing materials present a unified and professional brand image.

How Brand Helps the Website Builder

A website is a digital storefront, and without brand strategy, it’s just a collection of buttons and text. When a brand is built correctly first:

• Storytelling: The website tells a cohesive story rather than just listing features.
• Visual Consistency: The builder isn’t guessing which colors to use; they are following the visual brand identity to ensure a cohesive look and feel, using a guide designed to convert.
• UX (User Experience): We know the audience psychographics, so we build the user flow to match how they naturally browse and buy.

How Brand Helps the Marketing Strategist

Marketing is the act of putting your brand in front of people. If the brand is weak, the marketing is expensive and ineffective.

• Alignment: The marketing strategist knows exactly “who” is talking, so the ads feel authentic.
• Targeting: Because the brand research defined the audience, the marketing spend is targeted at the people most likely to convert.
• Trust: Consistency across all platforms builds the trust necessary to turn a stranger into a customer. Consistent branding also strengthens brand recognition and enhances brand reputation, making your business more memorable and respected.

Brand awareness and brand visibility are essential components of successful marketing strategies, helping to increase recognition, connect with your target audience, and maximize the impact of your promotional efforts.

The Big Red Jelly Process: A Partnership, Not a Project

The biggest flaw in the traditional agency model is the “silo.” You work with a branding agency, they disappear, and then you take that work to a web firm that doesn’t understand the strategy.

The Big Red Jelly Proven Process fixes this.

We start with Brand, move to Build (Website), and finish with Grow (Marketing). But here is the unique part: Your Brand Strategist stays with you.

When you move into the Website or Marketing phases, you still have access to the person who helped define your DNA. At this stage, your marketing team works closely with the brand strategist to ensure consistent branding, efficient content workflows, and streamlined communication. They are there to ensure that the website builder stays true to the vision and that the marketing strategist doesn’t drift away from the core message.

In our world, branding isn’t just the beginning of the project. It is the beginning, the middle, and the end goal. It is the constant thread that ensures your business doesn’t just look good, but actually performs.

Engaging your existing customers throughout the brand building process also provides valuable insights and helps strengthen your brand’s presence in the market.

Build Your Brand the Right Way

Are you ready to stop treating your brand like a secondary thought? Let’s build a foundation that makes your website work harder and your marketing go further. Investing in brand building now sets the stage for long-term brand success.