How To Build a Brand From Scratch (2026)

Building a brand goes beyond designing a logo or color palette. It encompasses your brand positioning, and the voice and tone of your copy, too.

A 2025 Edelman report found trust in a brand is equal to value and quality in a customer’s purchasing decision. And per Kantar’s data, the world’s most valuable brands have consistently outperformed the S&P 500 and MSCI World Index over 20 years.

In this guide, learn how to build a brand from scratch that feels distinct and relevant to your target audience. Plus, explore what it takes to create a brand logo or slogan, including tips on how to build a strong brand identity, with real examples and branding design tips from experts.

What is a brand and why does it matter?

A brand defines a business, product, service, person, or concept in the market. It differentiates your business from others in the same industry and has a set of rules (called brand guidelines) that dictate how that business will be marketed and presented. 

Branding is the process of establishing a brand: how it looks, what it sounds like, and the defined target audience it hopes to reach. 

In a 2025 Shopify survey of store owners, 37% cited marketing as their biggest challenge, and 36% said finding customers was their top struggle.* Learning how to build a brand can help address both issues, helping customers to find and remember your business. 

Strong branding matters because:

• Some 80% of people trust brands they use, which is more than those who trust in business, media, government, NGOs, and their employer (among employees)
• Brand trust influences 68% of customers to pay more for products

Building blocks to include in your brand guidelines document include:

• Target audience
• Brand identity
• Brand voice
• Mission and values
• Brand positioning statement

Here’s why they matter:

Target audience

The more clearly you understand who you’re speaking to, the easier it is to create a brand that connects with them. 

Starface, for example, speaks to Gen Z. “What that means for us is we have this marquee character, Big Yellow, who is an approachable character that has a very earnest voice that we use throughout our social media and our campaigns,” says Starface president Kara Brothers in a Shopify Masters interview.

Brand identity

Brand identity covers your business name and the visual elements that define your business, like your logo colors, aesthetic of your photography and social media.

“ I would recommend that if you’re starting something to spend the most amount of time on your identity, really build out the character of the brand,” says Dani Noguera, founder of Grin27, in a Shopify Masters interview.

“What it is, who it is, what it stands for, what it’s gonna feel like from the pictures on Instagram to the packaging. What does the packaging feel like in your hands? What do the buttons feel like? How does it click? How does it sound?” says Dani. “All of those things being really, really clear, I think, are important upfront as opposed to an afterthought.”

Brand voice

Brand voice is the tone that your brand conveys. If your customers expect a cheeky, frank tone from you on social media, carry that through to your website copy and other communications. 

“People enjoy feeling understood and feeling like a brand gets them and gets their experience,” says Tim West, cofounder of Bandit, in a Shopify Masters interview. “They love when a brand feels authentic and they can feel confident that the folks behind the brand are the same as them.”

Mission and values

Your company’s mission guides business decisions. Your values are what your brand stands for. Both are important to consumers.

Per Edelman’s 2025 data, 64% of customers buy, choose, or avoid brands based on their beliefs about what’s going on in society. That’s 4% more than last year.

Brand positioning statement

A brand positioning statement describes how you stack up against competitors. It details how you solve a specific problem to your target audience, and how your offering differs from competing brands.

“For a consumer brand, you really do have to create the positioning and the world that your product will sit in, or it’s not giving it a fair shake,” says Laura Schubert, co-founder of Fur, in a Shopify Masters interview.

How to build a brand in 7 steps

1. Research your target market
2. Determine your brand’s voice and personality
3. Choose your business name
4. Write your brand story
5. Create your brand kit and style guide
6. Design your logo
7. Apply and grow your brand

While you might revisit some of these steps as you build brand awareness, first consider each aspect as you shape your brand identity:

1. Research your target market

Before you start the brand-building process, you need to understand your potential customers and competitors. Here’s how to conduct market research:

• Talk to people who are part of your target market and ask them what brands they buy from in your industry.
• Google your product or service category and analyze the direct and indirect competitors that appear in search results.
• Note the biggest brands in the market. What approaches are they using? What do you offer that they don’t? This is called your unique selling proposition (USP). 
• Do competitor research: Find their social media accounts and websites to piece together who they’re talking to and what makes their product different.
• Look at the relevant social media accounts or pages your target audience follows.
• Shop online or in retail stores and get a feel for how your customers would browse and buy products.
• Investigate trends in your industry by reading publications, browsing social media, and using Google Trends.

Identify your target audience’s pain points throughout this process. You need to discover what problems they’re trying to solve that might drive them to buy a product like yours. 

“The best businesses start with a pain point. I think, as a founder, if you are your consumer, then that helps a lot along the way too, because it’s truly a pain point for you,” says Numi founder Michelle Shemilt in a Shopify Masters interview. “You can understand the mindset of your consumer from the get go and really develop a unique product that will solve that problem.”

Also pay attention to the habits common to your target audience, like the platforms they use most, the language and slang they use, and how they engage with other brands.

Lingerie brand Lemonade Dolls, for example, is a size-inclusive and body-positive line of products for “every person.” While this may sound like a broad audience, Lemonade understands that its target customer is someone who doesn’t feel represented by typical lingerie brands.

Beyond saying it, Lemonade Dolls shows it’s a brand for all bodies by showcasing diverse models and offering gender-affirming products.

2. Determine your brand’s voice and personality

A strong point of view (POV) speaks to your target audience. 

Set Active founder Lindsey Carter explains how this is a prerequisite for any future marketing campaign: “You have to understand your brand identity first and foremost and make sure that comes through in all of the different social media channels,” Lindsey says in a Shopify Masters episode.

To develop this POV and a distinct brand voice, create a positioning statement and hone your brand voice and tone:

Create a positioning statement

A positioning statement is one or two lines that define your brand’s position in the market. 

Create one by considering:

• Your competitors. How do they describe their product or service? What benefits do they lean into? Who do they target?
• Your customers. What do they want? What problems are they trying to solve? 
• Your company’s offerings. What makes you different? What values do you stand behind? 

Use this information to write a positioning statement that outlines what you sell, who it’s for, and what makes you unique.

Place what you find into this template to define your positioning statement: 

“We offer [PRODUCT/SERVICE] for [TARGET MARKET] to [VALUE PROPOSITION]. Unlike [THE COMPETITION], we [KEY DIFFERENTIATOR].”

An example positioning statement might look something like this:

“We offer lightweight and waterproof daypacks for travelers, which fold into a wallet-sized pouch when not in use. Unlike other accessory brands, we guarantee our packs for life—no questions asked.”

Add your brand promise and what you stand for to your positioning statement to create your mission statement.

Hone your brand voice and tone

Your conceptualization of your brand voice helps define how you want to sound to customers and what you want them to feel when they interact with you. For example, it might be cheeky or serious, a reliable friend, a muse, or a trust expert.

Fashion branding expert Joey Ng suggests narrowing your list of adjectives down to just three of the best words. “Find your niche and define in very few words what makes your brand distinctive,” Joey says. “If something doesn’t fit those original three words—even though you might like it—scrap it. Establish the core message, nail it, then expand.”

Establish a list of dos and don’ts that govern the language you will and won’t use in your communications. You may even want to drill down on specific communications channels like social media or customer service, clarifying how your tone changes depending on the situation.

3. Choose your business name

Choose a brand name that isn’t being used by another company (especially in your industry), has available social media handles, and is a fit based on your brand or products. It should be easy to remember and hard to imitate.

A few approaches to choosing a brand name include:

• Making up a brand new word (e.g., Pepsi)
• Reframing a word unrelated to your industry or product (e.g., Apple for computers or Maple for health care)
• Using a suggestive word or metaphor (e.g., Buffer)
• Describing it literally (e.g., The Shoe Company or Home Depot)
• Altering a word by changing its spelling, removing letters, adding letters, or using Latin endings (e.g., Tumblr or Activia)
• Creating an acronym from a longer name (e.g., HBO for Home Box Office)
• Using a portmanteau: Pinterest (pin + interest) or Snapple (snappy + apple)
• Using your own name (e.g., Donna Karan or DKNY)

Next, search the USPTO trademark database to check whether your preferred name is already registered.

"One lesson any entrepreneur trying to create a brand will quickly learn is that it’s actually not super easy to get a name trademarked,” says Sanzo founder Sandro Roco in a Shopify Masters interview.

“You have to be very judicious about the brand name you pick, because if it’s already trademarked, then you really can’t or shouldn’t use it. Eventually it’ll come back to bite you in the way of a lawsuit or a cease and desist." 

If your first choice domain name isn’t available for your brand (e.g., yourbrandname.com), consider other ways to snag a domain name that works. For example, lingerie company Pepper’s domain name is wearpepper.com. You can also play with the top-level domain. Try a localized version like .co.uk or .ca. 

Free tools: Try Shopify’s free AI business name generator and domain name generator to help you nail the perfect name for your brand.

4. Write your brand story

A brand story is the narrative you use to communicate who you are, what you stand for, and why your business exists.

Edelman’s research shows 73% of people say their trust in a brand increases when it authentically reflects today’s culture, while Amazon’s 2025 data found 79% of shoppers said they are more likely to purchase a product or services from brands whose values align with their own.

Ask yourself: 

• What elements of your story will resonate with your target audience? 
• What do they need to know to connect with you as a person? 
• How do you wrap your brand values and mission into your story to tell customers, “This is a brand for you”?

"If you just see Wild Rye cake mix on the shelf, maybe you think to yourself, ‘Yeah, that’s a beautiful package, and I like that there’s not that many ingredients … but I don’t connect with it because I don’t know about the person behind it,’” says Sarah Chisholm, founder of Wild Rye Baking, in a Shopify Masters interview.

“When someone can connect with your story, they become a lifelong customer—and perhaps even a fan that would share what you do with their favorite people.”

Differentiation strategies for this brand story might include:

• Sharing your unique origin story and what led you to create your first product 
• Explaining a belief, value, or cause that’s close to your heart
• Taking a bold stance that’s uncommon in your industry (think Liquid Death’s rebellious identity and anti-plastic values, rather than just “We sell water”)

Creating a catchy slogan

Once you’ve established your positioning and your brand story, use it to create a snappy slogan for your business.

Here are some ways to approach writing your brand slogan:

• Stake your claim, like this example from Death Wish Coffee: “The World’s Strongest Coffee.”
• Make it a metaphor, like Red Bull did: “Red Bull gives you wings.” 
• Speak to your target audience, like this example from Cards Against Humanity: “A party game for horrible people.”
• Try a catchy rhyme, like this Folgers Coffee slogan: “The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup.”

Free tool: Try Shopify’s free slogan maker to generate potential one-liners to describe your business.

5. Create your brand kit and style guide

A brand style guide includes rules for all the visual decisions you make for your brand. Also known as a brand kit, this set of documents will take a position on every aspect of your brand and how it shows up in various places. 

A brand kit has many purposes:

• Keep staff, freelancers, retail partners, and agencies on the same page.
• Aid in staff hiring and training based on values.
• Ensure your company branding is consistent across all touchpoints.
• Act as a go-to resource for crisis communications.
• Remain flexible to grow with your brand.

“One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced is maintaining consistency and a cohesive brand identity across all channels,” says David Louvet, CEO of Innovet Pet. “To address this, I’ve set up clear branding and messaging guidelines and regularly monitor and update our campaigns.”

Shopify Sidekick can help generate product descriptions, email copy, and other brand content directly from the Shopify admin. In a 2025 Shopify survey, 69% of store owners already use this type of AI for content generation.*

Choosing your colors

While color psychology is a contested science, there are some general associations you can make between color and mood. Moody, dark, cool colors may complement an edgy brand or a sleep brand, while warm pastels could tell a soothing story for baby or wellness brands.

Beverage brand De Soi, for example, uses a muted palette of 1970s-inspired colors like gold and ochre on its website:

The palette carries through De Soi’s other properties, like its Instagram profile and content:

To implement psychological design and choose brand colors for your visual identity:

• Consider how legibly white and black text will appear over your color palette.
• Don’t use too many colors in your logo. It should be identifiable as a single color in a black and white format.
• Research your target market, use focus groups, and understand the specific cultural or demographic differences that might affect a user’s perception of color.
• Limit your palette to one or two main colors, with a set of accent colors that rotate in and out, depending on application.

Selecting a suite of fonts

Brand fonts work alongside colors to establish a recognizable look for your brand across social, your website, packaging, and other marketing materials. 

Choose two fonts: one for headings and one for body text. (This might not include the font you use in your brand’s wordmark). 

Save decorative fonts for your logo or for very limited applications. Choose a simple, accessible font for your website and product information on packaging. 

Home brand Floof, for example, uses one sans serif font for navigation and headers and another serif font for the rest of the text. Note that its logo—a simple wordmark of its brand name—is a unique font not used anywhere else:

6. Design your logo

Your logo should be unique, identifiable, and scalable so it works at all sizes. 

It should also encompass all the work you’ve done on your brand so far. 

First, ask yourself these questions:

• Does it invoke the feeling you hope to inspire in your customers? 
• Does it tell a story that aligns with your brand values? 
• Does it work in your brand colors?

Next, consider all the places where your brand’s logo will show up: 

• Website 
• Social media avatar 
• Product packaging
• Video ads
• YouTube channel banner 
• Browser favicon (the tiny icon that identifies your open browser tabs)
• Email marketing
• Press mentions and partnerships

Create a few versions of your logo to make it work across applications. 

“We have two logos we use on stuff,” says Mike Cessario, founder and CEO of Liquid Death, in a Shopify Masters interview. 

Beauty brand Glossier also uses a simple wordmark logo across its website and packaging:

For applications with less space, Glossier’s secondary logo—a stylized letter “G”—is used for legibility, like this example on its YouTube channel:

Designing your own logo

If you’re working on a budget, design a logo yourself using:

• Shopify’s free logo maker
• A graphic design tool like Canva

If you lack design skills or confidence handling this important task yourself, hire a pro. Outsource the design through gig sites like Fiverr or Upwork, or run a logo contest on 99Designs.

If you’re running a business on Shopify, there are many Shopify Experts you can hire to design your brand identity (and even your website, too).

7. Apply and grow your brand

Customers should have a consistent brand experience no matter where they encounter your brand: through a TikTok ad, in a retail store, or in their inbox.

As you build your website, set up your social accounts, and create your marketing plan, refer back to your brand guidelines, mission statement, and values to ensure every decision keeps target customers top of mind. 

It’s especially important on social media: In a 2025 Shopify survey, 35% of store owners named building a social media presence as a core Year 1 growth strategy.* 

Mike Alfaro, CEO and creative director at Millennial Loteria, took this approach when building the brand on social media. “I showed behind the scenes of what was going on in my life, what I was doing,” Mike said in a Shopify Masters episode.

“People started to follow me as a creator, not just the brand,” Mike says. “My Instagram and TikTok became more like, ‘Here’s my life and this is what I’m doing, and these are the products that come out of me.’”

To maintain brand consistency:

• Use the same name, profile photo, and bio on all platforms 
• Create templates for different types of content (e.g., social media posts, email campaigns, and ad creatives)
• Store brand guidelines and assets in a shared folder
• Establish an approval workflow to check that all content matches your brand’s identity before publishing

Since your website is the place where you’ll have the most control over your brand identity, use the space to its fullest potential. Ecommerce website templates are a great jumping off point. Most of these, like the themes in Shopify’s Theme Store, are fully customizable, meaning you can apply your brand colors, fonts, and assets to a flexible layout.

Measuring brand success

A brand audit identifies gaps in your current strategy so you can strengthen your brand across every customer touchpoint.

Measure it against the three components that drive consumer trust, per Qualtrics’ 2025 report: 

• Competence (77%)
• Integrity (74%)
• Benevolence (68%)

Consumers with high trust ratings gave an average Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 49—a score 104 points higher than consumers with low trust.

As part of your audit, monitor these brand performance metrics:

• Brand awareness. Measure how familiar your target audience is with your brand using metrics such as social reach, search volume, and website traffic. Combine this information with surveys that ask whether they recognize your brand name or products. Awareness should trend upward over time. 
• Brand perception. Use sentiment analysis, NPS, and customer surveys to understand what people think of your brand when they see it. Does this match the values, personality, or brand image you’re trying to create?
• Brand equity. Monitor market share and partnership opportunities to judge whether your business is building brand equity.
• Brand loyalty. Once people buy into your brand, it needs to be strong enough to make them stick around. Use KPIs like repeat purchase rate, loyalty program participation, and customer lifetime value to find out if it is.

You may need to evolve your brand as your values shift or as consumer trends dictate. If you rebrand, loyal customers should still be able to recognize your brand and get the same experience. Looping in their feedback will help you grow your brand alongside the people who matter most.

*Based on a 2025 survey of 500 Shopify merchants conducted in English across Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United States. Respondents were established merchants with more than two years on the platform. Results reflect the experiences of this specific sample and may not be representative of all merchants.