People are always going on about how important a brand is to a business. And, while it is, that doesn’t really help very much. For a brand to be successful, it needs to be strategically placed. Bad branding will usually involve coating things in a brand, just for the sake of doing it. Instead, you need to be smart, not only in brand placement, but also in employing the right brand asset management tools to ensure everyone in the company is delivering a consistent brand message.
Where you place your brand will have a huge effect on its impact. Possibly even bigger than the impact of the brand itself. People need to be able to see your brand but avoid being overwhelmed by it. As with all decoration, when looking for something tasteful, you should always go with the approach that less is more. But, where exactly does your brand need to be? How should you use it?
Of course, if you run a physical shop, it makes sense for you to have your brand on display. But, there’s a limit to how much you should use it. Out front, most shops will at least have a banner sign, displaying their logo. This sign should be in your company’s fonts and colors. Some will also have branding on their windows. But, this can be overdone very easily. So, it’s worth being careful when deciding to do this. Inside, you should have a mixture of plain decoration and branded decoration. Having a feature wall with your company’s logo is usually enough. But, having accessories like coffee mugs and pens branded will also help.
Next up, you want to make sure that your website is branded. This goes further than the logo at the top of the page, though. Of course, you do want your logo at the top of the page. But, you also want the rest of your site branded, too. You should use the same colors and fonts that you use for the rest of your business. You should make sure that the style is appropriate for your business. For example, it would be bad to run a sophisticated coffee shop but have a website that looks like it’s made for kids.
As your business grows, you’ll probably start to see the need for mailing lists and social media. These are great tools to garner interest in your business. But, they can be a brand-wrecker if they’re used poorly. If you send emails to customers on a regular basis, you should use HTML templates. These allow you to style the email how you want to, making it look much more professional. Social media posts should follow the same branding rules as the rest of your content, as well. This media should reflect your website’s design, most of all. But, it can also reflect the design of your shop, if customers see that, too.
At outdoor events, you have a lot more room for branding. In these sorts of circumstances, you’ll have a lot of other brands around you, competing for attention. This means that it can be good to scrap the idea that less is more here and go hard on your branding. Event displays are a great way to get your brand out there. Made out of fabric, they can be printed relatively cheaply, and they don’t take long to make. So, you can even do it in a pinch. Large banners can be a good way to shop your brand, as well. They will show off your business and give you more space to display information. You are likely to have fliers to give out at events like this. And, these shouldn’t be ignored. Content like this should be treated much like your emails and social media. It should reflect your brand and feel like a seamless extension of your website.
This is all well and good, but why is it important? Surely, a customer would care more about a product than branding, right? Well, no. Unfortunately, in today’s world, branding can be everything for a company. Even if you have the best product in the world, poor branding will make it very hard to sell.
Human’s are very good at categorising things. We find it much easier to understand information if it’s displayed in a consistent fashion. As a side effect of this behaviour, when humans think about businesses, they usually think of their branding. Take the biggest shopping center near you. When you think about it, you probably imagine their logo. And, this is the case for most. This sort of recognition can only be established by a powerful brand. So, you need to make sure that your branding is at it’s peak, before trying to make sales.
Your brand also makes your company unique. It lets you stand out from the crowd and be seen as an individual business. As your brand’s recognition improves, you will notice a swift uptake in customers. People don’t often remember the name of a website after their first visit. Instead, they remember what it looks like. The same goes for all of your branded content.
Building a successful brand can be a challenge. Design is a professional field, so it’s understandable that most people don’t make their own logos or design their own brands. Instead, it’s usually left to a professional. A branding designer can help you realise your company’s potential, with only a couple of weeks work. Of course, this sort of service costs money. But, that shouldn’t be a turn-off. You can look at money that you spend on your branding as an investment in your company. A good brand should only incorporate a handful of colors, with a basic logo, and a couple of fonts. All of the fonts and colors that you choose should complement each other well.
Hopefully, this will inspire you to start improving your company’s brand. Anything like this will take a bit of time. So, it’s worth being patient. Once you have your brand successfully placed and designed, you’ll find that your customer base only keeps growing. Using branding tools like social media will take some research. So, make sure that you plan ahead, and learn what you have to learn.
