Think about your favorite fast-food restaurant or clothing provider. What colors do you associate with them? What words would you use to describe their “vibe?” Do they have a catch phrase?
The answers that you come up with are some of the key details of their business’s branding.
Running a business or brand in the modern era is more than just selling a product or service. There is a story, culture, and experience attached to everything you do that your customers will relate to. Good or bad branding can be what draws customers in and keeps them coming back, or what pushes them away permanently.
Good branding is what turns a simple coffee cup into the status icon that is a cup of Starbucks coffee.
Your business’s branding can and should impact every piece of content you produce, every product or service you offer, and even how your business presents itself through interactions with customers and clients.
Branding is more than just choosing an eye-catching color palette though. We’re going to explain the core components of effective branding that so you have the tools to start building your brand identity and the guidelines that will keep everyone on track moving forward.
Whatever your business is, you have a brand attached to it that people see each time they interact with you.
Notable brands you can take as an example include businesses like IKEA, Trader Joes, COSTCO, Starbucks, Apple, and Nike. Yes, these are companies that create and sell products and services, but everything they do has to be “on-brand.”
One way to think of this is in terms of a person and their personality. The person themselves is like the brand; the things they believe in and how they behave are their branding. Out-of-character behavior (ex. eating at a fast-food joint that you vehemently hate) is “off-brand.”
A brand is defined by its branding. Again, if a brand is thought of as an individual person, then branding is the process of defining that person’s personality, beliefs, and even their clothing style.
In more technical terms, branding is the act of researching, developing, and applying the distinctive features that are going to define your company’s identity and guide how you go about your work.
Branding isn’t a quick process. It requires research and some careful consideration. The choices that you make for your brand identity will have a lasting impact on your business. Putting in the work now pays off in the long run in the following ways:
Without a set brand identity, it is all too easy to fall into off-brand behavior. Completing your branding now makes it easier to create cohesive and comprehensive brand guidelines that will keep you and anyone on your team on-brand. This is also why it is vital to complete your branding efforts before you forge ahead with future projects—it is far easier to stick to the program once your people know what the program is. Plus, it reduces the chances you will have to go back and fix things all the time.
The better defined your brand identity is, the more credible you come across to your customers, clients, or business partners. A brand that is trustworthy is one that can more easily charge what they are worth and is more likely to grow and keep their customer/follower base.
Giving your brand a unique identity through branding makes it easier to build up potential customers’ brand awareness. This translates to a larger number of people recognizing and remembering your brand more easily. And when they remember you, they’re more likely to return to you for the products or services that they now know they like. The sooner you take the time to figure out your branding, the faster and easier it is to get people thinking and talking about you.
Most people return to brands that are recognizable to them, have established they are trustworthy, and support or complement their likes and dislikes. Your obsession with the mom-and-pop shop down the hill with good breakfast burritos is an example of brand loyalty even if you don’t think of it that way. You frequent that café because you know what to expect and like what they have to offer. Good branding increases customer brand loyalty and increases the chances they’ll come back again and again.
When it comes to business marketing, it is important to find the spaces where your ideal customers are and meet them there. Cohesive branding helps you set yourself up to meet your ideal customer base where they are, whether online or IRL, and show them what you have to offer.
Branding efforts often yield a good return on the investment of your time and, often, your funds. Getting everything in line now means fewer last-minute changes, longer customer retention, and higher sales. Need to learn more about marketing strategy? Check out the Marketing Breakdown: 5 Marketing Strategy Must-Haves to brush up.
Need to get your brand identity figured out? Here are some of the steps you’ll need to consider while working on your branding.
Your brand mission statement should encapsulate your larger business values and goals. This statement should be a comprehensive, one-to-two-line summary of what your brand is about. For some, figuring this out first can make the rest of your branding efforts easier.
Let’s look at COSTCO for a notable example: “to continually provide our members with quality goods and services at the lowest possible prices.”
That mission statement helps everyone understand what you want to do. The question to answer next is who is going to care? Your buyer personas provide an answer.
Buyer or customer personas are terms for the type of people that are your typical or ideal customers. These personas should be created as early as possible because they’ll help determine the rest of your brand identity, such as the tone you want to use in your written content or the colors you want on your website.
Figuring out what need you’re meeting or what problem you are helping to solve can make it easier to determine what your buyer personas may look like.
Buyer personas can include ideal age ranges, interests, income ranges, likes and dislikes, and more. The more information you have the better and, hopefully, the easier it will be to reach them.
Buyer personas can include ideal age ranges, interests, income ranges, likes and dislikes, and more. The more information you have the better and, hopefully, the easier it will be to reach them.
Someone who works in the finance world may speak and act differently than someone who works in the restaurant industry. The tone and overall personality of your brand defines how you communicate with your customers and clients. Are you all about efficiency? Are you more professional or casual during customer interactions? Do you want to be seen as humorous or strait-laced? You can’t build your brand to be seen as casual and laidback and then flip to a tone that as abrasive and edgy.
This faux pas is where many a brand has fallen into trouble because they didn’t have their branding in place to guide them. Don’t let yourself fall into the same trap.
Think about the difference between the visual elements used by Apple and Google. Or compare Starbucks to Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Just their logos give off entirely different impressions. The visual elements that you chose for your brand identity have a lasting impression and can help you stick in people’s minds. Make sure to plan out visuals like:
• Your logo: This is the visual that represents your business in its simplest form as a symbol or word.
• Your colors: A fun and bright brand shouldn’t have dark colors. Make sure that the colors on your products, your logo, and other visuals match your brand personality. It may even help to do a bit of research on the psychology behind different colors.
• Your typeface: The font and sizing on your products, menus, merchandise, ads, or website need to match or at least adhere to a common theme. Just don’t use Papyrus or Comic Sans, please. 😊
• Imagery or Graphic Elements: The kinds of pictures or images you use for your business should also be on brand. Whenever possible, using your own imagery is a great idea. Whether or not you can manage that though, you will want to make sure those visuals are on-brand (i.e. bright and happy brands should portray brighter, possibly light-hearted visuals)
In this situation, people can and will judge a book by its cover. If your brand visuals are done well though, this should be a good thing!
Brand guidelines encapsulate all the key branding details that make up your brand identity and give everyone an easy-to-find reference point. This can help people stay on-brand as they create marketing collateral, send emails, create and sell products and engage with your customers.
Getting a cohesive brand identity together takes time and effort. Branding is a process that you want to make sure you get right the first time. If you are looking to build a cohesive brand identity starting now, you can start the process the right way with us.
Contact Varga Inc. to see how we can help you bring your brand to life.
