Basics of Branding
Our new intern David is a marketing major and knows the importance of branding. We asked him to dive deeper into the subject in this week’s blog post
If you own or operate a business you should already know that branding is one of the most important aspects to solidify long-term success. There should be a strong brand strategy around the whole business. It’s not simply just your color scheme, logo or even products and services but what the company represents and how it is perceived by the people. There are is a lot that goes into branding and more importantly making your brand pop.
What is Branding?
Simply put, it gives the company a unique identity making them stand out from the rest, tells the public who they are, and what they want to represent. Branding is the statement that makes a company different from their competitors, shows who they are and where they want to move in the future. It’s how people view their products and/or services. Look at Coca Cola for example, you can find different colas that cost almost half the price and pretty much taste the exact same, but Coke can charge premium prices because they have built a strong relationship with their consumers through branding.
Where does it all start?
Design a logo that fits your image and works for your target market. Whatever you do, don’t just design a logo that you think is cool and make the final decision. Do some research and try to make sure the logo fits in with your company slogan and overall image of the business. When thinking about color, the more color the more money so it’s a good idea to make sure the logo looks good in one color, grayscale and in color. Remember a simple logo is always better, look at all of the most popular brands. They like to keep their slogan short and sweet and their logo simple and slick.
Be Consistent
One thing many companies forget about is their brand image expands across the whole company and it must stay consistent. What your employees wear and how they talk to customers is all a part of the brand and it should stay consistent.
Consistency should also be in your logo, message and slogan. IT’s better to get one message stuck in someone’s head than to constantly be changing it up. The slogan is the main message you want to cement in a customer’s head. It is also ideal to make sure you have your logo on everything related to your business, everyone is familiar with coffee mugs or promotional pens imprinted with a logo on it. Also keep in mind when it comes to putting your logo on promotional products keep the design, color, placement, to feel consistent. Just remember consistency is key.
Be True to your Brand
Lastly stay true to the message your company promotes. If you’re an eco-friendly company for crying out loud use recycled materials and don’t be wasteful. Offer reusable grocery bags to customers as a promotional product or through a contest. If your promoting high quality products/services make sure the company continues to promote this image with corporate gifts and tradeshow giveaways. The image you want to display as a company should come across every avenue of the business. These branding tips may seem like common sense, but sometimes can get lost in the shuffle when looking at the big picture.
The list goes on and on and we’ll have to save that for another day, however this should give you a heads up on the basics of branding.
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