Your brand identity is a crucial tool for establishing who you are, who you want to be and how your customers perceive you.
The more consistent your brand identity is, the easier it is for your customers to understand, recognise and connect with your company. When having your brand identity created, you need to pick the right visuals and content that strongly represent you, and maintain a consistent style and tone throughout your brand.
Whether you are a car sales company looking to have a website designed to market your stock, or a fashion designer wanting to showcase your new clothing line, building a strong and consistent brand identity should be the most important step in every business’ journey.
A strong brand identity is the key to boosting your business to the next level.
The purpose of a brand identity
The purpose of a brand identity is to make sure you are identifiable from all angles - from every piece of marketing collateral, to the way you speak to clients on emails and in person. Keeping yourself genuine and consistent is the key to a good, strong and recognisable brand identity.
The key
The essential thing in branding is clarity of what is being offered. Sell the answer to the problem you solve, whether it is a product or service. Your brand image and its consistency plays a huge role in your branding. Branding is the bigger picture, it shows the expected results of a product or service. The reputation of the service or product is essential to the branding results.
So, what goes into building a brand identity?
This varies, based on your industry and what product or service you’re providing, but, generally speaking, a “brand identity” is a combination of the following:
The words - Clear in purpose and positioning; consistent in tone and voice.
The look - Logo and graphics, fonts, colour palette, stationery, marketing materials and website.
The people - Customer experience, members of staff and your clients.
Social media -Twitter, Instagram and Instagram Stories, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube etc.
Common mistakes when it comes to branding
When it comes down to branding, it's not uncommon for businesses to make mistakes that weaken their branding efforts. A few common mistakes include:
- Inconsistency - different brand identities
Consistency is key when it comes to building your brand. But, while companies will often work to brand certain components well, other important components such as telephone messaging, websites, business cards, etc get left out. You get the idea.
Having inconsistent branding across all customer touch points can easily dissociate elements of your business, making them not look like yours.
- Lack of training - getting everyone onboard
You'd be surprised at the amount of businesses that launch a new brand, but fail to train their employees and get them inline with the branding.
Get brand guidelines in place and make sure every employee understands them and why they are your brand guidelines. Your employees are like walking billboards; they have to understand not only the brand but what the brand stands for so that they can strongly reflect the messaging you are wanting to share.
- Lack of refreshed marketing materials
Don't forget to do a marketing material refresh and make sure that your materials are all shouting the right message!
You don't have to completely overhaul all of your marketing materials, just a simple update will do, but it's vital that you create fresh materials that share your core services and offerings.
All of these things come together to help unify your branding and create a strong and versatile brand identity.
If you’d like to discuss a project with us, drop us a line on [email protected] or call us on 01353 882111. You can also find out more information on our services here.
