Make Them Remember You: Using Brand Design to Your Advantage
It’s a tempting notion to put all of your business brainpower into your brand design and logo.
However, if that design hasn’t been developed with your brand identity in mind, the smallest wind will come around and knock over that fragile house of cards.
This brings us to what exactly is a brand identity and how it ties into your brand design.
Keep on reading to learn all about brand identity, how it relates to brand design and how you can develop a solid brand identity that makes you pop out of the screen right into your audience’s brains for good.
Brand Identity 101
Brand identity is the foundation upon which all your visual brand elements are built.
With a solid foundation in place, you’ll be able to achieve a consistent brand presentation which, in turn, will increase your revenue up to 23%.
Your brand identity includes color, design, and logo. It’s everything that your business wants to convey to its customers and the first impression that the public makes of your brand.
It might vary by industry, but most brand identity elements revolve around the following key aspects:
- Logo and its variations
- Brand colors and color palette
- Typefaces
- Library of graphical elements
- Style guide
- Standard style of images and content
There’s a reason why people use the words brand identity and brand design interchangeably.
Both deal heavily with visual aspects of your business, but your brand identity encompasses your brand design as well as other non-visual aspects of your business.
For example, your brand’s tone in its writings is an essential element of your brand identity. It can range from youthful and informal to sophisticated and professional.
Building a Strong Brand Design
Overall, your brand identity and design can tell prospective and current customers all about your business and its services, as well as your priorities and who you are.
Most times, it’s a question of how to do so. Here’s how you can build a strong brand design.
Consistency with Visuals
Brand design is all about visuals. Unfortunately, the visuals tend to be less than useless if it keeps shifting as the wind (and projects) blows.
For example, if McDonald’s logo palette kept shifting from mainly red to blue on a bi-annual basis, people would stop associating the colors red and yellow with McDonald’s.
Thus, it can negatively affect your business, as it can come across as unprofessional. It’s a signal of hesitation or confusion about who you are as a business.
The goal of your brand design is to make it as memorable as possible. And, once you keep your designs and visuals consistent, you’ll avoid customer confusion.
If your audience is confused about who you are, rest assured they won’t remember your brand.
Tell Your Story
There’s a reason why storytelling has been with us as a species from the very beginning of time, and that’s because we become more engaged in topics if it’s put in a good story format.
Thus, one of the best ways to differentiate your brand is by showing your audience your brand’s journey. A journey showcases a timeline of successes and failures, as well as growth.
By linking between how your company made it from point A to point B, you have a solid framework of transformation and growth that you can show to your audience.
Once they see it, you can provide examples and explain how you can take your customers with you on that same transformational journey and add value to their lives.
Content Is Key
By having a solid content marketing strategy in place, you won’t just increase your conversion rates. You’ll actually be adding concrete value to your consumers.
Good content is valuable information that is presented in an easily digestible way to your consumers.
Therefore, nothing can boost your business credentials better than adding value to your consumers and solving their problems.
You’ll transform your business image from a run-of-the-mill company that’s out to get people’s money, to a trustworthy entity that would like to help their customers in their daily lives.
Social Media for the Win
Your brand identity needs to have a strong social media presence with cohesive designs and messaging. It’s critical for small business success to be available and reachable where your audience is, and that is social media platforms.
With three out of four people using social media, you’ll be able to cement your presence with your current audience while also gaining additional customers whose first glance at your brand will be through Facebook or Twitter.
Furthermore, by posting behind-the-scenes pictures of your employees or product development, you remind your customers of your values and your inner workings of trying to deliver the best service and product possible.
It a key element of letting your clients put a face to your brand. Once it happens, they’ll be able to humanize you.
Empathy and the Human Element
This brings us to the human element and creating empathy.
Creating empathy will lead to people getting emotionally invested in your brand’s success. If that step is dropped, when the going gets tough (and at some point or another, it will) your audience won’t care about your business weathering the storm.
Moreover, ensuring that your brand design is firmly connected to your brand values is fundamental. This is due to the fact that 64% of your customers will build a relationship with your brand solely based on whether they share your values or not.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat Smartly.
It won’t be enough for your audience to see your brand design in one place. Studies show that you’ll need at least seven touchpoints in order for your brand image to stick in your audience’s brains.
However, in order to combat the over-saturated market of competitors, you’ll have to implement a visibility strategy.
In order to do so, create multiple brand platforms such as your website content, your email list, your video, and other visual content, as well as your social media platforms.
Ready to Give Your Brand a Makeover?
If you’re not sure about the answer to that question, that means your brand needs a revamp.
Now that you know all about brand identity and brand design, you’re in a much better place to take refine your business image and truly grow your customer base.
Yet, there is no such thing as knowing enough about how to grow your business, so make sure to check out our blog for the latest tips and industry insights!