Your business brand identity is the first and foremost foundation of any business. It is the key to transforming a dream into reality. It helps connect your company’s values, vision, story, and direction, so that every decision revolves around what makes your company unique.
Branding will also attract new customers and strengthen old ones. Your company’s core values are what make you stand out from all other businesses, which means they should be at the heart of your brand identity.
A brand identity is more than just a logo. Brand identity encompasses many elements, including design and marketing materials. Organizations spend significant time and resources creating their image, but from an SEO standpoint, this is a waste of time, unless the branding aligns with your company message.
Branding is more than just a logo, it’s the total experience with your company. What are the characteristics of a strong brand identity?
Your Brand Identity Should Reflect Your Business and Products
A strong brand identity reflects the company and products it represents. How can you create one? Start by making a list of adjectives that describe your products, services, and the image you’re trying to convey. Does your company sell natural, environmentally friendly products or do you sell financial services? The colors and fonts will be different for each. For the former, your brand colors might be soft shades of green mixed with white or yellow. For the latter, more serious colors, like navy blue, would send a stronger message. The font might be a serif font, a font that conveys elegance, authority, and prestige.
You wouldn’t choose a quirky font for a financial business or other business of a more somber nature. Although not everyone understands the psychology behind colors or fonts, they make a subconscious impression of what your business represents at first glance. According to Harvard Business School, feelings motivate most buying decisions, not logic. Make sure your brand identity gives off the right vibes and is consistent with your offerings.
Your Brand Should Be Unique
A unique online brand identity is an important foundation you must build for your business to reach new heights. When you don’t have a strong website built to show your brand identity, you’ll blend in with the sea of other businesses who offer similar products or services. In the current economy, people are bored with the same old, the same old. To stand out, you need to strongly differentiate yourself from your competition.
How do you establish a unique brand? Research your competition thoroughly, as well as your audience. Find what your audience wants that your competition isn’t supplying. Could you convey your message in a way that’s unique from theirs?
Your Brand Identity Should Be Consistent
Your brand is a reflection of your business, and it’s how people identify you. Consistency shows professionalism and helps people recognize and identify with your brand. It’s more than a logo too. A brand’s identity can include anything from colors to design and typefaces. But it’s important that you keep your brand consistent online and offline. The colors of your business cards, logo, product packaging, and website should be consistent, so people can instantly recognize your brand at a glance. If you use photos, make sure the images you post have a consistent style by adding a filter that gives your images an identifiable look. Why be consistent? According to John Maxwell, a well-known motivational speaker, consistency builds trust.
Your Brand Should Be Memorable
People today have a “click and away” mentality. They glance at a page or post and quickly click away. That’s why you have to catch their attention and engage them immediately. Time is of the essence; they can be there one minute and gone the next. In fact, twenty seconds is more like it! Whatever you can do to stand out from the crowd, unique colors, a font that’s yours alone, a clever website name, will make you more memorable.
Your Brand Identity Should Be Recognizable
Unless your brand identity is recognizable, it will be hard to gain traction. Think about how recognizable the Nike logo and the Apple logo are. Ask most people, and they can instantly identify what those logos represent. That’s the power of a well-designed logo. Yet both logos are simple. You don’t have to create a brand identity of a logo that’s in your face to be successful. A simple logo can have more punch, because you can use it in more places without it being too obtrusive. Yet both the Nike and the Apple logo are dynamic in that they show action. When you look at the Nike logo, the swish logo denotes motion. The same is true with the Apple logo. It’s not just an apple, but an apple with a bite taken out of it. A subtle twist on a simple theme leads to a logo that’s simple and easy to digest, but still dynamic.
The Bottom Line
A brand identity, also known as a corporate identity, is the image of an organization, product or other entity in the marketplace. A successful brand is important for increasing sales and building an online community. A strong visual identity can improve public relations, bring in and retain customers for your business. Your brand identity is the first impression people see of your company. It sets the tone for the rest of your communications. So, ensure you have a strong brand identity to help your company make a lasting positive impact.
References:
“The Subconscious Mind of the Consumer (And How To Reach It)” /hbswk.hbs.edu/ .
“Creating brand identity: a study of evaluation of new ….” 01 Nov. 2005, sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296304001602.
“Branding Case Studies – The Branding Journal.” .thebrandingjournal.com/category/case-studies/.