Are you overlooking branding?

Exploring a variety of options for a logo helps narrow down what branding is indicative of your company and what is not. Photo: Adobe Stock

Successful branding is crucial for your business and helps to alert customers and attract them to your company.

How many business owners can say they are actively aware of the effectiveness of their brand? Unless you’ve worked with a marketing director or seasoned graphic designer, you’re probably thinking that your logo is really all you need, but branding is a lot more than that.

You might not have spent much time developing your logo, or even looking at multiple ideas for your logo. Maybe you rolled out the first logo you thought of because you couldn’t think of a better idea, and hey, it works, right? 
Our industry tends to lean towards this line of somewhat lazy thinking, without delving into how much their branding impacts how their audience and customers perceive them, and how branding affects their sales.

Choosing a color palette for your brand is crucial. Even a variance of tones in the same color can make your logo pop! Photo: Adobe Stock

What does successful branding consist of?
A successful brand includes: a visual brand identity, an overall goal for the brand, and a message and marketing strategy. 
These three key items impact how the brand is seen by the target audience and potential customers. A visual brand identity contains a clear and well-designed logo, an effective color palette, and a set of impactful font choices. Your goals for the brand help define your company and its purpose, and that sets a target point for you and your team.

A message and marketing strategy helps you define what you want to say to your audience to get them to do business with you, as well as telling them who you are and connecting them to you on a deeper level.

Visual brand identities are usually the largest point to tackle with any business and are often the aspect most forgotten. A well-designed logo that shows precisely who you are and what you do not only helps reinforce to your customers your exact purpose, but also it sticks in their mind when they are recalling businesses related to what you do. 

Color your brand
Color palette selection for your logo and brand is a quick way to draw attention or turn away your audience. Using color theory and how colors play together can impact how your logo might stand out in an advertisement or on your website. Taking the time to consider where your logo might appear in the future could help with color selection as well. 

Fonts aid message
Font choice is crucial in your brand’s success. Choosing a font that is readable at any number of sizes is necessary, as your logo and brand can appear at larger and smaller sizes depending on the promotional area you are tackling. 

A web advertisement would be produced at a much smaller size than a print advertisement, so a logo with font choices that are not necessarily clear or readable can cause difficulty in making your brand recognizable. 

Your logo, color palette, and font choices should consistently flow into your marketing pieces. This will not only establish a consistent and recognizable brand, but also reinforce your brand in your audience’s mind.

Set goals
Defining your goals as a company not only sets a target point for you and your team, but also helps you plan out your business strategies moving forward, and that relates directly to your branding. Knowing where you want to be will help you lay out the steps you need to take to arrive at that point. 

When building your messaging and marketing strategy, it’s important to figure out the key points you want your audience to understand. The marketing should show who you are and what you offer to the customer. It should show the audience how to easily connect with you if they want to do business with you, and it should not overwhelm them with too much unnecessary information. 

You want your audience to connect with you, ask you questions, and offer you an opportunity to engage with them further.

Knowing how each small part of your brand plays together helps you build a stronger, more dependable company identity, and shows your customers that you know your stuff. Photo: Adobe Stock

What does successful branding do for you?
When your business is promoting itself to your customers and audience, your main goals are to be seen, to be remembered, and to get sales. 

If your branding does not strike your audience, it will be difficult for them to remember who you are or what you do. If your branding is too complicated, too hard to read, or is too confusing, your audience will not be as heavily impacted, and you lose their attention and focus. 

It is just as important not to overwhelm the viewer with too much information. Too many images, too many colors, too many fonts; all of these make it confusing for the audience to understand what message you’re trying to give them. If you overwhelm them, they lose interest and turn the page or click away from your promotional piece.

Developing an identity as a brand also connects your customers to you on a more personable level. Finding your voice, defining who you are, and developing your brand message engages your customer and builds a relationship with them. They see you more than just a faceless company; they see the people behind the company working to make a successful experience for everyone involved.

Better branding means a better bottom line
When your target audience has a clear, concise message from you on what you do and what your business can do for them, it makes it that much easier for potential customers to spend their money with you. 

They will quickly and easily recall your appealing branding and marketing techniques, which pushes them closer to you over your competitors. Giving them an easy way to connect to you helps reduce any stress or confusion when seeking you out, which not only encourages them to do business with you, but also it offers more opportunity for repeat customers.

Future branding and marketing articles to come
In the future, we will be discussing in further detail all the aspects outlined here. We will address logo design best practices, why high-resolution imagery is so impactful, and additional practices that can help you build a better brand. We will also go over marketing toolkits and their value in improving and standardizing your brand.

What would you like to know about better branding? Contact me at [email protected]. ✚

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About the author
Aly Kelly | Art Director

Aly Kelly is the Art Director for Woodworking Network. She is responsible for all branding, layout and graphics decisions for Woodworking Network. She has also created logos, marketing toolkits, and advertisements for a number of companies. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration and Graphic Design from The Art Institutes.