Branding…it’s more than just a logo
If I were to take your logo off of your website or store front, would your customers still know where they were? Does your brand have enough personality to stand on it’s own? Do the look, feel and voice of your brand match?
Imagine walking into a boutique with no real signage outside. They are selling the most trendy new clothing, playing music from the 60’s and their internal signage is all in Comic Sans. I’m not going to lie, I would run out of that store for the Comic Sans alone. This business doesn’t know who they are and they could see up to 23% less business because of it.
So while a lot of people believe that you can brand your business with a great logo, what I need you to hear is that IT’S MORE THAN JUST A LOGO! You need to think of the branding of your business in 3 parts -
Brand Strategy - A long-term plan for the development of a successful brand in order to achieve specific goals. Your brand strategy is the ground work before you even really get going, but it’s important that you put it into action and then track and adjust when needed.
Brand Identity - Your brand identity is your logo AND colors, fonts, design, feel, culture, etc. that identify your brand to your potential customers and clients.
Brand Marketing - It’s the last and most continuous part. You figured out what your brand is going to look and feel like based on what you want your business to eventually be, but that’s just the beginning. The hardest part is building brand loyalty, and the way to do this is to get out there and continuously boost your brand recognition and reputation. And…we’ve come full circle, because this, my friends, takes strategy.
It’s gut check time! Are you a business that decided what you were going to sell, made a logo, slapped it on a business card and went to work? Or did you build a strategy and identity for your brand before you started promoting yourself? Either way, it’s never too late to really start to build your brand. I’ve helped a couple of people from the beginning of their business but most come to me to re-brand and if you have never really had a brand identity in the first place, re-branding is no big deal. It could actually be really fun! Imagine already having a following for your business and letting your followers in on the fun of your re-branding on social media. The head start you would get in building your brand loyalty could be huge because you let them in on the process!
I hope you enjoyed this overview of how to get started with branding your business and can get going with your branding beyond the logo. I will dig into each part of branding at a later date, but hopefully this will get you started!
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