In today’s day and age, image and how we are perceived is becoming the forefront for most people. With the introduction and increasing growth of social media platforms such as Instagram and SnapChat, the world is becoming more and more focused on appearance. Even though in the past what we wore, ate, drank or did was important to friends and family, with these powerhouses of social media becoming an everyday need to use. Instagram is all about showing people a sneak peek into your everyday life and many people are becoming in there own right a brand.
Before we delve deeper into the understanding of what a brand identity and what a branding kit is, we need to first understand what branding is.
What Is Branding?
Branding is something that is memorable to the person looking to buy a particular product. If you were to buy a mobile phone most people would say buy an Apple iPhone or a Samsung device. If you were to buy trainers, Adidas or Nike would sure be at the top of your list. Brand awareness and exposure are critical to a business’s success. For you as a business being able to see the general public identify your business against a product or service shows the great success of this.
This is why branding is first and foremost important but also gives identity to your business.
With any small business, their image is important to improve your revenue and for people to remember your business. A catchy name and a Yellow Pages advert used to be all a business needed to get leads or work flowing in but this kind of marketing does not work as well anymore. Consumers are looking for professionalism on all fronts to invest their money and time into a product or service.
Below are seven different steps you can take to improve your brand identity and utilise a branding kit.
Brand Identity
Even though the idea of building a branding kit is to coincide with the overall brand identity, you first of all need to look at what you want your brand’s image to be.
Who are our businesses target audience
Helps identify how your brand’s image is perceived. If you a young App development agency you would be appealing to a younger demographic whereas a catering company for the elderly will need to cater to this target audience. It is important to find this as your brands use of language across emails, website, letters, leaflets, vans, etc will need to reflect this narrative and audience selection.
Consistency is king
Most businesses start off with good intentions and develop a branding kit which will allow them to build different marketing strategies but over time due to many different factors, the branding toolkit can forget about. By misusing the branding kit or using the incorrect logos, colour or fonts you could come across to your client as sloppy and unprofessional.
By keeping the consistency optimal your brands image across all different mediums such as your website and social media platforms will come across well to potential prospects and turn them into clients.
Keep it simple
This has to one of my golden rules for brand kits and business identities. If you take some of the biggest brands such as Apple, their whole is based on simplicity. Lots of small to large companies invest lots of man-hours and cost to create brands that are overcomplicated and fussy causing them to miss the mark with potential clients. If you keep your brand message, look and persona clean and simple this will portray your brand’s identity well across all of your branding toolkits.
Develop a branding strategy
Lots of businesses jump at the chance to improve their image by throwing themselves directly into a rebrand or chance their branding kit without a second thought. This can prove to a be a costly mistake as with anything you need to prepare and plan your strategy for a branding toolkit.
Research different media and brands
You may feel that looking up your businesses competitor is like cheating but all research is important. By investing time in looking at what your competitor is doing is a worthy step to better your branding success going forward.
Other avenues to take in developing a successful branding kit is to make sure you look at different media outlets such blogs to ensure your branding is bang on trend rather than several years too late and instantly looking outdated to your potential prospective clients.
Brands Always evolve
If you feel like a business you have navigated your way through the whole branding maze successfully and have a brand toolkit that demonstrates your business in a nutshell, this is great news. However, this is something that needs to evolve as time passes. Brands in today’s market cannot remain static as the image of your brand can be seen as ‘stale’ as more time passes. If you take Nike there marketing and branding are always evolving and taking a new direction and keeping up to date with current trends. As a small business owner, you will need to make sure your brand and branding kits also do the same.
Invest In a Digital Agency With Graphic Designer
My final point to wrap this up is if you are unsure on anything always invest in a digital agency such as Mosaic Digital Media Ltd as we have some of the top talents in the NorthWest who can help your business develop a branding kit to shout about.
