Brand Identity
Branding is viewed as a high priority when it comes to your business, in all it’s forms it is your shop window. Often, the first impression a potential client will get will comes from your branding.
So your vision is clear, you know exactly what your brand is and what your passion is. If you were in front of every single customer you would be able to convey your passion for your product, they would know exactly what you were selling, who you were and how you came to be standing in front of them.
The truth is that in reality this is only achievable to a certain degree, so you need to ensure that a clearly defined brand identity encompasses your logo, slogans and tag lines and advertising across all media platforms.
However you choose to present yourself, you will always have the basics in place; logo, tag line, business card and website. Any customer anywhere needs to be able to see parity between your branding.
How you will come to get your ideas into a visual format will usually involve consulting a graphic designer.
Top considerations are;
- Know your target market
- Establishing whether your target market is business to business or business to consumer will help you to define if your branding should be fun or funky or conservative.
- What are the core values of your business?
- Are you ethical? If your USP related to being ‘green’ you would want to consider ensuring that your business card was produced on recycled card and represented your ethics. You may even decide to be exclusively online, with minimal paper/card usage.
- Are you family run? Is it evident on your advertising material that there are generations of the family running the business?
- Branding continuity
- Is your brand evident on everything? Would a prospect receiving a sales pack see the same logo and associated branding as a client walking in the door, or viewing your website for the first time?
- Move with the times
- If you’re a long established firm, don’t be afraid of a brand refresh. Of course you want to keep your brand as it is known, but there is no harm in evolving and giving your identity a refresh, perhaps to reflect a new direction that you are heading in.
As part of The Avanti Group (UK) Ltd, Avanti Networking members can help you with your visual brand identity.