Branding is the fun part of your business. It’s not only the presence of your business in the market. It’s the whole being of your business from start to finish and every nitty gritty detail in between. In other words, it’s your reputation.
But today, we’re talking visual branding. So in terms of the visual reputation, it’s making sure that the look and feel are continued throughout every aspect of your business.
Starting with Colours
Brand colours should be run throughout all of your collateral and featured anywhere your logo is (given that it isn’t a black and white print run). They are basically as important as your name.
Think about Coke, what is the first colour that comes to mind. I didn’t even need to tell you because it is run across every piece of their branding. It is so successful that they don’t even need to put their logo on their ad, just a white silhouette of their signature bottle shape on a red background and consumers know who it is. Think of all the big successful brands and how they position themselves within the marketplace, they always stick to the same colours to stay consistent across the board. This builds a familiarity within the market and gives you a strong brand presence.
On top of that, choosing the colours need to be just as important. Think of what your business does and what colours they are associated with. For instance, a dentist usually has cool colours, whites, blues, mint green etc. These colours represent clean, fresh, sterile, it almost depicts a clean atmosphere without you even being there. Now if you saw a dentist with a black and yellow logo how would you feel? Check out my other blog ‘why colour choice is vital to your brand‘.
Fonts
Choosing the same font is more important than you think, it’s the same as your branding colours. Not only should this be continued throughout all of your branding presence. But much like your tone of voice.The type of font can also depict your business style. For example, Contemporary vs Formal or Casual vs Professional. Think of the type of fonts used on a bank letter in comparison to a children’s daycare logo, each has very different audiences and their branding fonts represent that.
Tone of voice
Visual branding I hear you say… well yes, because what you write is also seen. This is how you communicate with your audience, it’s actually quite important that you continue how you speak with them across all forms of media. It is also important that you know who your targeted audience is, or who you want it to be. The tone of voice you would use to communicate to the youth would definitely not be the type of communication that you would use to talk to the elderly. So if you are somewhere in between, think about how each target market will perceive the language you use and come up with a ‘one size fits all’ approach.
Associated branding assets and collateral
This is putting the above to practice. It’s making sure that whatever you say and however you visually communicate has a set of rules that are carried throughout your marketing presence. Logos, assets, icons, fonts, they all play a crucial role in how people perceive your brand. It’s all about being and staying consistent, if these things change all the time, people can’t make the connection with your brand. Repetition does, so whether it’s your internal collateral, an email newsletter template, social assets, or stationery, make sure they a
Which brings me to social media
Your presence on social media is basically a combination of everything. Although you can’t change your fonts on certain platforms, you might make an image to upload which can still have it on there. The biggest thing on social media though is how you talk to your audience. Knowing your audience can be the difference between being successful or failing. Don’t ever think that you appeal to all because there will generally be a market that is more dominant than another. You just need to find it. Be sure to monitor your traffic and see who is liking your pages to get a rough guide (if you don’t know already). Then you can start to target that market more specifically. For more information read the blog on ‘why your business needs to utilise social media‘.
The evolution of social media has brought with it a lot of judgement and criticism. So it is important to stay light-hearted unless of course, you would like to target a specific audience then I say go for gold. You may have seen alliances with certain brands to specific organisations or events. This is basically a more in-depth way on how brands position themselves in a positive light to the consumer.
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