From packaging and signage, to your stationery, website and marketing materials, everything your business does is linked to your brand in the eyes of your customers. Even the way your employees dress and behave is part of your unique identity. Here are 5 tips to help you start or refresh your brand.
- Identify what qualities, values and experiences customers associate with your business.
In order to build a credible brand, you will need to establish what these are. Remember, a brand is more than just a name and logo.
Then, create a set of consistent brand messages that focus on the qualities, values and experiences that customers associate with your business, its products and services.
- Develop a distinctive visual brand.
This must reflect your overall identity. Austin Marketing works with both independent and multinational companies. We help to develop brands from their naming inception, and also assist established brands with enhancing their identities through a coherent, recognisable and inspiring visual branding strategy.
Through market research, dialogue with you, innovative thought, and considered design, we help to improve your long-term growth objectives.
- Apply your brand to all of your materials.
Achieving consistency across all communications is key to delivering powerful brand messages that leave a positive and lasting impression, create loyalty, and set you apart from the competition.
Brand manuals are created to outline the thinking behind the brand – its vision, principles and applications – and to provide clear and unambiguous rules about how the brand should appear and behave. The guidelines help the business create materials true to their vision, strengthening their brand.
The size and format of this manual can vary, as different needs require different standards and different application visuals. However, certain elements such as logo, typography and colour palettes, along with the do’s and don’ts, are essential.
- Promote your brand internally.
Communication with your employees is essential to gain their support in making your branding effective. Explain why and how you arrived at the brand identity, and reinforce that their role is absolutely critical in ensuring the message gets across. The brand manual will then help maintain and support the correct usage of the brand messages and visuals.
- Create a marketing strategy to promote your new or revised branding.
A marketing strategy will help you identify your best customers, understand their needs and implement the most effective marketing methods. This may include press releases, PR and advertising, special offers and promotions to customers.
Interested in learning more about branding and how to create a consistent brand? At Austin’s, our experienced team can help with all requests, from general marketing support right through to creating a new website, strategy planning, brand development, and positioning. And it only takes an email or a phone call to get started.