Your organization’s brand identity is one of the most important aspects of your entire marketing strategy. Besides being memorable, which is arguably the most important factor, it needs to be creative and unique as well in order to set you apart from competitors in your industry. An effective brand identity incorporates everything from your company’s logo, your tone of messaging and overall design. The key to a strong brand identity, however, lies in the continuity.
Your Website and Brand Identity
Did you know that 66% of people choose not to further engage with an organization if the website doesn’t suit their sensibilities? If you have a website that not only isn’t intuitive but also not pleasant to look at, it could mean a drop in sales for your company. First impressions go a long way and that includes the design of your website.
There’s a good chance your website is one of the first stops on the buyer’s journey, and it’s important that your brand is easy to identify. Your brand identity should speak through a multitude of things on your website.
There are quite a few ways you can do to make sure your brand identity stays consistent.
Take a look at the color palette you’re using. While it might seem fun to use all the colors of the rainbow, stick to three or four complementary colors. Having a wide range of colors can sometimes be hard to pull off, so sticking to a simple palette is best.
Then take a look at the typography you’ve chosen for your logo. Does it complement the logo and color palette? Does it match the personality of your brand? For example, it would seem a little odd to use a frilly, handwritten font for a prestigious law firm. There isn’t anything wrong with that type of font, but it doesn’t necessarily match the image the law firm is more than likely trying to achieve.
Continuity throughout all aspects of your organization is key to building your client base and establishing your place among competitors. The goal is for your company to immediately be recognizable among your competitors. Using a combination of the color palette and typography in your logo to your services or products offered at each location, remain consistent to stand out from others in your industry.
The Psychology Behind Color
Did you know the color of a logo can subconsciously make us prefer one brand over another? There’s a great deal of psychology that comes into play when choosing the colors for your brand logo and it’s a good idea to learn some of the basics. It’s not as simple as it was once thought to be where “orange equals powerful” or “green translates to growth,” but there are a few factors you can put into play when it comes to your brand identity.
The color you use in your branding packs a huge punch filled with tons of information for the consumer to take in. Marketers have to understand how important their choice of color in their branding is and make sure it aligns with their brand identity overall. Consumers subconsciously notice when a brand’s color doesn’t line up with their organization’s personality and this, in turn, affects their choices.
Know Your Audience
Conveying the tone of your message in text can be tough, but with the help of other aspects of your brand identity, it’s a much simpler task to accomplish. Knowing your target audience will help determine what kind of logo they would be most responsive to and what tone of messaging would be most effective. Of course, it’s important to make sure your tone and logo complement each other as well as the organization overall.
Make sure you adopt a tone that suits the energy of your organization. Do you know your target audience and what type of tone they would be most responsive to? This helps differentiate your brand from others in your industry because the goal is to align the personality of your organization with the tone of your messaging.
It’s helpful to put together an overall profile of your audience to better understand how to market to them. Take a look at their social media profiles. Look at details like their age, gender, and the type of lifestyle they lead. Are they buttoned-up professionals? You should stick to a more formal tone. Are they a relaxed, casual crowd? A more playful tone might be a better fit.
Collecting data about your target audience helps you better compare for future marketing campaigns. With the help of analytics, you can tweak your branding if needed or you might discover you’re already knocking it out of the park. Regardless of your situation, the use of consistent elements in your brand identity is sure to help set you apart and make you stand out as a star in your industry.