Author: Janine Morice
Published: 20 September 2024
The visual expression of your brand says a lot about your business. If you do it well, it will say all the right things. In a quick glance it displays your personality, how you aim to be perceived and what you stand for. For example, whether you’re dependable or not. Over time it will represent your relationship and the trust you’ve built with your customers.
So, it’s worth putting in some thought from the start. And thought is exactly where it starts because the first step is your firm’s business strategy. Is the strategy to grow rapidly? To diversify into new products or services? To specialise in one particular area?
A brand strategy should work alongside business strategy to determine how your firm wants to position itself. To develop your brand strategy, you’ll need to look at how your competitors position themselves, who your customers will be, and how you need to present your firm to have it resonate in the right way with your chosen market. To do that, you’ll want to determine elements that will make your firm stand out from your competitors, such as your tone of voice, targeted messaging, and visual identity.
Many organisations take a decorative approach to their visual identity design, thinking about what they like rather than what resonates strategically. It’s not just about what you like, it’s about what works. More than a logo, the colour, design, typography, look and feel all work together to present an image of your firm that tells a story about who you are and why customers should engage you. Whether you’re friendly, strong, dependable, intelligent, conservative, forward thinking, or cutting edge technically. Or sadly, run-of-the-mill.
After the important work of brand strategy and visual identity concepts are complete, the often-neglected stage comes into play; brand implementation. This is where your previous carefully considered work can go off the rails. You’ll need experts to implement your new brand faithfully across digital and print, in your work documents and your social media, tweaking the previous work until it hits just the right spot.
When that’s complete, all you need to do is stick to it. Brand consistency is what builds trust and recognition in the market – and with your internal stakeholders, too. If you trust in your brand, your customers will, too.
Building the right brand is a process that requires specialised expertise. You can’t just wing it. If you engage the right people and skills to create or update your brand, it will work for you rather than against you.
Author: Janine Morice
Published: 20 September 2024
The visual expression of your brand says a lot about your business. If you do it well, it will say all the right things. In a quick glance it displays your personality, how you aim to be perceived and what you stand for. For example, whether you’re dependable or not. Over time it will represent your relationship and the trust you’ve built with your customers.
So, it’s worth putting in some thought from the start. And thought is exactly where it starts because the first step is your firm’s business strategy. Is the strategy to grow rapidly? To diversify into new products or services? To specialise in one particular area?
A brand strategy should work alongside business strategy to determine how your firm wants to position itself. To develop your brand strategy, you’ll need to look at how your competitors position themselves, who your customers will be, and how you need to present your firm to have it resonate in the right way with your chosen market. To do that, you’ll want to determine elements that will make your firm stand out from your competitors, such as your tone of voice, targeted messaging, and visual identity.
Many organisations take a decorative approach to their visual identity design, thinking about what they like rather than what resonates strategically. It’s not just about what you like, it’s about what works. More than a logo, the colour, design, typography, look and feel all work together to present an image of your firm that tells a story about who you are and why customers should engage you. Whether you’re friendly, strong, dependable, intelligent, conservative, forward thinking, or cutting edge technically. Or sadly, run-of-the-mill.
After the important work of brand strategy and visual identity concepts are complete, the often-neglected stage comes into play; brand implementation. This is where your previous carefully considered work can go off the rails. You’ll need experts to implement your new brand faithfully across digital and print, in your work documents and your social media, tweaking the previous work until it hits just the right spot.
When that’s complete, all you need to do is stick to it. Brand consistency is what builds trust and recognition in the market – and with your internal stakeholders, too. If you trust in your brand, your customers will, too.
Building the right brand is a process that requires specialised expertise. You can’t just wing it. If you engage the right people and skills to create or update your brand, it will work for you rather than against you.
