Reading this article from Fast Company got me thinking, especially this line:
“Great brands are built from the inside out; they are built around a strong belief system and are driven by values. What your customers experience every time they interact with your company is the brand, not the visual identity.”
What Makes a Brand?
Visual mediums drive a lot of current communication practices, and are prominent in many of the ways we interact with our audiences (e.g. Instagram and Tiktok), so it’s easy to start equating what your brand looks like with what your brand is.
Often the first and last line of interaction with customers and stakeholders is wrapped up in a process that is at least in part visual. And there is an aspect of aesthetics influencing how people experience your brand with each interaction. However, that experience cannot be only about looks.
When it comes to figuring out the positioning of your brand the main thing to take into account is: what are we promising to deliver, and how?
Brand is More About How The Experience Feels
The logo, color palette, font choices, verbiage–that might as well fall by the wayside if you’ve promised something to your audience that you can’t deliver on. Getting that strong internal process and structure down must be a priority.
Audiences are offered so many opportunities for gorgeous design these days that it simply is not enough to just have your brand look good.
Your design choices must be backed up by sound practices, informed choices, and consistent delivery. If they’re not, it’s just a matter of time before folks dig down and find there’s not much there.
Ultimately you want people to trust your brand to deliver a consistent, enjoyable experience. Not having that in place will inevitably lead to more than distrust, it can lead to customers and supporters actively avoiding and telling others to avoid interacting with your business or organization.
Crafting a Brand for Your Business and Audience
When it’s your job to create a consistent, consistently deliverable product, program, and/or service, many small business owners and nonprofit teams won’t have time to dig into all the granular details of marketing to and communicating with your audience.
Working with a specialist, skilled in communications and branding, from typography, color palette, to messaging and content strategy, can create a brand that not only reflects what you do, but really resonates with the people you’re trying to reach.
While on the surface developing a brand sounds simple, much of what we experience as consumers is chosen with careful attention to detail, psychology, color theory, accessibilty in design, and awareness of the preferences of key demographics, and the landscape of competitors.
For instance, a brand trying to appeal to an audience for all natural home cleaning products would choose elements that are associated with earthiness:
- a simple, possibly handwritten and easy to read font type;
- calm and upbeat music and nature sounds in audio and video content;
- repeated usage of terms that evoke a sense of being close to the earth like: natural, organic, clean, down to earth, folk, remedy, simple, homey, verdant, loam, from the earth, plant-based;
- imagery of nature, their products near plant elements used as ingredients, burlap/linen/canvas elements used as backdrops or as outfits worn by people in the images and for employee uniforms;
- a brand voice that is calm, compassionate, and welcoming.
More than just these visuals, the brand would need to also determine the specific language their customers are speaking and prefer to use. Then they can weave those terms and phrases into their post captions, brochures, packaging copy, hashtags used across social media, and website copy.
Not to mention figuring out which social media platforms the clients use (not all social media is used the same by everyone), how they like to be offered customer service contact, whether or not you can manage with just basic ADA design principles or will need to pay special attention to certain elements given your stakeholders’ ages/gender/ability, and how to differentiate yourself from the competition so your brand doesn’t get lost.
There’s a lot to consider, and investing in support at the start means you have a solid foundation to grow from.
Your Partner for Brand Development and Strategy
Let Else Communications help you develop your brand so you can focus on creating the type of full brand experience that will connect with customers and keep them coming back.
You’re the expert who knows your product and services inside and out, who has the passion for providing just what your customers need.
Partnering with Else Communications means you get to do what you’re an expert in, and have someone equally as passionate about providing you with the foundation for a great brand experience that will reflect your passion, and resonant with the very people you’re trying to reach.
Reach out and start a conversation to see how we can help you thrive.
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