Your Brand Story
 

A brand represents the personality of a business or individual.  Ask yourself what does this look like? 

Have you looked at how you use colours, your logo, your taglines and your wording across the multiple materials and channels that you use?

Have you researched and chosen the right channels to target 'Your' customers?

Being consistent helps to strengthen your brand and ultimately create the right 
‘look’ and ‘feel.’

Be inspired by your brand and keep your story alive!

Maybe it's time to review - refresh - re-brand?

I have put together a few tips below to get you started.

Your Brand

First and foremost, be consistent with everything you do from: your logo design, colours, fonts and sizes and images and text that you use.

Brands can determine many things about a company: Their worth, size, reliability, how established they are and some that have produced iconic brands that stick with you as a household name.

Be inspired by your brand, it’s your personality after all.

Include a tagline to support your brand and bring your brand alive.  It should be punchy and engaging and ultimately within a few seconds draw in your audience’s attention as to who you are.

Look at Nike as an example, for 23 years they have used the phrase “Just Do It” and it is just as relevant today as it was all those years’ ago.  It has become part of its history.

 

Your Vision, Mission and Values

To define these, think about all the people your company is accountable to, including your customers, owners, employees, stakeholders and suppliers.

These should be personal to your business or you as an individual, but ultimately say: Who you are, what you can offer them and how they can relate to you.

Nike’s vision - “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.”

Shopify's own mission is to - “make commerce better for everyone, so businesses can focus on what they do best: building and selling their products.” 

The 8 IKEA Key Values: Togetherness - togetherness is at the heart of the IKEA culture,caring for people and planet, we want to be a force for positive change, cost-consciousness, simplicity, renew and improve, different with a meaning, give and take responsibility.

Think about how your customers identify with you.

Colours

Colour your brand in the personality you want others to see. First impressions of a customer come from colour. 

It is more than just a visual aid, it can also create powerful and unforgettable reactions such as; emotions and feelings, experiences and memories.

Ask yourself, when is last time you bought from a company you did not trust? 

Colour plays a vital role in our buying behavior’s; it sways our thinking, changes our actions, Identifies brand recognition and how much something costs.

Many of the most recognisable brands in the world rely on colour as a key factor in instant recognition.

My brand colour - ‘magenta’  It is the colour of  universal harmony and emotional balance. It contains the passion, energy and action of red, restrained by the soothing properties of blue, which represents: depth, trust and wisdom. Combined, magenta is a powerful colour.

Other considerations are whether you’re using colours online, where you would use RGB or CMYK if for print. 

So Why Colour?

As a wise man once said “Mere color can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.”- Oscar Wilde

Logos & Images

With many different devices on offer these days, from your computer, tablet to your mobile devices it is important to ensure your images are suitable to use across the many options available.

At the time you create your logos and images, also consider the following:

  • The size of your images – create a variety of different sizes for the different channels you are intending to use them on.
  • Create a variation of both colour and black and white to suit the backgrounds you may be required to use both on and offline.
  • You may need your logo in different formats, for example for signage you will require an EPS version.  Other formats include PNG’s for online and both JPEGs and EPS for print.  The list is not exhaustive but a good starting point. Always ask if unsure.
  • Quality of your images – make sure that either you take or receive images that have a high resolution.  You will let your materials down if your images are poor.

Fonts & Sizes

When choosing a font be sure to look at them as part of your overall brand personality.

A good font and how it is used is vital in all aspects of design, for both print and online. It has a very important job to do reflecting the tone and personality of what we are trying to say. It needs to be carefully considered as to why it is being used and also the implication of using that font further down the line

A typeface choice could influence people’s  perception of your business or an individual.  For example, one that you would use for a law firm would be different to one used to portray a coffee shop.

The rule of thumb is to only use between one and three font families, anymore and your brand will look untidy.

Ensure the font size is consistent, for example your headings should be equal in size, as should sub headings and the body of your text.  Remember your font size might be different online verses a presentation, but in each medium be consistent.

Marketing Activities/Channels

Once you have your brand identity, it is vital that you produce a marketing activity schedule.  This will help you to identify your intended audience and the channels you need to use to target them effectively.

There are so many ways to market your business.  The key is to develop the most effective marketing for your business.

Think! Where will your customers be found?

Then share on the best channels for you.  The next few topics are some examples of the channels you can use and why.

Always remember to be consistent with your brand in everything you do.  Stop and think – does this represent my business, am I using my materials effectively and most importantly – will my customer identify with my materials and remember me.

E-Newsletters/E-mails

Direct messages never fail!

Email marketing is an approach that doesn’t go away and while people are always predicting its death, it still delivers. 

Over 80% of people prefer to receive emails from a brand they trust over other types of communication. 

Tailor your messages to be personal, experiment with  new trends. A few tips:

  • Remember your brand identity.
  • Tailor your messages to the intended audience.
  • Try to keep the length of the message to one page.
  • Be as Friendly and personable as you can be in your copy.
  • Provide further contact details.
  • Add a link to further information – your website or social media sites.
  • If you want a response, remember to follow up on your emails.
  • Don’t forget to follow data protection guidance when approaching individuals or businesses.

Brochures

The main purpose of a brochure is to extend the reader's knowledge on one specific topic in which the brochure centre’s around. Catch the target audience's eyes at first sight with its astonishingly beautiful visual design. Promote your products, agency, or service in an intuitive way.

Brochures are an excellent mechanism to reach business that do not rely on online channels, they are also a good resource to hand out at exhibitions, as an example, where you could target many people.

Brochures help capture the attention of potential customers. They can take them back to the office or home where they might read the content at a later date and other potential interested passers-by may look and read. 

They are a great visual reminder of your business.

Videos & Animations

They are still trending.  Use wherever possible, they are a great tool to grab the attention of your audience and can bring a personal touch to your business. 

You can create these in so many ways and today it’s as simple as using your mobile devices and PowerPoint.  A few tips:

  • Think size for your intended audience.
  • The length, dependent on where it will be shown.  A quick explainer video/animation to advertise a product maybe shorter than a corporate or training video/animation that needs to be more extensive.
  • What will the tone be, again think of your audience, where it will be shown and whether you want to be corporate or vibrant in your approach.

For the more adventurous there are lots more complex options available.

Social Media

Social media offers many benefits to business owners.

You can reach out to multiple contacts and expand your network to target new/potential customers.

It also enables businesses to get exposure and gain market insights.

Most importantly it’s easily accessible, on the move, anywhere, anytime and at minimal investment.

Other considerations for social media are:

  • Which ones shall I use? Linkedin, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, to name a few.
  • Remember your audience, for example, Linkedin is predominately B2B and Facebook B2C, this is not a science and there are always exceptions, but look at where you might find your audience and do not waste time on sites which provide little engagement.
  • Each one will require different size posts – create templates to make it quick and easy.
  • Ensure your brand is consistent.

Websites

The importance of a website for sales cannot be overstated. By having an online presence through your website, you are able to reach more consumers. The more consumers you reach online, the more opportunities you have to make a sale. With a website, you can sell your products and services around-the-clock.

A few tips:

  • What kind of website will you build – template, wordpress etc.
  • Consider your layout
  • Check all you images and logos are fit for purpose
  • Is your content tailored to an external audience.
  • Have you considered your intended audience
  • Is your site easy to navigate
  • Have you maximized your SEO
  • Ensure your brand is consistent.