Nowadays, we are not used to seeing marketers as creative people or even artists, and the truth is we are. Marketing is all about creativity and the feelings your audience gets from your work.
If it were not for TV series like Madmen (a classic), most people wouldn’t be aware of the craftsmanship behind an ad or package. Designers, writers, illustrators, videographers, and musicians participate in a marketing strategy.
But also think of yourself when you first thought of your business and imagined it all. That’s a creative process, and it is unique. The way you conceived your office, the colors, and the font in your logo, the growth.
The fact that you have a specific audience and target persona comes directly from the creative process. That’s what makes your product essential and valuable for your clients, and it constitutes the reason to stay with you.
Let’s not forget creativity requires structure and a certain level of knowledge to become a reality. Resources come not only from economical expenses but from technique and experience too. If an individual has the best ideas because they can understand a gap in the market, but they lack the hows, the idea will probably flop.
Your brand needs that structure that insight from other experts. A business is like a community; succeeding takes a village.
What Do I Need to Create a Brand?
You are the first thing your business is going to need. Your ideas are the foundation of any marketing strategy or marketing campaign. Above that cement you have created, you will have your team and your ways.
Once the idea and the personnel are conceived, you can move to the image and the vision part. This may sound superficial, but it captures the essence of the brand and can turn your business into something recognizable.
Details like your logo can tell a lot about your product. The tone your image has is deeply related to your field. For instance, your brand should focus on confidence and trust if you are in the healthcare business.
The branding of your business represents the values and benefits of your service. Let’s say you are a dentist; well, your product is your expertise on how to help patients to have better oral health. And that is the same product every dentist sells.
You, on the other hand, can offer rapidness, trust, and empathy; things that are not tangible but your dental patients will consider as priceless.
What Is Branding in Marketing?
Let’s dig deeper since this is an important matter. You may be confused about this since it looks like everybody is giving their definition to the word branding and brand. This happens because it is a wide subject.
To put it in simple words, branding is the process of defining a brand in the eyes of its customers. Branding is a marketing strategy that focuses on filling a product and its image with the associated feelings and values the product has.
To achieve this goal is recommendable to hear the counsel of marketing experts who can trace a map around your brand to help you define it. A team of marketers can create a guideline for your brand that will be super useful whenever you want to make changes or refreshments.
Notice that brands take their brand books very seriously, and, in some cases, their branding has a trademark, so no other business can benefit from being related to the original one. Your brand is unique, and so has to be its branding.
The Importance of Branding
In case you are still doubting if branding is something that your business needs, keep reading to learn the importance of branding.
First of all, this is something every business needs, no matter the industry they’re in. Marketing is not only about having more followers and creating controversial campaigns. Not every business needs TV commercials starring celebrities like Pepsi. Please do not think of marketing as something superficial because it’s not.
Branding is what can turn your service into something cool, fun, sophisticated, exotic, etc. It’s specially designed for your target persona, so they will feel identified and understood. This allows you to create a lasting, more than a simple transaction bond.
Back to the healthcare industry because it represents the perfect example. Pediatric dentistry is a trade that requires a long-lasting relationship between dentist and patient, just as with a psychologist. Patients are a type of customer that require branding.
If we try to wrap up what we have said so far about branding, we could say that the brand is the identity of your business. It is a tool to make your services unique and recognizable so your clients know who to reach.
Why Digital Branding?
Following the tune of being unique and recognizable, you may ask yourself how to extend your brand, the intangible value of it, to your website. Is it possible? Yes, it is, and it’s key.
In other blogs, we have talked about the level of competition one has to face when using search engines like Google or Bing. There are millions and billions of web pages all over the internet. To find a good spot, the competition is wild.
So, the first thing you need is to have an identity and to make it so evident that none of your clients can get confused about which is your website and which is your neighbor’s/competitor’s.
Then you have to find ways to communicate and give that extra you put to your, let’s say, dental patients at your dental practice. This is part of the branding strategy, and it would be good for you to listen to proper counsel from experts in brand marketing.
The point is to stand out in a sea of other businesses like yours. Maybe you can achieve your goal by blogging or a newsletter, perhaps through UX and UI web design and a good content marketing strategy.
Branding Tips for Small Businesses
The whole branding concept may sound like it’s too much for a small business. But even familiar companies need some marketing work done. It’s kind of like accounting; every company needs it.
Always Deliver
The main thing every customer in the world wants is to have results, products, or solutions delivered when they make a purchase or ask for a service.
If you go to your vet’s office because your dog has fleas, all you expect is for them to give you an effective solution.
Solve your client’s problems, and they will love you forever.
Be Real
It is common to see brands that try to market themselves with big words and promises and end up being a failure to their customers. Only promise what you can deliver and never more. That won’t make you look good despite it sounds like an excellent plan.
If the feedback you receive from your clients is that you have to fix things and be better, then pay attention and work on developing ways to improve.
Do Not Copy Your Competitor’s Strategy
No matter how good your competitors seem to be doing, you have different businesses, and copying will result in your brand losing authenticity.
It is recommendable, however, to analyze their strategies and their performance in general. You can get inspiration from this.
How to Design a Logo?
Although we said branding and marketing are not superficial tools, people tend to think they are because they are related to the aesthetics of a business. Let’s get this off the table: just because a tool, strategy, or discipline can have a focus on appearance does not mean it is superficial or shallow.
That being said, your logo is your brand’s literal face and ID. You should design your logo with help from a graphic designer and orient your vision to the current trends and values you pursue.
Your logo’s design doesn’t need to be complicated or fussy. Something that will stand out, even if very simple. A logo must have personality.
You can work on a design that illustrates the nature of your field, or you can design a logo to give your company’s name an identity.
For example, Facebook’s logo is not a computer or anything like that. It’s just a name. But we can all recognize their colors, fonts, and identity thanks to that design.
How to Choose Color Combinations?
The color palette is an important aspect of branding that people who are not following guidance from expert marketers tend to miss. Your colors are very important, no matter how trivial they can seem.
If you saw Facebook’s logo in red or Coca-Cola’s in blue, it would feel extremely weird, right? That’s because the color combinations of your company are part of its identity.
Where to Get Images From?
In the digital world, images and visual or graphic elements, in general, are essential. Our eyes are not used to long hours of reading from a pc. Images inside a block of text help illustrate the written content and rest the eyes.
But not every image or graphic element out there on the internet is free for you to use. Specialized sites with stock images are available to solve this problem.
Pexels and Pixabay
These two are old and famous. They have free and paid images. In some cases, they even have credited the owners or creators so you can tag them-
Canva
It is a powerful tool that serves many purposes, but one of them is finding good stock images, videos, gifs, and illustrations.
Search Business Group for a Healthy Brand
Even though marketing is essential, not everyone has the time or the know-how to design a marketing campaign for their business. That’s why marketing agencies with branding experts exist; that’s why Search Business Group exists.
Set an appointment with our team and find out how we can handle all of this for you!
