Before you start: tips on how to give your brand focus & impact
“Designers are not simply people who make things look pretty, but they are problem solvers, piecing together bits of the puzzle to make a whole picture that reflects who you are.”
How to plan your Brand for Focus, impact & engagement with your customers
We are a brand studio based in Torquay, South Devon, offering branding, website design & brand video to creative businesses across the UK - this is part of our series of branding tips (alongside brand video and website design), and you can find out more about our branding services for businesses.
In the photo above, Chantelle grabbed this photo of me in an unusual way. Not just because the photo happens to have been taken in my downstairs loo against the marvellous wallpaper in there, but because the lens wasn’t attached to the camera when she took it. It’s taken by ’free-lensing‘ which is method of shooting with your lens detached from the camera - but still held very closely; it allows you to create a tilt-shift effect in your photos.
We are a brand studio based in Torquay, South Devon, offering branding, website design & brand video to creative businesses across the UK - this is part of our series of branding tips (alongside brand video and website design), and you can find out more about our branding services for businesses.
This kind of photography takes skill, to understand how to bring certain elements in to focus. Branding is a fine line- in your industry you want to both blend in but stand out.
A good brand designer will understand the nuances with that and help you create a brand with personality that brings the vision you have for your business to life.
When we start new client relationships we have several in-depth consultations where we review everything; all platforms, all media, printed literature and the verbal language being used. We reflect back what we see and give honest open feedback.
It’s important that you feel you can really see your business but also feel like you could take it anywhere, overcome obstacles and leaves you feeling inspired for your business future.
Where is your brand going?
One of the most important things is understanding where you are going, what your plans are, what you hope to achieve and who you want to work with.
When you can get clear on that you can refocus the branding and design with this in mind.
It’s vital that the brand voice and visual identity resonate with those customers you want to partner with. It’s really important that you take the time to understand where they shop, where they live, what they read, where they spend their free time.
By doing this your brand will more likely resonate with them and feel at home in the life they are living. It has to appeal to the right people.
We will look more at this with a future post on ‘Profiling your Customer’.
Considering how you want you to grow your brand is also vital - scalability is key.
Bringing focus
When you can become clear on what makes you unique, you can begin to see how extraordinary you are. What sets you apart from others and why people would choose your business?
Seeing your brand as an extraordinary one will bring you sustainable and meaningful growth. If you are clear on your distinctiveness, it will be so easy to talk about you and what you do.
It’s every businesses goal to have something that is worth talking about, and being recommended to others means you will attract the right clients.
In any industry there are often businesses who know how to create a buzz and make the right kind of impact - they are memorable in what they do.
Often they are the kinds of business that inspire you in what you do too; you can't wait to see what they do next, they seem to have a never ending supply of good ideas and seem to go from strength to strength.
When you are focused in what you want to do, things click into place, suddenly you know who you are writing website copy for, what kinds of posts to share on social media, the best types of imagery that will capture your essence.
It means you can also price your work in a way that reflects the value that you bring and will draw people back to you again and again.
Questions to ask yourself
Describe your company from a distance
What’s the big picture? What do people see when they look at you, what are you saying in what you do? What are your services or products? What are your mission goals, values, statements? What do you stand for?
Where are you going? what are your plans?
When you are clear on where you are headed, you can also make sure your brand resonates with that. Designers are not simply people who make things look pretty, but they are problem solvers, piecing together bits of the puzzle to make a whole picture that reflects who you are.
What problem are you solving?
Being really clear on the core reason you exist is vital. If you don’t know no-one else will either. Typically we all do things because we need to make money, but that is not a legitimate reason to express your existence as a brand. If that’s the only thing you are in it for, people will see through it and you will fail.
Why, How, What?
The most important question here is “Why?” It’s usually easier to say how you will do it, as well as what you are doing, but the why is often the one that is the most difficult to articulate. ‘Why’ should they do this? ‘Why’ are they making that decision? ‘Why’ would they choose you? ‘Why’ does that answer the question? Asking why encourages you to think beyond your personal preferences and to start thinking about your customers. Asking these questions puts words to thoughts and feelings you may have trouble describing.
What are your customers saying about you? Take the good with the bad
If it’s a new business you can ask what do you hope customers will say?
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon famously said: “Your brand is what other people say about you when you're not in the room.”
It can be really helpful to ask your customers for feedback using a short questionnaire. You can also do some research among your staff and core teams. Customer reviews are also an excellent source of what people are saying about you.
Being realistic about your brand image is a key place to build from. Asking “What do you wish they said?” is also a way you can start to look at any potential problems and find solutions.
Brand imagery from a recent brand project:
The Apple Yard x Gulliver’s Play Café
Steps to creating brand magic
We’re putting together a series of blog posts that flesh out some of the steps we take our clients on which will hopefully help you too so that you can create a brand with soul and make the right kind of impact.
Future posts in this series
Identifying your strengths and uniqueness
Profile your customers
Craft your vision
Find your character
Focus your brand tone and voice, verbal branding
Design your brand logo and sub-marks, colour and font pairings
Curate your visual branding through photography, illustrations and patterns
Create your brand touch points - print and online
Cultivate your social media / content creation / storytelling
Engineer your user experience / physical spaces
Engage your audience, relationships and brand ambassadors
We hope this series will help you understand more about what goes into good branding and also help inform you why a brand is so much more than a logo.
These tips should help get you get to grips with how you start the branding process, looking at those crucial internal areas, and we’d love to hear any of your thoughts or reflections. Do head over to our post on Instagram to join the conversation and share your opinion.
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We share website and branding tips; insights into brands we create; behind the scenes in our studio; as well as interesting events. Plus there are no silly marketing antics!
