7 Tips for Creating an Engaging Brand Identity

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A truly powerful brand identity should attract, engage and compel your ideal clients to want to do business with you.

No matter the size, every company should establish what their brand equals.

A truly powerful brand identity should attract, engage and compel your ideal clients (and prospects) to do business with you. It should differentiate you from your competitors and make you truly appealing.

Discovering and implementing your company’s brand identity isn’t as complicated as it may appear. Here are seven simple tips for creating your brand and how you can implement each step in your business.

1. Think about what you want to be known for

What makes your business unique? What are you best at? What do your clients value about what you do and how what is it about your offering that’s so compelling? What’s important to you about the way you run your business? What values are at the heart of your brand? Very simply, take some time out to think about what you want to be known for.

2. Think about your business values

Once you know what you want to be known for, think about your business values. What’s important to you about the way your business runs? Why do they choose you over the competition?

Your branding should evoke the right feelings at every point of communication you make. Know what your business values are. Write them down to remind yourself. Make sure your brand values shine through in your branding.

3. Bring out your personality

Chances are your favourite brands have quirks and a swagger that you like, which keeps you coming back. What’s your business personality? Think about what suits your business and make sure this comes across in how you speak, write and behave. Most importantly, know what impression you want to create about your business and make a list of those words.

4. Use colour to create an emotional connection

The emotion a person feels when interacting with a design results in a corresponding feeling. This feeling can determine how a person views and interacts with your company.

In a study called Impact of Colour in Marketing, researchers found that up to 90% of snap judgments made about products can be based on colour alone.

Additional studies have revealed that our brains prefer recognizable brands, which makes colour an incredibly important factor when creating a brand identity.

Most consumers buy with their hearts and that’s why creating an emotional connection with your clients is so important. Colour is one of the most effective tools you have in your brand identity.

Once you know what you want to communicate about your brand, it becomes much easier to use colour to communicate powerfully.

Each colour has positive and negative attributes, and as long as you combine colours from the same season you’ll communicate the positive attributes.

For example, blues communicate logic, efficiency, professionalism and clarity. Browns are grounded, authentic, substantial and earthy; but combine them with the wrong tones and you’ll make your brand feel boring, unreliable and heavy.

Have your list of brand values on hand and let’s start to think about which colours will work best for your brand.

5. Use beautiful fonts to add flair and personality

Just as colour can influence how clients or customers respond to your brand, so can typography. Fonts add personality and individuality to your brand and are an essential way of getting your clients to engage with your business.

With recent developments in web fonts and technologies, there really is no good reason why your website and printed marketing materials need to use boring fonts.

There are thousands of fonts out there that when used with flair and creativity will differentiate your business from the crowd. Take stock of your fonts ─ do they inspire you and give you confidence that you’re communicating powerfully?

6. Texture and pattern can add dimension

Texture and pattern can be used to add another dimension to your online and offline marketing tools. It’s another way of getting your brand noticed without relying on your logo, and it’s another aspect of your identity that clients can engage with. Create something that truly showcases your passion and it will resonate with your clients.

7. Communicate with flair

The sum of your logo, fonts and colours should communicate an inspirational, engaging and compelling brand. And having gone through all the effort of creating a remarkable brand identity, don’t cop out and shove your logo on a standard website template.

Think creatively about how to blow your clients away with your marketing materials. Invest in printed brochures, welcome packages and pieces that will move your clients further up the relationship ladder.

The Take Away

Work with a creative agency who understands how to create the right impression for your clients and who recognize the value in creating a brand identity for your business that blows your competitors out of the water.

This isn’t about creating something smart, this is about creating an online and offline visual communication that engages your visitors, takes them on an experience and gets them to do what you want them to do.

 

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