FIVE TOP BRANDING TIPS

1. Is your brand identity up to date?

You know what your brand says about you don’t you, because you were there right from the start and made sure everything was ‘on message’.

But is it still on message – have other people in your company done their own thing a bit and muddied the waters a bit by applying what they think is the brand values when in actual fact, it isn’t?

Take the time to take a fresh look at what the current site or collateral is saying.

Be ruthless if it’s not giving the correct impression!

2. Be consistent.

Carrying on from the first point, do you have a set of brand guidelines that make it plain how your company comes across.

The obvious things are logos and variations, font usage and colour ways, but you can also have things such as a ‘tone of voice’ section and a style guide, so that everyone knows what to check for before a press release or website update is published.

3. Positioning.

How do your customers think of you?

Are you price led or quality driven?

You can’t be both!

Whatever you are, you need to be consistent as mixed messages simply confuse.

4. Think for your customers, not for yourself.

Yes it’s your baby, you spend far more waking hours than you really should thinking about your business. But have you tried thinking about it from your customer’s point of view?

Can you detach yourself sufficiently to see your brand as others see it, and also see how your designer or agency sees the company as an outsider?

OK, you may not like the colour they have chosen for the answer to a brief, but that shouldn’t stop you seeing where they are coming from and if they are understanding the target market correctly.

They might just be!

5. Have fun. It’s allowed!

So the Greggs sausage roll in the Christmas crib raised a bit of a storm, but nobody died and it certainly got noticed!

Social media is perfect for showing the human side to a company, so milk that for all it’s worth.

A picture of you and your staff bog snorkelling or growing Movember moustaches may not be right for the website, but it’s perfectly fine on Twitter or Facebook.

Know where and when to use humour and showing you like letting your hair down where appropriate.

 

If you like these tips and want to know a bit more about what we do, you know where to go next...