Branding

Do you ever look at your competitors and wonder why they get more attention and publicity than your business? There may be many reasons but one above all is most likely and that is they have better branding than you do.

Branding allows businesses, organisations and even individuals to portray a certain image or perception in the minds of customers and fans which they hope will be a positive one. From a business perspective, you want that positive image to immediately come to the forefront of a customer’s thoughts whenever they are thinking about the product or service you sell.

When you think of fast food restaurants, McDonald’s or KFC might come to mind immediately. With cars, it might be Ford or Volkswagen. For sports gear, it might be Nike or Under Armour. In these examples people who have never even bought products from any of these companies, know about them because of their very effective branding.

Across all product types and within every niche there are companies that succeed as much as a result of their successful branding than they do because of the quality and prices of their products. This is not to say branding will overcome shoddy or poorly made products, but it can boost products that are on a par with their competitors

One of the core elements of branding is the logo design. A logo is that instantly recognisable image that reminds you of the company and its products even without hearing or seeing its name. When you have a logo that is as powerful enough to do that then you are definitely on the right road.

Getting a logo designed professionally need not cost a fortune and there are many online sites which have excellent designers who will do this work for a lot less than you might expect. Always be clear at the outset what you want the logo to look like, the colour to be used, and ensure that you will be sent the source files for the design.

The source files are important as you will need them to enable your logo to be printed on to promotional materials that you use to spread your brand image.

In conjunction with the logo is the tag line that often accompanies it. Some of the most successful taglines in history are still used today by their companies because of the messages they deliver to customers. Think of Coca Cola and their tagline for ‘Coke’ which is ‘The real thing’. This is basically telling people that there may be other colas out there but they are imposters compared to Coke. This tagline is a very clever and powerful message that has undoubtedly played a large role in Coco Cola’s success.

When thinking about your own tagline, it may be useful to brainstorm as many words as possible relating to your industry or products. Another tip is to look at taglines used in other industries and by other companies. Don’t copy any of them word for word but use them to spark ideas for your own memorable tagline.