First - what is “branding”?
Branding is about the experience of interacting with a business. It's about the range of thoughts and feelings you have when you think of a company. Branding is about how your company interacts with your audience. It's about the tone of voice of your posts on blog posts, on Facebook , Twitter , Snapchat . It's about how your delivery drivers act, how the packaging of your products looks, the colour of your walls, your charity work and your promotions. It's a combination of a lot of different things to form a brand image in the minds eye.
More than your logo
While a logo does a lot to a company’s image and identity, it’s important for a business owner to know exactly what purpose a logo serves, especially if it’s for your startup! A logo serves to identify your business from competitors and to help build brand awareness. It is a pictorial representation of the company and it’s important to know what qualities to look for when designing a logo! A company logo should be memorable, easily recognizable and should bring together all the elements of the company’s branding. It’s also vital that your logo and branding conveys and supports your core values and goals! Don’t stress over it though, it’s not all about (or only about) the logo.
A graphic designer should create a professional logo based on an interview with you - to get a feel for what you stand for, what your products/services mean to the people that benefit from them, to convey all the above in one simple picture. It is a skill, and it’s well worth paying for.
Do you have a colour scheme?
It's no secret that different colours can affect people in different ways. A study by UK psychologists showed that people who saw the colour red were more prone to anger, while people who saw the colour blue were likely to be more relaxed and in a better mood! Of course, colours don't just evoke emotions in the people who use them, but in the people who see them. A study showed that people who were exposed to blue and green were more prone to fatigue and sluggishness, while people who were exposed to red and yellow were more likely to experience energy and happiness. Whatever your business is, you should be using the colours most appropriate to the emotion you want to evoke in your customers. Doing this will help keep them in a good mood while they're around your product! This is all part of your story, and your brand.
Your colours will generally be decided as part of a logo design, and will fit in with your logo. Expect your graphic desiger to provide you with a primary colour (the one most common eg. for your shirts, caps, mugs, website, brochures...) and a secondary colour (also used commonly but less often eg. for headings, header/footer background, sewed-on text...). You’ll also want a highlight colour eg. for the “BUY NOW” button.
“Copy” - the words you use
When it comes to storytelling, words can make a big difference. You can weave together intricate plots, create interesting characters, and develop a captivating story arch, to make readers more likely to remember. Rather than saying simply, "He was a handsome man," you could create imagery by writing, "He was a handsome man with blue eyes that twinkled like stars." Creating powerful imagery for your audience has the potential to be the difference between a mediocre story and a memorable one.
An Image Paints A Thousand Words
Speaking of images, photos play a vital role when you want to tell a story. It's about bringing your audience into the story with you. Be sure to take photos with good quality, the right lenses, the right positioning. You can take photos with any camera, but you want to make sure that the photos are in high resolution. Use good lighting, focus properly and avoid blurriness.
Upload your photo in high resolution, in colour. Don't be afraid to take risks with how you take your photos, sometimes they'll fail, but sometimes it will be your best success.
Important things to remember when taking photos is to be creative, but also to take them with purpose. You want to find the right balance between the two to get the best results.
If you don’t have and can’t get your own unique photos, and instead hop online to choose stock photos, be sure to pick images that truly represent what you’re trying to get across - it’s all about the ‘feel’. There are far too many generic stock photos being used that add little value and say nothing about you other than that you obviously used stock photos. There needs to be a genuine link to you and what you’re saying. After all, the photo is emphasising the story you’re telling. Your story. And therefore your brand.
Get Good At Storytelling
One of the more successful ways to stand out and succeed is through telling stories that relate to your readers (customers/clients). I highly recommend getting hold of “StoryBrand”, a book by Donald Miller. It’s a good read, engaging and easy to follow, and it will fill you with ideas and understanding. It’s available in many places, if like me you prefer to listen to a book while doing other things, you can also get it as an audio book through Audible. Check it out!
