Branding is not just a buzzword in modern marketing. It's the key to defining your business’s reputation and making it stand out in a sea of competitors.
Brand design is at the heart of branding, creating a unique visual identity that sets you apart.
You’re selling not only your products or services but also your ideology, feelings, and experiences. Companies with incredible brands like Netflix know what they want their customers to experience.
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So, center your marketing campaigns around branding. Why? Branding helps you develop a unique visual identity, which is where brand design comes in.
What is a brand design, and why is it important in modern marketing? Read on to learn more.
What is brand design?
77% of marketers believe that a strong brand is essential for growth. But how do you go about strong brand building? The best way you can do this is through brand design.
Brand design is designing your brand to symbolize your brand values and personality.
Brand design is more than just colors and logos. It's a comprehensive strategy encompassing every aspect of your business, from its visual elements to the values guiding its actions.
It's about creating a cohesive, compelling narrative that resonates with your audience.
It focuses on everything about your company, from how it looks and sounds to the values that reinforce its actions.
In addition, branding expresses a business's unique identity and encompasses its unique narrative, values, and mission.
At its core, brand design is about more than just aesthetics. It's about building trust and loyalty with your customers.
A well-designed brand can create a lasting impression and deliver on its promises, fostering a sense of reliability and consistency that customers value.
It goes beyond the aesthetics and focuses on the following:
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- Building trust
- Encouraging loyalty
- Developing perceived value
- Stimulating bonds with consumers
8 Key Concepts of Brand Design
An effective brand design encompasses the combination of several concepts.
These concepts ensure that businesses can be unique in the minds of their customers. Below are examples of the critical concepts that you should include in your brand design:
1. Visual identity
A brand's visual identity is often its most recognizable element. It includes things like typeface, color palette, and logo.
Your brand's visual identity can speak volumes about your business. It is your silent ambassador and can be synonymous with your brand design.
2. Brand mission, vision, and values
A brand design should focus more on the brand's values, mission, and vision. Why? When you focus on the values/mission/vision, your brand identity will remain strong even when things like products or logos evolve.
Furthermore, 64% of brand-customer relationships are because of shared values.
Thus, you must share your brand's values, mission, and vision when branding. This will help you attract potential customers with the same preferences, tastes, and values as your business.
3. Brand name
The name you choose for your brand should be pronounceable, memorable, and unique. It should be something that customers can easily identify with.
So, consider hiring a naming specialist or branding designer to help you design a perfect name for your business.
4. Brand story
The brand story is incredibly vital in branding. Why? Customers, especially those who prefer social commerce, look for authenticity in their brands.
Thus, telling your brand story—whether it's about your founder or the brand's origin—humanizes your brand.
Including a brand story in your brand design will help to put a face to your business. Also, it will help to increase brand affinity and trust.
5. Logos
You should design your logos to reflect your brand's personality and values. Why? Because these logos act as visual representations of your brand.
So, it would help if you aimed for something that is:
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- Scalable across different mediums
- Easily recognizable
- Simple
6. Colors
A brand's colors serve as its reflective representation. Therefore, it would be best to choose a palette that conveys your brand's messaging and values.
Also, note that the colors you choose should consider cultural associations and have a psychological impact.
7. Tone and voice
A brand's voice and tone communicate. Therefore, aiming for a consistent tone across your social media platforms, websites, learning management systems, and emails would be best.
Is your tone educational and confident? Soothing and serious? Or Funny and playful? Make sure you are as consistent as possible in your tone and voice.
Consistency creates a recognizable and cohesive presence that consumers can easily identify.
8. Brand elements integration
Integrating all your branding elements is vital. Why? Because it creates a seamless blending of your brand colors, logos, tone and voice, story, and values.
Also, it helps to set you apart from other brands in the market.
Why is brand design so important?
As stated above, brand design goes beyond aesthetics. It encompasses everything that shows the unique value of your business. But why is brand design important?
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Instills trust in your business
59% of customers prefer to buy from brands that they are familiar with. Why? Because these businesses often use brand designs that attain the trust of customers.
Your brand design can help boost a customer's confidence in your brand, gaining their trust.
Today's modern customers expect businesses to have branded content from everything and everywhere. So, those companies that ignore the concept of branding run the risk of being deemed as:
- Less established
- Less credible
- Less professional
Thus, your goal should be strong brand designs that communicate your care.
In turn, your customers will recognize the work and value you put in and will invest their trust and time in you. Tailor your design to help your customers solve problems or fulfill their needs.
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Builds strong customer recognition
Brand design is not just about aesthetics; it's about building recognition. With a strong brand design, you can build stronger customer recognition.
This recognition can make your brand an automatic choice for your customers, empowering you to provide positive customer service.
It is essential because strong customer recognition can help you be an automatic choice for your customers, and you can provide the best customer service with the help of a virtual assistant to be on a positive front.
When you have a recognizable personal brand, customers may choose your services/products rather than choose less recognizable brands.
Thus, a robust brand design will ensure customers can easily associate with your brand. For instance, the first thing most consumers think of when they hear the word soda is Coca-Cola.
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Influences purchasing decisions
55% of customers who love your brand design will make future purchases. Thus, a brand design can serve as a deciding factor for customers when buying.
In fact, a study by Razorfish shows that 82% of customers buy from brands with an incredible mission or purpose.
Thus, when crafting a brand design, ensure your brand story, images, logos, and messaging are captivating enough to influence your customers' buying decisions.
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Grabs attention
A brand design will help distinguish your business from millions of others in the same category. Businesses with exceptional visual identities stand out more than those without.
So, a brand that fails to nurture a great design can quickly fade into the background.
On the other hand, brands with marvelous designs are more likely to make a real impact and grab attention.
Aspects such as logos, accessible fonts, and appealing colors can make your brand stand out positively. Note that a brand's attention-grabbing is the key driver to its growth.
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Facilitates a competitive advantage
A recognizable and consistent brand design throughout your digital marketing effort will help you differentiate from your competitors. This consistency can be beneficial since it will help you to:
- Increase your market share
- Have pricing power
- Penetrate easily into new markets
- Have a sense of credibility
- Gain a competitive advantage
A competitive advantage is incredibly vital for business growth. Also, it can help you to increase your business sales.
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Creates a business identity
A brand goes beyond the services/products it provides. So, a good brand design will give your company its identity.
A brand design gives customers something to connect with and relate to beyond the service/product you are providing.
This business identity can help to optimize your marketing efforts and ensure that they become a success.
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Builds emotional connections
Brand identity design can help brands connect their values to like-minded individuals. These shared values allow them to forge a deep emotional connection.
With strong branding, you can communicate the human side of your brand and appeal to their emotional needs/desires/wants.
In turn, your customers will be able to feel connected to your brand. These emotional bonds can eventually nurture brand loyalty, facilitating brand longevity and enhancing customer experience.
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Boosts marketing and advertising
A brand's design can support your advertising and marketing efforts. It can help your promotion pack the extra punch with impact and recognition, ensuring greater marketing success.
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Facilitates customer retention
A brand design can aid in retaining existing customers. How? It acts as a recognizable point among your target audience.
This recognizable point ensures you maintain your existing customers since they will use your brand design to recognize you.
Final Thoughts
A great brand design is about more than just looking good. It involves consistently valuing your customers and ensuring you create a lasting impression.
Thus, when you have a great brand design, you take the first step in ensuring the success of your marketing efforts.
Author Bio:
Hey, it's Mick and I'm the Growth Marketing Manager at POWR. My marketing career spans two decades, primarily in growth marketing in the healthcare space, with stints in broadcast television, advertising and copy editing. I've also owned 3 small businesses in the past, and sold them all for a profit.
I went to the College of Journalism at the University of Louisiana - Monroe and a storyteller at my core. My wife Elizabeth, son Gavin, and pup Jolene currently call Lafayette, Louisiana home.
Follow me on LinkedIn.
