The importance of strong brand identity for every business
Your brand identity is more than choosing a great logo. Developing a strong brand identity is one of the best strategies business owners can invest in for the growth of their business in any industry.
Put simply, brand identity is how you portray your business to customers and clients. It is your business’s personality, and the best brand identities will be instantly recognisable. This can be done through your name, your logo design, your brand colours and fonts, as well as your tone of voice.
The ways in which customers or clients may view a company's brand identity is through its website design, print materials (rate cards, brochures etc.), eDMs, business cards, merchandise and more. And having a strong brand image is one of the best ways your business can stand out from the crowd, regardless of your industry.
But what separates the Nike “swoosh”es from the generic brand logos in terms of recognisability? And how can this be applied to finance and specialist services that take a more professional approach to branding?
Let’s explore the importance of brand identity for your business, and how you can nail your branding, regardless of your industry.
What makes a strong brand identity
When we think of instantly recognisable brands, there are a few that come to mind, including Nike, Coca-Cola, AirBnB, McDonalds and Apple. But how exactly have these companies managed to affect not just the psyche of adults, but also be instantly recognisable to children too?
Let’s look at Apple as an example of the power of brand identity in influencing the emotions and purchasing power of customers.
Apple’s branding success
Founded by college dropouts, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, in Jobs’ parents home in 1976, the startup turned global tech company is now worth over $2 trillion. It’s iconic apple logo is visible across all products and immediately identified by most of the world that uses mobile phones or laptops.
Following a brief departure from Apple, when Jobs returned to find the company in strife, he decided to focus on transforming the core values of the company from ‘helping customers do their jobs with their technology’ to ‘Apple products make you feel good and can help you make the world a better place’.
A famous strategy Jobs drilled into the Apple team was “don’t market products, market dreams.” This resulted in the iconic “Think Different'' campaign, which focused on world-changing leaders that were daring and true to themselves to position Apple products in a similar light.
The impact was immeasurable. Apple’s stock price tripled within 12 months, despite having no significant new products. A year after the campaign launch, Apple would go on to launch their iconic and revolutionary multi-coloured iMacs, becoming one of the best-selling computers of all time.
This campaign helped to capture the idea that purchasing Apple products is less about processing units or the number of gigabytes, but a much more emotionally driven decision. It boiled down their brand identity and business model to not just what their products do, but how their products make them feel.
The benefits of having a strong brand identity
There are significant advantages to developing a strong brand identity for your business, including:
Showcase your values
Your brand identity is a key way in which you can display the personality of your business, including your core beliefs and values. As with the Apple example, they were able to communicate their values as game changers and innovators through an emotive advertisement without having any significantly new products available.
You can use your brand identity to showcase your personality to potential customers, which may help create an emotional connection with your target audience and draw in customers and clients that align with these values.
Increase brand awareness
Cultivating your brand identity can also push your brand awareness through the recognisability of factors like your logo and colours. Working with a dedicated marketing team to develop your branding through your website or materials listed above can help to make your business more memorable.
This is crucial when it comes time for new customers who are considering using products or services offered by your competitors. If they are familiar with your brand then they may be more inclined to align with you, as brand awareness plays a key role in customer decision-making.
This also applies to the job hiring process as well, as a business with great brand identity will find it easier to get employees. If potential employees know your brand and relate to its values, working for you will feel less like getting a paycheck and more like being part of a team.
Establish differentiation
Speaking of standing out from your competitors, a strong brand identity is a great way to create a point of difference for your business. This can be a worthwhile investment for new businesses in crowded markets, as price-point differentiation may only go so far when competing with companies with successful brand awareness.
Loyalty and connection
By presenting customers with a brand identity that they are attracted to, you may also help to build customer loyalty. Loyal customers may develop a positive association with your business through brand identity and therefore be more likely to make repeat purchases.
Consistency
One of the biggest advantages of brand identity is that it allows you to stay “on-brand” by creating consistent messaging. Brand identity allows businesses to communicate and position themselves through set style guides and visual elements that reflect its values. It also helps to ensure your brand is identifiable across all marketing channels, creating a greater customer experience for current and potential customers.
How to achieve consistent brand presence across your marketing channels
Once you know your brand identity, there are a few tried and true methods you can try to communicate this through your marketing channels.
Brand guide - Creating a design guide for your brand identity helps to keep all branding consistent across all your business pipelines and customer touch points. This generally includes the elements of your visual identity and visual representation, including colours, logos, typography or iconography. This can be particularly useful if you engage with freelance employees so that all customer-facing materials reflect your visual brand identity, even if they’re not coming from in-house.
Tone of voice guide - Part of a customer’s journey that can really push them to conversion is how you speak about your brand. This is where a tone of voice guide comes in, providing the groundwork for marketers to sell your brand identity. Your voice dictates your brands’ personality, based on whether you use playful, positive or professional language. Your tone adds flair or emotional inflection, such as an informative, clear, strong or dry-humoured tone, depending on your audience.
Looking back at Apple as an example, it uses simple, short and confident statements, often informally delivered to its audience. For the iPhone 13, it states that it is “your new superpower”. This helps to create a feeling of accessibility through the simplicity of the language as well as high quality with its self-assuredness.
Templates - There’s a reason you’ll never see a big brand post on social media without it having been approved by strategists ahead of time. It’s not just your logo that can reflect your brand identity, but your marketing material too, such as newsletters, eDMs and social media. Creating on-brand templates for the marketing materials and social posts your business creates can help to solidify your brand identity with your customers. Nowadays, creating branded templates to ensure consistency has never been easier with platforms like Canva at your disposal.
Is brand identity still relevant for financial or professional services?
If you’re wondering whether brand identity is still relevant for your business if you’re not looking to compete with the likes of Apple or Nike, the answer is a resounding yes.
Taking the time and money to invest in a strong brand identity can help any business in any industry to stand out from its competitors, increase its customer base and retain customer loyalty. The stronger your brand identity becomes, the more premium, or high quality, your products may appear.
For example, there’s a reason ‘brand-name’ products in grocery stores are more costly than the generic products. A good brand identity will attract customers who are willing to spend more money for your products or services specifically.
Brand identity is not just reserved for “flashier” industries. Even if your business avoids social media like the plague, having consistent brand design and tone across your website, email signatures and marketing materials will always help increase customer trust and brand awareness.
And don’t feel like you have to be Steve Jobs to cultivate a strong brand identity in 2022. This is where aligning yourself with a team of marketing experts can offer your greatest return on investment.
An experienced team like Excelerate Marketing can guide you through the process of developing your brand identity and communicating it throughout your customer-facing channels. We work side-by-side with businesses to ensure you implement an intuitive, bespoke brand strategy that reflects your personality and values. There are no cookie-cutter solutions here.
Your brand identity is one of the key foundations of your business. Let Excelerate Marketing develop, manage and provide options to build your brand so you can reach new successes in 2022.
To learn more about developing your brand identity with the support of our team of experts, please reach out to our Excelerate Marketing team for a free consultation today.