Your branding package is the overall perception of your company. Get it right and you’ll easily influence new and existing customers. Get it wrong and you’ll struggle to convince people to do business with you.
If you’re like most businesses, your goal is to increase profits and become more known and respected in your industry. You can accomplish this by directing some intentional effort into shaping your brand identity. It won’t happen overnight, but here’s where you can start.
1. Create Memorable Labels
If you sell physical goods, you need the kind of labels that are recognizable from across the room. You want labels that people find familiar and aesthetically pleasing because that’s a large part of what sells a product. Part of developing a memorable branding package is training people to associate images with your brand, and your product labels are an easy target.
First, hire a professional designer with marketing experience to create your labels. You need designs that look good and speak to your market. For instance, many brands use artwork that looks like someone drew a sketch, and others use thick, dark line art with bold, simple fonts.
There is no “correct” way to create a label because the effectiveness of a given style depends on your market. For example, organic and natural food products sell well using the Papyrus typeface, but that wouldn’t work well for standard cans of chili.
If you aren’t sure which type of design matches your market, do some research on your competitors to see what they’re doing. Look for the patterns in style rather than the details of their designs.
Once you have a beautiful label that appeals to your market, your customers will come to associate your company with those images and your brand will start to become memorable. When this happens, your customers will be more likely to buy your products out of familiarity.
2. Use Multi-Version Labels
Once you have a beautiful, memorable label, consider using the same general design for all of your product variations. You can build your brand with multi-version labels because it helps to establish visual consistency.
Here are several additional key benefits:
You’ll save money
Say you have 15 product variations. It’s cheaper to use multi-version labeling and print 15 variations of the same basic design than it is to pay someone to create 15 unique label designs. It’s also cheaper because you can print labels in smaller batches, which helps when you can’t predict demand.
You’ll save time
Managing production and inventory processes when you have multiple product SKUs is time-consuming and prone to error. With multi-version labeling, it’s easier.
Instead of having ten different product SKUs, you’ll have one SKU and each product variation will be distinguished by a unique version of the main label design. For example, say you sell granola bars in ten different flavors. You can use the same general template for all flavors and vary the colors and the main image in the design.
Multi-version labeling supports brand recognition
When your labels appear similar with slight variations, people will come to recognize your labels and associate them with your brand.
Although the labels are made with a set design and use the same SKU, there’s still room for variation. When you use multi-version labeling, you can incorporate white space into the design reserved for placing variable information like best-by dates and lot numbers.
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3. Match Your Website to Your Other Brand Imagery
An important, yet often overlooked aspect of marketing is creating a seamless experience for your customers between all channels and platforms where you exist. Wherever you have a presence online, you want customers to immediately recognize that space as yours. To do just that, you could make a letterhead and create comprehensive – yet easy to follow – branding guidelines This is easy to do with social media platforms, like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok and Instagram, but don’t forget about your website.
Your website is an extension of your business’ identity and serves as a resource for information about your company, including how to contact you or get directions to physical locations. If you sell products online, your website is your virtual storefront and needs to be aesthetically pleasing.
Whether your site shows up in the search engines or not, if you print your website URL on product labels or marketing materials, or if you link your site on social media, your website’s design should fully reflect your brand.
When your website projects an accurate brand image of your company, you’ll attract more of your target customers when they find your site. Of course, this will lead to more sales and conversions.
4. Avoid Building Your Brand Around Discounts
Unless your entire brand is about discounts, avoid building your brand around cheap prices and bargains. It’s not bad to offer deals, but if you establish your company as a cheap resource for a given product or service, you’ll be locked into those expectations forever. This means you can never raise your prices without backlash and you’ll be stuck selling cheaper goods to a market that just wants a good discount.
Consumers will always be oriented toward saving money, but not always at the expense of quality. If you want to build a high-end brand that produces high-quality products and services, you can’t go cheap.
5. Take a Stand for Something
Although taking a stand for a cause can be controversial, it’s worth noting that businesses that stand for specific causes tend to have fiercely loyal customers. For instance, Ben & Jerry’s was founded on activism. The company uses social issues as inspiration to create its ice cream flavors and raise money for various causes, some of which are controversial. However, you don’t need to dive into controversial issues to make a difference. In fact, if you’re not willing to face controversy and potential boycotts in the future, you should avoid standing for controversial issues.
There are plenty of neutral causes you can support with your brand that aren’t likely to trigger masses of people. For example, homelessness, planting more trees, and supporting no-kill animal shelters and rescues are some excellent choices that aren’t likely to make people mad. Granted, there will always be a small number of people who seem to find a reason to be upset about anything, but you can’t please everyone, nor should you try.
Aligning with some kind of cause humanizes your brand and shows your customers that you care about more than just your own profits. However, some people see this as a marketing tactic so it’s important to be genuine about the causes you wish to support. Make sure you do it in a way that is visibly authentic. For example, don’t just donate a percentage of your profits to a random cause. That approach is too hands-off to be taken seriously.
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6. Interact with Your Customers/Fans
Whether it’s through Facebook or any other social platform, interacting with your customers and/or fans is an excellent way to build a positive memorable brand image. You’ll have many people observing your interactions and they’ll form fast opinions about your company based on how you treat people online.
Interacting with customers and people who follow you on social media requires a deeply authentic approach to be successful. You can’t just “like” or “love” comments, drop a few words, and expect people to see your brand as amazing. Those kinds of interactions won’t serve you or your customers.
The right way to use interactions to build your brand image is to act with the intention of supporting your customers and followers at all times. Aim to answer questions thoroughly, resolve issues quickly, and do what it takes to make your customers happy. When responding to negative comments or direct complaints, ask what you can do to make things right and resolve the issue to the customer’s satisfaction.
If you don’t already have a team who can handle these interactions, consider hiring people just for the job. Just remember to train them to interact in accordance with your brand and only hire people with a strong customer-oriented attitude.
A Memorable Branding Package Begins with a Clear Vision
Your branding package is your company’s personality and if you want to stand out from your competitors, you need a positive and memorable brand. This requires more than just creating a logo and clever tagline. A genuine brand takes time to develop because a large part comes from interacting with your customers and earning a reputation in your industry.
A brand identity is derived from several elements, including what you say as a company, the values you embody, how you communicate, and what people feel when interacting with your organization.
Some organizations build their brand by aligning with social issues, and others just have amazing in-demand products. There’s more than one correct way to build a brand, but what works for you will depend on your market.
However, regardless of your industry, the best way to shape your company’s brand identity is to start with a clear vision for how you wish to be seen in the world. From there, create a strategy that will lead you in that direction. Then, stay the course and act on feedback to ensure you stay aligned with your brand.
Growth Hackers offers world-class branding services helping businesses from all over the world grow. There is no fluff with Growth Hackers. We help entrepreneurs and business owners create a stunning brand with our foolproof branding packages, increase their productivity, generate qualified leads, optimize their conversion rate, gather and analyze data analytics, acquire and retain users and increase sales. We go further than brand awareness and exposure. We make sure that the strategies we implement move the needle so your business grow, strive and succeed. If you too want your business to reach new heights, contact Growth Hackers today so we can discuss about your brand and create a custom growth plan for you. You’re just one click away to skyrocket your business.
