You’ve worked hard to develop your business and taken careful consideration of the mission and vision for your organization. But how is that mission reflected to your customers? You can’t exactly print out your mission statement and plaster it all over your business, but you can reflect the values, mission, and character of your organization through effective branding. Brand building is an essential part of growing your business, but it can be challenging to develop a visual brand and, more importantly, create a brand experience that resonates with your customers.
Soooooo, what exactly is your brand?
Branding is a somewhat abstract concept, and there are many different components that contribute to your brand, including your logo, colors, typefaces used on your website and printed marketing materials, tagline, and graphics/imagery. But all of these different components build something greater than the sum of their parts—they create a unique identity for your business, a story for your customers to connect to on a deeper level.
Before you ever start thinking about the visual elements that represent your brand, you need to dig deeper and create your brand story. What feelings do you want customers to get when they think of your business? What type of personality do you want your business to have?
Why does branding matter so much?
Essentially, your brand is what elevates a simple purchase to become a memorable experience. For example, Nike doesn’t just sell sneakers; they sell the experience of stepping into the same shoes world-class athletes wear when they play the game. They sell grit, greatness, and empowerment.
Without distinctive branding, your business is just another company. There’s nothing to set you apart from your competitors, so there’s no reason for customers to think twice about your business.
In short, branding is a primary motivator for purchase decisions. Just think about how many products you use daily that you wouldn’t think twice about what brand to purchase. If you’re a Diet Coke loyalist, grabbing a Diet Pepsi is simply out of the question.
Is branding the same as marketing?
Branding and marketing are terms that often—inaccurately—get used interchangeably. While marketing and branding go hand in hand, they serve different functions and are developed in different ways. You might think of branding as a house and marketing as all the furniture and décor inside. Branding is the basis upon which you build your marketing design. Marketing plays off your brand story and uses the graphics and imagery of your brand, but it’s more focused on selling an individual product or achieving a specific customer action. With branding, the goal is to build consumer trust in your brand identity and create emotional connections between customers and your brand.
Another key difference between branding and marketing is that not all marketing agencies are capable of brand building. At Anchor Wave, branding is a key part of the process when you consult us for your website design, social media marketing, and other digital marketing services. We have a team of skilled experts who can help you pinpoint what makes your business unique and express that through your visual branding throughout every element of your digital presence. Elevate your business with a higher level approach to marketing and brand development with us. Schedule a strategy call with our team to get started.
