TheSoloAct
Junior Member
- May 12, 2019
- 159
- 154
Time and again, I've seen people focus on short term goals and completely disregard any long term aim whatsoever. When you create a new website or start a new project, the short term goals are very important for getting results but once you've set up your business model and are sure that you have something stable, then you will find that branding will help you a lot, especially for achieving long term aims. It's extremely important to grow and you cannot grow if you don't have branding.
Based on my design studio's experience in branding businesses both small and big, here are some things to keep in mind to get better growth.
What is branding? Branding is not your logo, website, business card, and everything else taken together. Branding is what your customer or potential customer imagines when your name comes up. In other words, building good branding is all about building an image. Currently, a brand's image can be "unreliable" or "spammy". What branding will do for you is change that image. How you do that? That's through designs and tools like your logo, tagline, marketing material, social media posts, banners, ads, website, flyers, standees, and even product catalogs or brochures, etc.
Why is branding important for making (more) money?
Plagiarizing the words of Elizabeth Smithson from Brandingmag,
Branding can change how people perceive your brand, it can drive new business and increase brand awareness. The most important reason branding is important to a business is because it is how a company gets recognition and becomes known to the consumers.
Branding means you have a particular image. When you control what that image is, there will be ample opportunities to scale and grow. For example, if a business has no branding then people can bounce off due to multiple reasons starting from a confusing positioning to not being what you want to offer.
Letting your name seep inside your customers mind is the whole game you need to ace. Once that's done, your customers actually become your brand advocates and spread the word around.
Good branding takes time.
Whether it's just an online ecommerce store (like we worked on www.ethik.in - which is digital only, and we did its marketing through social media, Google ads, made a nice website, newsletters, and some offline promotion material) or a full business that's growing at a steady rate (like we worked with Cell, a stationery brand with a huge turnover), good branding always takes time. It's more about the concept of your brand and doing ample planning for it rather than just making designs. That's where a brand strategy differs from the run-of-the-mill projects. Run-of-the-mill projects hire freelancers individually. You need a logo, you get someone on Fiverr; you need an animated explainer video, you get someone else; you need a website and SEO, you get someone from here. But they are all just after some bucks. They don't have a vision or a clarity to build effective branding. Effective branding can only be done when all design work is handled by the same team so that synergy is maintained (like same colors), style is preserved (like the design scheme or fonts), and so on. Promotions and marketing will be done on top of a good branding and it will have much more impact. So, always look for teams.
From business to brand.
To actually make more money, you need to think brand, not business. Any promising idea can become a brand, the person behind it needs to have the dedication. If you're going to be stuck to the business ideology then let me tell you that your growth will be limited. I've worked with agencies in that past that had no idea what a brand was. I check their website now and they're still exactly where they used to be. Even if you have a simple idea, there are innovative ways to present yourself or find an edge over the competitors. It's not at all hard. Some of those agencies have even closed shop. On the other hand, many of the brands we're working with currently are basically startups and still able to pick up so much work and sell so much that they have their loyal customer bases ready in 5-6 months. It all depends on how you approach the idea.
Know your positioning.
You need to know who's your customer to have someone design impeccable branding for you. A brand's positioning and audience differs even from its closest competitors in many cases and only if you refine your brand's individuality through design systems can your brand beat the competitor's.
Good branding is extremely unique.
What I've learned is that even if you talk about two businesses in the same niche, branding has to be different. The colors, typography, icons, and the overall design scheme that works for YouTube won't work for Vimeo if you just change the logo and names. Both have different positioning and audiences. I've prepared a presentation for pitching purposes, which you can go through to fully understand this concept (ignore the pitching part, focus on how brand identity has to be unique): http://bit.ly/3cm9DUd -- Really, it will help you get a better understanding for transforming your project or idea into a brand and beat the crap out of your competitors. Only after this clarity should you ideally invest in any kind of design work or identity design work. Even a logo should only be made once you have this clarity.
To wrap it all up, branding helps you in many ways in order to stand out. It also builds awareness for your brand, which helps you grow faster, way faster, than your competition. And even if you have a simple idea, there are ways to innovate and come up with exceptional branding.
Based on my design studio's experience in branding businesses both small and big, here are some things to keep in mind to get better growth.
What is branding? Branding is not your logo, website, business card, and everything else taken together. Branding is what your customer or potential customer imagines when your name comes up. In other words, building good branding is all about building an image. Currently, a brand's image can be "unreliable" or "spammy". What branding will do for you is change that image. How you do that? That's through designs and tools like your logo, tagline, marketing material, social media posts, banners, ads, website, flyers, standees, and even product catalogs or brochures, etc.
Why is branding important for making (more) money?
Plagiarizing the words of Elizabeth Smithson from Brandingmag,
Branding can change how people perceive your brand, it can drive new business and increase brand awareness. The most important reason branding is important to a business is because it is how a company gets recognition and becomes known to the consumers.
Branding means you have a particular image. When you control what that image is, there will be ample opportunities to scale and grow. For example, if a business has no branding then people can bounce off due to multiple reasons starting from a confusing positioning to not being what you want to offer.
Letting your name seep inside your customers mind is the whole game you need to ace. Once that's done, your customers actually become your brand advocates and spread the word around.
Good branding takes time.
Whether it's just an online ecommerce store (like we worked on www.ethik.in - which is digital only, and we did its marketing through social media, Google ads, made a nice website, newsletters, and some offline promotion material) or a full business that's growing at a steady rate (like we worked with Cell, a stationery brand with a huge turnover), good branding always takes time. It's more about the concept of your brand and doing ample planning for it rather than just making designs. That's where a brand strategy differs from the run-of-the-mill projects. Run-of-the-mill projects hire freelancers individually. You need a logo, you get someone on Fiverr; you need an animated explainer video, you get someone else; you need a website and SEO, you get someone from here. But they are all just after some bucks. They don't have a vision or a clarity to build effective branding. Effective branding can only be done when all design work is handled by the same team so that synergy is maintained (like same colors), style is preserved (like the design scheme or fonts), and so on. Promotions and marketing will be done on top of a good branding and it will have much more impact. So, always look for teams.
From business to brand.
To actually make more money, you need to think brand, not business. Any promising idea can become a brand, the person behind it needs to have the dedication. If you're going to be stuck to the business ideology then let me tell you that your growth will be limited. I've worked with agencies in that past that had no idea what a brand was. I check their website now and they're still exactly where they used to be. Even if you have a simple idea, there are innovative ways to present yourself or find an edge over the competitors. It's not at all hard. Some of those agencies have even closed shop. On the other hand, many of the brands we're working with currently are basically startups and still able to pick up so much work and sell so much that they have their loyal customer bases ready in 5-6 months. It all depends on how you approach the idea.
Know your positioning.
You need to know who's your customer to have someone design impeccable branding for you. A brand's positioning and audience differs even from its closest competitors in many cases and only if you refine your brand's individuality through design systems can your brand beat the competitor's.
Good branding is extremely unique.
What I've learned is that even if you talk about two businesses in the same niche, branding has to be different. The colors, typography, icons, and the overall design scheme that works for YouTube won't work for Vimeo if you just change the logo and names. Both have different positioning and audiences. I've prepared a presentation for pitching purposes, which you can go through to fully understand this concept (ignore the pitching part, focus on how brand identity has to be unique): http://bit.ly/3cm9DUd -- Really, it will help you get a better understanding for transforming your project or idea into a brand and beat the crap out of your competitors. Only after this clarity should you ideally invest in any kind of design work or identity design work. Even a logo should only be made once you have this clarity.
To wrap it all up, branding helps you in many ways in order to stand out. It also builds awareness for your brand, which helps you grow faster, way faster, than your competition. And even if you have a simple idea, there are ways to innovate and come up with exceptional branding.