Brand identity can’t be built in a single day. It takes a lot of time, money and effort to turn your small business into a recognized brand. But a strong corporate identity is a must if you want to make your business successful.
A brand identity is the reason customers choose you over other companies. It makes your business appear professional and experienced. There are several factors that determine your brand image. Let’s quickly learn about these basics of brand identity.
What Is A Brand?
The word ‘brand’ is derived from the Old Norse brandr, which means ‘to burn’. It refers to the practice of burning a symbol or brand into the products by their producers. Brands originated in the field of marketing in the 19th Century, with the introduction of packaged goods. While marketing these goods, companies required a certain symbol or logo to mark their products. This process evolved in the creation of the brand.
Today, the word ‘brand’ means much more than this. The business brand is your promise to the clients to deliver the best. Strong brands evoke emotional responses from the clients. It reveals the truth about your company. Your brand highlights the unique qualities of your business and therefore, attracts the clients. It delivers specific information about your organization, its products and services. The brand is the first building block of your corporate identity and determines the position and strength of your entire marketing strategy.
Various Components of Brand Identity
The process of creating a brand image for your business is an elaborate one and involves a lot of planning. There are various components that make up your brand identity. These are as follows:
- Brand names of your business and its various products
- A logo for the company or product/service
- Visual vocabulary
- Stationery sets like business cards, letter head, envelopes, etc.
- Marketing materials like flyers, brochures, post cards, etc.
- Websites
Benefits of Brand Identity
Your brand identity conveys the idea that you are an established organization. It forms the impression that you are stable and have been around for some time. It also shows your level of commitment towards your business and your customers. This helps them to trust you.
Brand identity gives recognition to your business and attracts more clients. If they are impressed by your logo or website design, they will automatically select you over other businesses that fail to impress.
Your brand identity gives you a professional and experienced look. Your clients will be convinced that you are an expert in your field. This will make your company appear credible, which is the key to a successful business.
Brand identity makes you stand out from the crowd. It gives you an edge over your competitors. It will also help your clients differentiate you from other businesses offering similar kinds of services.
A well-established brand with attractive graphics and website design will make your business look complete and well rounded. The company can in fact appear bigger than it actually is.
The most important aspect of having a brand identity is that it explains the values and objectives of your business to the people. It explains who you are and what is unique about your company. The brand identity makes your customers familiar with the name of your organization and also makes it memorable to them.
Finally, a brand identity can boost your businesses confidence levels. You can consider yourself to be successful once you have established a brand identity for your business.
Re-Working Your Brand Identity
If you want to re-brand your business, don’t make too many abrupt changes. If you totally transform your brand visuals people might doubt a change in ownership or company values. This will end up confusing your customers and won’t work in your favor. A totally new brand will also break the existing emotional ties with your customers.
Instead, you can re-work your existing brand to make it look better and contemporary. At times even small changes can make a huge difference. But if you already have a strong brand identity, creating a completely new one might affect the welfare of your business.
Examples of Successful Brands
Let’s take a look at few successful brands that understood the basics of brand identity so many years ago and have established brands that have stood the test of time.
About the Author
Vineet Kothari is the CEO at MyCorporateLogo.com, a logo design company that provides custom logo design and website design and offers affordable logo design prices. Vineet graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and has worked in the digital design industry since 2005.
16 comments