There is a good chance you have heard the term “brand identity” many times before, but you may still be at a loss as to what it means or how to execute it for your own company. Despite it being necessary for scaling a company, many firms still struggle with making it happen.
To start, your brand identity is the manner in which you wish to present your business to your customers. Your name, logo, color palette, business cards, product packaging, website, and tone of voice are all crucial elements of this identity. Keep in mind that this is separate from the brand image, which is the outcome of your branding efforts.
Think for a moment about the instantly recognizable brands, the ones such as Apple, Coca-Cola, and Nike. These companies have such strong brand identities that people around the world immediately recognize and understand their business. However, despite having such strong brand identities, these companies continue to invest significant amounts of money to ensure that they are always promoting and developing their brands.
Why do they do this? Because they are well aware of how branding directly affects their sales and market share.
If you are ready to take your branding – and business – to the next level, keep reading to learn more about the importance of brand identity.
1. Brand identity presents your personality.
Your brand identity is the visual depiction of your firm’s values and “personality.” Therefore, you want to ensure that your branding design and strategy set the tone of your vision and correctly communicates your company’s overall message. Good branding is able to evoke specific feelings in your target audience which, in turn, provokes interest in your product or service and supports your business goals.
One of the main reasons that brand identity is so crucial in today’s competitive markets is that it helps you to differentiate your business from that of your competitors and suitably position your company in the appropriate niche. By investing in professional identity design, you are helping yourself achieve the ultimate goal of standing out in your market.
2. Brand identity leads to trust and loyalty.
A cohesive brand identity visually exhibits reliability and trust. On the other end of the spectrum, thoughtless, inconsistent branding points to uncertainty and distrust.
This is not where you want your company to be. Therefore, you want to ensure that your brand identity is consistent across all of your platforms and stretches to all your interactions with customers.
For example, all your marketing materials should contain the same fundamental styles and design elements, producing a cohesive branding package.
By remaining consistent, consumers will begin to connect your brand identity with stability and dependability. This, in turn, will lead them to trust your company as they will have that connection between your products or services and your values. And the effect? You will start receiving more business and more of the kind of business you desire. In other words, a strong brand identity makes it easier for you to form and grow your business into the form that you want.
3. Brand identity leads to high brand equity and profitability.
Brand equity is the additional value a business derives from being a recognizable brand. No matter what industry you are operating in, you want to have high brand equity. You know you are increasing your brand equity when a consumer identifies your brand by its logo (or other branding material) and then soon after purchases a product or service from you. Alternatively, a consumer may refer you to someone else, and they then complete an order; in this case, your brand equity is growing.
Identifiable branding of elements ensures your firm is easy for a consumer to recall when they are ready to buy. The best branding maintains your offerings at the forefront of consumers’ minds.
Choosing to avoid branding means choosing to lose out on sales. Plus, it means removing any possibility of creating a deep emotional connection between you and your target market. The last thing you want is for consumers not to buy your goods because they think your company is “generic” as they don’t recognize it.
The goal is to have your perceived brand image and your business’s intentions for its brand identity closely align. When this occurs, your brand identity will become even more streamlined. And, the more optimized it is, the higher the monetary outcomes will be.
In other words, brand identities created by employing guidelines and then tested, measured, and developed lead to financial gains and company growth.
4. Brand identity is better with professionals.
Well-thought-out, well-organized branding yields a foundation for long-term business success. This is why forward-thinking companies opt to work with a branding agency in Dubai (or wherever they are located). Not only does a professional branding agency have the knowledge and know-how to align your values, mission statement, and branding, but they also have the tools and resources to execute on it.
By offering areas of expertise that you don’t have in-house or through a digital marketing firm, a branding agency is the most effective way to generate and maintain your brand identity.
Furthermore, a branding agency will help you create a branding strategy using their tested frameworks and methodologies. They know the latest branding trends, as well as the timeless ones, and will work with you to formulate a plan that makes sense for your unique business. The agency understands that branding isn’t a one-size-fits-all type of process.
Once the strategy has been agreed upon, the branding agency will ensure that you are moving with speed and purpose. This ensures that you don’t let this critical component of your business fall to the wayside. Plus, an outside perspective often encourages discovery and creativity, which can be beneficial to all areas of your company.
Does your firm have a brand identity? Or, is it something that you are still struggling with? What is holding you back from formulating a brand identity and then executing on it with strategy? Let us know your thoughts, questions, and insights in the comments below!
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