You know that major global corporations spend millions on the tiniest tweak to their logo or corporate colours and see a return on that brand design investment in the form of increased sales – but does the same logic apply to your business?
To work it out see these 6 benefits of a great brand design.
The benefits you’ll see when you have a great brand design in place for your business.
Your brand is much more than just a logo. A great logo will not save the day if the rest of your consumer-facing touchpoints are inconsistent, poorly designed and do clearly join up to form your brand.
The one benefit above all others that a great brand design brings is more revenue for your business or to be truly accurate, more profit – because a great brand supports margin like no other tool in your marketing armoury.
This is seen most clearly when a brand is sold, take for example the Kraft purchase of Cadbury’s for £11.9 billion in 2019 Kraft already owned enough factories and could make the chocolate bars easily.
What they didn’t have was a brand design that would attract customers the world over.
1. Recognition means money.
Everyone who encounters your business moves from a situation of not knowing anything about you to being aware of you to then hopefully considering you and of course ultimately purchasing.
Brand recognition is vital in the awareness stage where people first encounter your brand design (hopefully quite a few times). Remember that they may visit your website, see an e-mail or a poster or even meet a team member. Your brand design is every single possible touchpoint.
Without a recognisable consistent brand design across all these touchpoints, they may not even realise they are seeing the same company. This is clearly a disaster because it means that they will not leave the awareness stage to move into considering you.
2. Brand loyalty requires… a brand!
There are many factors in brand loyalty, but one thing is certain and that is that people are loyal to a brand that is consistently thoughtful and appealing. Loyal customers tend to be repeat customers – whilst a company such as Apple must of course produce excellent products they have a huge focus on building a brand design that people want to interact with time and time again.
If you offer great service, then it is vital that people connect that great experience with you when they come across you during the consideration phase for a new purchase.
3. Word-of-mouth marketing works better when there is a thoughtful consistent brand design.
Word-of-mouth marketing is an incredibly powerful sales tool that works without you spending a penny of course. People love to share a great product or service that they have discovered and to be helpful to friends and business associates.
They will be far less likely to talk about a brand where the logo is a bit off or the brand design is a bit shabby because ultimately it reflects on them.
You want a brand that people are proud to talk about, proud to share and happy to be seen using. This means a smart, consistent brand design.
4. More bang for your buck when it comes to Google PPC ads.
If you’re running advertising to get prospective clients to consider you then your brand design is a critical factor: This is because the real power of a brand is in those few milliseconds when someone sees you and has to decide whether or not to proceed further and interact.
A poor brand design will turn people off at that time whereas a strong brand design will have the opposite effect. A good brand design increases the ‘mental availability’ of your organisation.
5. Better brand design means lower Price Sensitivity.
A powerful brand design is a wonderful way to ensure that your product or service is never seen as a commodity to be exchanged for one that is similar according to whichever is cheapest.
Humans use the strength of a brand to help them make purchase decisions – we buy the best brand that fits within our budget. We don’t really know which running shoe is going to make us run faster because we don’t understand the technology but would choose Nike over an unnamed rival simply because we trust the brand.
6. A proud, energised workforce is an often-forgotten side-effect of a great brand design.
When your brand design is a strong one, your employees feel proud of what they’ve helped your company achieve. It brings them joy in life and in work; this is how you get them to feel more engaged with your brand.
What difference could it make to your organisation to know that you and your team feel great every time they go to work, happy to know they represent a well-presented organisation? Some of the strongest brands are increasing employee motivation by putting more focus on culture and a positive work environment.
Ok so now you want to make sure your brand is the very best it can be.
The first step is to look at your current brand design. This article guides you.
