Design

Branding and rebranding: How to create an identity that buyers trust

Your brand is the focal point for a customer’s or a prospect’s relationship with your business. Since that relationship is the key to new and repeat business, it must be authentic, authoritative, and trustworthy.

Here is what to keep in mind as you create or revamp your branding.

How to define your brand’s emotional impact

This is the first question to ask when creating or evaluating your branding, and every decision you make needs to be informed by the answer. Without this purpose and focus, it is very hard to maintain a consistent brand that achieves what you want.

So, whether you want your audience to be intrigued, impressed, excited, entertained, understood, or reassured, it is vital that you know what emotional effect your brand is intended to have, so that you can evaluate every action and idea against that goal.

Logo: Best practice for your logo and your brand identity

The logo reminds those who know you how they feel about you, and suggests to new prospects what they might feel.

There is a lot of research about how different design choices affect the impact of a logo. For example, research suggests that simplifying a logo can damage a heritage brand, but a complex logo hinders a new brand.

You also need to consider how your logo supports your wider marketing. The American Marketing Association has published fascinating research that shows that if you promote your business or offering as practical and functional, then a structured, symmetrical logo is dramatically more effective than a more relaxed, less formal one. In some cases, it means 50% more brand equity or financial brand valuation.

Tips:

It takes 50 milliseconds for someone to make up their mind about your logo. Make sure it communicates its message instantly, and doesn’t need a lot of interpretation
A logo is only as powerful as the brand behind it. Make sure the business is ‘walking the walk’.
Many businesses struggle with creating or evolving logos because it is deceptively complex. Speak to design and branding experts who can help you find the visual expression of your identity.

Developing a consistent and effective tone of voice for your brand

To keep people engaged, you need to understand how best to communicate.

Your tone of voice is the set of principles that guide your verbal and written output. It establishes how your brand ‘speaks’, with rules on what it says and how.

If you are starting from scratch, refreshing, or refining your tone of voice, a useful question to get the ball rolling is, ‘if the business were a famous person, who would it be?’ That provides a focus and helpful direction.

As with a logo, you also need to ask what you want to achieve. Do you want to stand out among sector peers? If so, what would make you different but still worth taking seriously? How do your competitors sound? Does it work for them? Why or why not?

Finally, once you decide on your tone, you need to stick to it. Brand consistency increases revenue growth by 10-20%, and you lose that benefit if your tone is different at different times or in different places.

Tips:

Your tone of voice must be authentic; prospects notice when a tone is forced and artificial. Be you. It is tempting to try to replicate the success of another brand by copying their tone, but it will ring hollow if you do.
Create tone-of-voice and style guidelines for your brand. It will ensure that everyone, whether part of your team or an external agency, can get it right the first time and every time.

Create, refine, or refresh your brand to claim more market share

Perhaps you are a new entrant, perhaps you are your sector’s best-kept secret, or perhaps you are a well-established business facing a changing landscape. Whatever the circumstances, your brand can be the difference between establishing, protecting, and growing your market share and losing ground to competitors.

Nutcracker can help you connect with your audience, build brand loyalty, and grow your business.

Brand videos capture the essence of your business, encapsulating why your business is worth engaging with and communicating what you stand for. They are perfect to launch or relaunch your brand on social media, and are an ideal feature of a website homepage or ‘about’ page.

Watch one of our rebrand videos here.

Brand workshops help you discover what is unique about your brand, understand how your market sees you, and decide how to shape your brand’s story to achieve your business goals. Our CEO, Jenny, has built and advised many brands, and her expert guidance can help you find real purpose and direction.

Rebranding projects give you a comprehensive set of brand guidelines to refine the look, feel, and tone of your business. Our design, content, and commercial experts work with you to establish brand guidelines so that you can be certain of a consistent, impactful brand wherever your customers or prospects encounter it.

Brand and marketing audits help you understand why your marketing is not having the impact it needs to. We find what is diluting your brand, limiting your reach, and interrupting your commercial opportunities. You will get a clear, actionable report with advice that will transform what you are doing to get the results you need.

To discuss the approach that will get more eyes on your brand and convert more interest into leads, get in touch with our CEO, Jenny, at jenny.knighting@nutcrackeragency.com.

To get more data-driven, real-world insight into how to grow your market share, even in a tough economy, get your free, comprehensive guide:

GUIDE | Claiming the Spotlight