Why Is Branding Important?
The Importance Of Branding
Whether we are talking about a personal brand, professional brand, or business brand, you need to understand why branding is important.
Branding is the combination of visual, verbal, and motivational concepts that make you attractive to an audience.
Many branding professionals will talk about writing your brand story. And the stories you tell are important.
But I approach Branding as a character in the story of the Marketplace. Your character needs to look nice, communicate effectively, and have a personality.
If you create a brand that is pretty (say, you have a great logo), but has no personality, it falls flat when you try to sell something.
And yet, most business start ups focus on the logo start.
They spend all of their money on a beautiful logo and a flashy website, but haven’t established what they want to say or how they want to say it to effectively sell their product.
Your brand needs a personality driven by internal motivations (your mission and values), a verbal identity (how your brand speaks based on its personality), and a visual identity (the colors, typography, logo, visuals, layouts, and more)
Brand Personality
Have you read a book or watched a movie where a character felt flat? They didn’t have much of a personality, or maybe they felt overdone. Either way, you didn’t like them.
And chances are that if you didn’t like the characters, you didn’t like the story.
The same happens with your brand.
If customers feel like your brand is dull or overexaggerated, they keep scrolling. Or worse, actively avoid interacting with you.
Developing a personality that fits the mission, values, and emotions evoked by your brand is key to being profitable.
It’s likely that you know what your mission and values are. If you don’t, start there.
But have you thought about emotions?
What emotions do you want your customer to feel when they interact with your brand?
Do you want to feel happy? Energized? Jealous? Relieved? Angry? Silly? Adored? Bold?
Understanding how you want your brand to feel to your customers gives it a layer of depth and will help your copywriters stay consistent in the tone they use to sell for you.
Many Brand Developers will use Archetypes to walk you through finding your brand personality foundation and building a more dynamic character for your brand.
Pieces of your brand personality:
Business Name
Mission
Vision
Values
Archetype
Target Customers
Motivations of your customers
Emotions
Brand Verbal Identity
Verbal identity is what gives your brand voice dimension. It is the words, phrases, and tones that you use to communicate your message in alignment with your brand personality. You have to be strategic on creating a cohesive character.
This is important!
If your brand personality is a happy-go-lucky best friend with a side of party, then you can’t use words and phrases that imply professionalism and verbosity. Unless it’s for occasional shock value.
Again, it’s all about strategy.
Your brand verbal identity includes:
Taglines
Writing Style
Tone of Voice
Verbal Analogies
Key Words and Phrases
Words/Phrases to Avoid
Brand Visual Identity
After you have your brand personality and your brand voice, then you can start building the visual pieces of your business. What you’ll notice is that decisions around your logo become easier when you have words and emotions to describe what you want.
But your visual identity isn’t just your logo. Honestly, while a great logo is helpful, it’s not as important as having a cohesive look across the board. Certain colors and fonts remind you of brands even if their logo isn’t on it.
A black and white action shot with short motivational phrases printed in thick capitalized letters.
Even without a logo, you could guess the brand is Nike.
Visual Identity of your brand includes:
Primary
Logo
Alternate
Logo
Submark
Favicon
Colors
Fonts
Imagery
Layout Guidelines
Brand Consistency is Key
Once you make all of the tiny decisions (and that’s overwhelming, I get it), then every piece of content you create is easy.
Whether it’s for social media, a website, an ad, or a blog. When you finally meet your fully developed brand, it’s a breeze to anticipate what to say, how to design, and where to position yourself.
This is why branding is powerful. It’s not just great for your customer experience, it also streamlines how you run your business.
Need help with Branding?
If you are ready to turn your business into a main character brand, then schedule a free 30-minute consult to find a service that fits your needs!
