Our latest free webinar was all about branding. It focused on a deeper understanding of branding and what to expect from branding services. If you feel a bit lost with your brand creation or if you’re looking to rebrand, we recap the key takeaways below.

Don’t forget to register for our next free event in the webinar series. Details are provided at the end of this post.

#1: Branding is NOT logo design

The word “branding” actually comes from cattle ranching where ranch owners needed to brand their cattle so they could be distinguished from other ranch owners’ cattle. In the business world, this still holds true as we use branding to distinguish your business from other businesses.

One of the biggest misconceptions about branding is that it’s the same as logo design, or that logo design is the biggest cog in your branding machine. Yes, it’s certainly true that a logo is part of a brand, but it’s just one of many important aspects of a brand. Some of the other things that make up a brand are:

• Colours
• Tone of voice
• Symbols
• Sounds
• Font
• Characters
• Personality
• Humour
• Social consciousness
• Charity work

Overall, a business brand includes everything that affects how the business is viewed from the outside.

#2: Branding is super important

A strong business brand is very important to the success of a business. It’s estimated that 46% of consumers will pay more for a product or service from a brand they recognise and trust. This is arguably why 45% of marketers claim their primary aim is to increase brand awareness, compared to just 27% of marketers stating their primary aim is to generate more sales. The former marketers in that research have realised that increasing brand strength and awareness can be more profitable for a business over the long term compared to focusing on generating sales alone.

There are internal benefits to having a strong brand as well. If you have a clear and consistent brand, it should inform staff members on how they should work and interact with other staff members and clients. Your branding can foster the working environment you strive to create.

#3: Branding services explained

Professional branding services are offered to businesses to create a new brand. This service should include all of the things that encompass a brand from logo design to font decisions and everything in between. A professional brander can make recommendations to help you create the most effective brand in your industry, while also ensuring you avoid common branding mistakes.

For the best results, the branding professional must take time to get to know your business and what it stands for. They will need to get to the bottom of questions like:

What makes you unique?
How does your business operate?
Who is your target market?
Who are your competitors?

Therefore, it’s better if individuals within your business can be as involved in this part of the process as possible.

WEBPRO offers professional branding services. We can assist your business by creating an entirely new brand or by providing individual services, such as logo design. Reach out to a team member for more information.

#4: Creating brand guidelines

There is something else you need to do once your brand has been created and implemented, which often gets overlooked. You must finish the project by creating brand guidelines. These are guidelines that ensure your chosen brand is maintained throughout the rest of the business for the foreseeable future.

For example, your branding guidelines may include information on:

• Colour schemes to be used
• Font types that should be used
• Font sizes
• Logo positioning on marketing materials
• Sentence structure on content

All of what’s included in your brand guidelines are added to ensure the brand remains consistent over time and across different mediums, such as your website and social media accounts.

Your brand guidelines will be especially useful when recruiting new staff who will be responsible for creating content that will need to adhere to your branding. The guidelines may even be given out when outsourcing projects to web designers, content writers and other creative professionals. Sometimes these guidelines are created as part of a professional branding service.

#5: Common branding mistakes

The most common branding mistake is a lack of consistency. On average, a consumer must come into contact with your business between five and seven times to recognise your brand. However, the consumer will need even more exposure to your brand to recognise it if there is no consistency. You make it easier to get your brand known and recognised if it’s consistent. It even makes consumers trust you more, which as we mentioned earlier, makes them willing to spend more money on your products and services.

Don’t miss our free website security webinar!

Of course, we couldn’t cover all the interesting and beneficial points that were discussed in our branding webinar. To make sure you don’t miss a trick, register your free place on our next webinar. 

We’ll be taking on the subject of website security next, with a special look at our secure document transfer software called WEBPRO Transfer.