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4 Tips on Branding Your Business Effectively
One of most common questions I get from my clients is "How do I brand my business effectively?"
1. Have a Brand Identity guideline
Brand Identities inform, inspire, enforce. They teach everyone who sees it what your brand is and how to effectively implement it. Inspiring it means giving it personality. Enforcing it means spelling out the do’s and don’ts of your brand—such as no distortion on your logo, certain colours that should not be used, correct placement of your logo on printed material and more. This is something that can be created when you hire a graphic designer to create your brand. ( thanks to milesdesign for sharing this section of the Adobe guideline)
2. Budget for a graphic designer.
When making a business plan or creating a marketing budget for the year, you should always budget for your graphic designer. Will you need a logo for your new business? Is it time to get new business cards for your established business? What about upgrading your website? Take the time to research the cost and then make sure it to add it into your budget so they are no surprises when it does come time for you to hire a designer ( the standard rate in my local area is $80 an hour and up)
3. Keep your brand consistent in all forms of media. This includes your rack cards to your social media marketing to your vehicle decals—you may have to make some adjustments when you are putting your brand on some forms of media, but it’s not a good idea to deviate too far-- you want people to recognize your brand it and if it’s not consistent, it becomes confusing.
4. Consider your brand when communicating with your customers ( thanks to MarketingDonut for this suggestion) Don’t dilute your positioning with discounting. Try offering more rather than slashing prices. ( something I have heard many times from local business coach Clemens Rettich!)