Use your brand to put your best foot forward!

Ever wondered if your customers see you the way you'd like to be seen?

Your brand is ultimately determined by customer perception, and your brand goes further than just a logo and a slogan? It's a reputation.

What is your brand?

Let's talk about visual identity; this acts like a preview of your brand. Choosing particular colours or shapes to represent your brand is more powerful than you think! It may be the first interaction customers have towards your product or service.

Think about it, have you ever chosen a product just by what it looks like?

However, your brand goes further than just what your logo looks like, it can also be things your customers associate with your company, like a particular colour or feeling they get when they think of your product or service.

Think about what you want your company to communicate to your customers. What do you want them to think or feel when they think of your business?

What do you stand for? Or what are your values as a company?

With that decided, how can you communicate this effectively to your customers?

Customers are key! Start to build your brand by being responsive and consistent from the very beginning. You want your work to reflect your values as a company to your consumer; if you value your customers, respond to them quickly and efficiently to show great customer service.

Stay consistent with your values throughout your given service, beginning to end. How you treat your customers will reflect on how they see your brand, and ultimately decide if they want to work with you or not.

Remain authentic - people always want to work with people they can trust. Developing long-term and meaningful relationships with your customers can reflect a strong, customer caring brand.

Keep it clear and simple - don't confuse your customers with irrelevant, misleading imagery or information! Customers come into contact with company brands everyday; stand out and make it clear who you are and what you can do for them.

It's time to strategise!

Once you have decided your logo, slogan, colour scheme, mission and values as a company, you can then create a brand strategy!

Brand strategy is all about combining the above to help develop a strong, long-lasting brand, which involves being able to evolve and develop when necessary. Ask yourself, is your brand adaptable? Is your strategy durable for the future?

In light of the Coronavirus, popular fast-food restaurant, KFC, has decided to temporarily change their slogan after 63 years! 'Finger-lickin' good' didn't sit well with the new, frequent hand-washing advice. The company produced many marketing materials worldwide to show their support during the pandemic, peppering it with humour to make it sound more like them!

Image from: https://www.thedrum.com/news/2020/08/26/why-kfc-isnt-stickin-with-its-famous-finger-lickin-slogan-now

It's important to remain rooted in your manifesto but to adapt to stay sensitive to your surroundings. Make your brand as effective as possible in the current climate, and think of how your branding and visual language can aid that.

Learn from one of the most famous!

Coca-Cola's brand has so much power that they turned Santa Clause from green to red! They've used positive visuals, showing people enjoying their drinks alongside family and friends, on a beach or at a park, to encourage customers to link their products with positive feelings. They can offer their customers something positive.

Don't be afraid to challenge your brand, try some new ideas, go further than the product alone. What else could people associate with your brand, something that might satisfy a new need created by the pandemic, that you could build on in your online presence?

We're here to help!

Websites play a huge role in your brands evolution. It acts as a main point of contact for brand communication to your customers and, throughout the pandemic, they have remained a constant for many businesses. It's still safe to surf the web!

At Minted Box, we are experts when it comes to applying your brand throughout your website. We want to be with our customers every step of the way. Here are a few ways in which we could help:

• We can perform website reviews, for either an entire site or a section. This helps to identify points of weakness in brand communication and highlights opportunities to strengthen the visual language.
• Take existing stats and analytics, or help to conduct user-testing to get that crucial customer feedback. This works to ensure that a website or digital system is achieving those desired results, and is sensitive to its environments to strengthen a brand.
• We work on evolving and adapting branding through digital mediums, but can also offer strong branding application through print mediums.

Interested in strengthening or adapting your brand? Why not get in touch, we'd love to hear from you!