Successful brand strategies are much like that fashionista friend that seems to be a part of every social circle: they stand out from the rest, they are easily recognizable, and they are hard to forget. The process of creating a great brand strategy is also much like your stylish friend choosing their outfit each morning – each element must be carefully considered and chosen with a purpose.
The brand strategy experts at Midwest Marketing have put together some guidelines to help you develop a strong brand identity that allows you to communicate your brand’s message consistently and faithfully across all media platforms. By doing so, your audience will start to immediately recognize and identify your brand, which is crucial in today’s competitive marketplace.
What exactly is brand strategy?
To achieve that much-needed consistency, rules need to be set in place as to how you will represent your brand. Every visual aspect needs to have guidelines, from the fonts that will be used in your ads and company communications, to how your logo will be placed on branded materials.
Some items to consider when you create a brand identity include:
- Logo design
- Logo placement on marketing materials
- Color specifications (to at least include primary and secondary colors or a specific color palette)
- Typeface specifications and paragraph styles
- Tone of voice
- Tagline usage and message verbiage
- Spacing of elements
- Guidelines on proper photo usage
- Patterns, textures, icons, or illustrations on all marketing materials
Overall, consistency is key here.
How do you create an effective brand strategy?
Step 1: Do some research. Look at your competitors and current industry trends. While you don’t want to copy what anyone else is doing, you do want to see what’s currently being done and what could be improved upon, as well as how brands in your industry are communicating with your target audience.
Step 2: Invest in quality design. When it comes to developing the standards by which people come to identify your brand, quality is key. You want to make sure to hire experts that know the ins and outs of what it takes to build a memorable presence through traditional and digital marketing means. Often, the first thing a graphic designer will do is sit down with you to understand your brand and target audience. From there, they will create different elements to use to represent your brand.
Step 3: Revise, revise, revise. Although your graphic designer is the expert of what goes into a great brand strategy, you need to make sure their designs are ones that truly represent you and your business. It may take a few revisions before you and your designer reach a happy medium, but it’s important to make sure you are happy with the end product. After all, the goal of a brand strategy is to create a memorable presence, and it will be hard to be memorable if you end up not liking your logo and changing it after only a few years.
Step 4: Implement your strategy. After settling on final designs, your designer will provide you with a finalized guide that serves as a tool to ensure you and your team are providing a strong framework for all marketing initiatives consistently and faithfully. Make sure everyone on your team is on the same page and knows to utilize the guide for any and all marketing materials.
Need help creating your customized brand strategy?
Choose an agency that has just as much passion for your business as you have! With much of our expertise dedicated to helping clients achieve their branding goals through the power of graphic design, we’re in a good position to assist you with expert recommendations, tailored ideas, and solutions for your branding and graphic design needs.
Call us today at (605) 716-5666!
