Business owners or a digital marketing agency may hear these concepts every day “Brands” and “Brand Identity,” but rarely do most of them know the difference between the terms.
The majority of us obscure the difference between these terms. Brand and brand identity are not interchangeable concepts. If you are doing the same thing, it’s all good, and you are in the majority.
But, your business might be struggling as a result!
We have done it ourselves several times. People most of the time use the term brand to define products.
You may have asked a friend yourself, what brand of shoes are they wearing? In situations like these, we are not talking about the brand. Instead, we ask about the products by a brand.
A brand is a perception attached, a sentiment, or an emotional value felt when people talk about or review a company. When we think about modern furniture, we think Ikea. When we think about smartphones, we think about Apple.
What Is Brand Identity?
This is what the consumers see; all the visual elements make up an organization’s brand identity.
This includes:
- Logos
- Color Schemes
- Typography
- Design
- Your signature in consumer expereinces
Do you remember that we all wanted to be one of the cool kids as a child? The first thing you notice is that we don’t quite look like the cool kids.
So, we got ourselves pair of Nike Airs, got a funky haircut, and refigured our style. The things that we changed about ourselves would act as our brand identity.
These changes became the physical features in our control that inspired how others saw us.
Why Is It So Important?
In order to understand the importance.
Business owners or a digital marketing agency may hear these concepts every day “Brands” and “Brand Identity,” but rarely do most of them know the difference between the terms.
The majority of us obscure the difference between these terms. Brand and brand identity are not interchangeable concepts. If you are doing the same thing, it’s all good, and you are in the majority.
But, your business might be struggling as a result!
We have done it ourselves several times. People most of the time use the term brand to define products.
You may have asked a friend yourself, what brand of shoes are they wearing? In situations like these, we are not talking about the brand. Instead, we ask about the products by a brand.
A brand is a perception attached, a sentiment, or an emotional value felt when people talk about or review a company. When we think about modern furniture, we think Ikea. When we think about smartphones, we think about Apple.
What Is Brand Identity?
This is what the consumers see; all the visual elements make up an organization’s brand identity.
This includes:
- Logos
- Color Schemes
- Typography
- Design
- Your signature in consumer experiences
Do you remember that we all wanted to be one of the cool kids as a child? The first thing you notice is that we don’t quite look like the cool kids.
So, we got ourselves pair of Nike Airs, got a funky haircut, and refigured our style. The things that we changed about ourselves would act as our brand identity.
These changes became the physical features in our control that inspired how others saw us.
Why Is It So Important?
In order to understand the importance.
Let’s Analyze The IT Industry.
Let me ask you a question. What is the fastest-growing industry in the world right now?
It’s the IT industry. But why is this so?
In a survey, people from the US identified the top brands they pay the most attention to, and the top two industries are related to the IT industry.
This is because the IT industry advertises its products by throwing facts, figures, benchmarks, and performance metrics. It’s an industry that is the most competitive. Therefore, every organization of the IT industry has to make the audience aware of how their products are different from other brands.
Performance, graphical capabilities, storage functions, response time, and graphical interface are some of the terms we have heard. These are terms people use to measure experiences earned from these products.
So, we find IT companies marketing themselves around how they are different from the competition regarding performance and experience.
Therefore a Samsung experience is different from an Apple one. This experience, this perception, this expectation associated with a business is called the business’s brand identity.
Establishing a brand identity allows businesses or any digital marketing agency to be associated with something different from the rest. It sets the authority a business needs to be perceived as a path-finder, solution provider, like no other.
Businesses or any online marketing agency Houston that gets this concept and executes it ideally is leading the race, and it is evidently clear for all of us to see.
Businesses know this, but it is commonly observed that they struggle to bring it all into action.
What Are The Problems A Business Or A Digital Marketing Agency Faces?
Whether its businesses marketing themselves or hire any digital marketing agency to work for them. In both cases, we observe that a lot of focus is placed on the deliverables, the results and the actions taken to achieve those results. But rarely do businesses place their emphasis on doing actual research.
For a brand identity to establish itself, a lot of work goes into researching your business message, the competition, and the type of customer.
Not only is this important, but in this digital age, the playing field has significantly changed. Today, any company that provides digital marketing services in Houston knows that brand identity is an extension of your internal company culture, the services you offer, the work you do, the value consumers receive, social platforms, and online gateways of information exchange.
All of these aspects need to come together to bring a brand to life.
Understanding Brand Identity
How are you seen?
Brand identity becomes the impression your business gives to your customers, and starting from the first impression, this approach stretches to the core of your business.
Starting from your logo, everything has to come together to present a perfect picture of your brand for customers to develop an opinion about you.
Also, much like how tastes, wants, needs, and people change with time, so does the perception a consumer has about your brand. Due to this fact, businesses have to maintain a consistent brand identity, and over time, consumers become more loyal.
How A Digital Marketing Agency Maintains Brand Identity?
By working on an identity for your brand, you allow it to have a drive. This factor alone helps your customers understand what your business stands for, which is pivotal in influencing a consumer to do business with you.
A great product attracts customers, but once the purchase is made, people become your customers, but what we are looking for is repeat customers or, better yet, your brand’s advocates. A pronounced brand identity gives the customer a sense of stake in your business.
This is why a consumer would buy from you repeatedly and refer your business to other people. But building a great brand identity does not happen overnight. It takes several approaches to get the best fit and consistency to build brand authority.
So, here are some tips for your business or digital marketing agency to turn towards for support when creating unforgettable brand experiences:
What Makes You Unique?
Put all the effort into researching what makes your business different from others out there and this works just like a human. A human with a strong personality is the one who knows the ins and outs of their behavior.
These are people who are grounded, have solid self-judgment, so when they speak, they speak from a place of experience, and that experience reflects in their words and actions. And same is the case with your brand.
If your brand does not have a solid foundation, it indicates confusion, and confusing brands create confused customers. Many factors go into making a brand, and it’s essential that each aspect that makes up your brand compliments one another and works cohesively as a well-oiled machine.
Identify Audiences And Read Into Competition
In this phase, working on your buyer’s persona is your best bet. The key here is to identify your ideal buyer and develop a persona or multiple personas around it.
When working on this, research the demographics, the pain points, likes, and dislikes. Another vital aspect of working is researching where your type of audience exists online and the platforms that can be used to tap into them.
Once you know who you are selling to, it will be time to dig and find out who sells similar products to them. Checking out the competition’s website, social channels and email campaigns is one thing. But when you research your competitor, always try to think like a customer and compile a report about how you can better serve the audience with your business.
Build Your Identity
This is the design phase; this is where you design your logo and incorporate other features that bring out your brand identity.
I don’t need to mention this, but your logo is crucial. It is the most recognizable part of your brand, so you need to spend significant time coming up with a logo that powerfully delivers the brand message while also being visually engaging.
Tone And Voice
Like every action you take reflects on your business, your brand voice is also echoed in your social media postings, the way you advertise, the language you use in emails and blogs.
Developing a brand voice is a consideration of many factors, the first one being your tone. The tone that you use comes from the purpose of your business.
Are you an entertaining business?
How professional is professional?
How friendly should we be so that we don’t lose market authority?
Do we need to be entertaining and highlight the pain points at the same time?
How does your audience perceive a friendly tone?
No matter the kind of tone you chose to go forward with, the key is to be consistent with one style. If you keep changing your technique, the audience will find it hard to understand where you are coming from.
The tone that best defines your business should reflect in every marketing effort you make. The aim is to achieve consistency throughout all the communication platforms that you use. Here we not just talking about the texty stuff, this also includes images, illustrations, eBooks, and your website’s user interfaces.
For example, if your brand serves the real estate industry, you have no room to be unprofessional because you want people to trust you with their life savings and investments. Therefore, adding a casual tone in a real estate business is a bad match, even though this tone might be highly relevant for other industries.
So, be extremely picky when it comes to this part.
Bring Your Brand Identity To Light
Once you have all the tools in your arsenal, it’s time to put your brand in front of the audience. Use your chosen fonts, colors, shapes and symbols, and voice. Make sure it’s reflected in all your marketing efforts.
To be consistent in this phase, the best digital marketing agency employs a brand style guide, and every business should work to get one developed.
A brand style guide is a holy book your brand needs. It includes every aspect of what makes your brand and why it is marketed the way it is.
Now, a brand style guide works in two ways, internally and externally. Internally, this guide acts as the go-to guide for marketers creating marketing material that feels like your brand. Externally, it gives your customers a picture of what you are about, which helps garner trust and brings your customers ever closer to understanding you.
So, make your style guide as public as possible. It gives a clear message to your audience.
Final Thoughts
Once your business starts reflecting its brand identity, it is essential to monitor and analyze what is working?
The same way you monitor your ad campaigns to optimize marketing, you have to do the same for your brand.
However, when we monitor a brand’s performance, it is not as simple as advertisements that provide you the analytics that shape your marketing strategy.
This involves looking at social media discussions, comments, posts, reviews, and surveys that pertain to your brand to find out what the audience perceives when they see you.
This is extremely essential because once you understand what the audience says about you, you will be able to make significant changes required to position your brand in a better way.
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