What you NEED TO KNOW about BRANDING to help your business GET PICKED
Be a great big brand strawberry
Why are strawberries red? And what the pip has that got to do with marketing? Bear with…
Birds know that red berries are the ripest and tastiest. Strawberries have evolved to advertise their tastiness by changing colour to an intense red. What’s in it for them? Birds eat the fruit, can’t digest the seeds and scatter them around the area.
This made us think. We’re all in business to attract attention and get picked. Right? The trick is making sure it’s us that customers want to pick.
And that’s where branding comes in.
This is not the time to be shy
Your logo is a visual shortcut which reminds people who you are.
There’s a famous study which shows the more someone sees a picture or name, the more likely they are to pick it. Familiarity leads to trust. And subconsciously, when faced with a choice, we choose the more familiar name. It’s automatic.
That’s how branding works.
It’s not that the Mona Lisa is the best picture in the world.
It’s just that we’ve seen it the most times. It’s familiar.
And this logic applies to your brand.
Rebrand it and they will freak
Every so often the press reports some company rebranding costing eleventy bazillion quids. And the crowd goes crazy. ‘What a waste of money’ they squeal.
We design corporate identities for businesses like yours every week. For a lot less than eleventy bazillion quids.
But let’s think about your logo for a moment.
How many times will it be seen?
The magic £0.0001 per view
You should be proud of your logo. And liberally plaster it everywhere.
You’ll definitely use it on your website, your business cards and your stationery. You’ll use it on your brochures, folders and price lists.
You might even use it on billboards, signage, vehicles or uniforms.
Over its life, how many times will it be seen? How many people drive past your premises each hour? How many visit your website each day? How many punters do you serve each week? How many mailers do you post each month?
Your logo could be seen MILLIONS of times each year.
It’s sooo much more than a logo
Some people think a “brand” is just a logo.
Got a logo? That’s my branding done. Tick. That was easy!
But it’s much more than that. Your brand is how customers describe you to their friends. It’s the way you answer your phone. The way your website reads. The language in that handwritten sign in your reception. How your team react when a customer walks into your place.
It’s how you make them feel.
Customers are just the start
You might be hiring staff right now, or have plans to in the future.
Your brand matters here too.
The marketplace for talent is competitive.
Applicants will be deciding whether they fit into your tribe. Whether your brand matches their beliefs. To attract and retain the best talent, your brand story is important.
Before you get to pick them, they’re choosing whether to pick you.
Mystery shopping yourself
Sometimes it takes a fresh pair of eyes to look at your business in a new way. To look at it like a customer does.
But that’s hard for us to do ourselves. Our automatic, or ‘system 1’ mind, blanks out details we see every day. We become blind to the way our business looks. That’s our brain’s way of protecting us from information overload. But it’s dangerous.
You could ask a friend to review their experience, as if they were a client. But an alternative technique is to take photographs of the journey a customer would take and print them out. You’ll be surprised at the results and the insights you get from looking at your business through a lens. The same applies to your website. Print out the flow.
Reboot, refresh, repeat
Your mystery shopping exercise might reveal some things that need attention. Your website review might show some things that are unclear or confusing.
Not everything goes to plan. Things evolve. You keep meaning to do that new thing. Then life happens. Things get in the way of our best intentions.
Let us help. Branding is our business. We’d like to be involved from the start of your refresh. We can be a second pair of eyes. We can be your mystery shopper. Ask us to experience your business as a customer and let’s start building the next chapter of your brand story.
Perception is part of your brand
People make a judgement about the quality of your business, based on the feel of your brand. Everything. The overall experience.
If your website is out-of-date, if your brochures are skimpy, if your marketing looks amateur then customers will subconsciously judge you.
Now’s the time to supercharge your refresh with elegant leaflets, brochures or a new catalogue. It’s never been more affordable. Register for prices.
Make yourself look irresistible. Get picked.