Making your small business brand work for you

When thinking of the term “branding”, you may think of your logo, your website, or your business card. But branding is more than just pretty designs; it’s about how your audience feels when they interact with your business. A website’s performance and design is nothing without a clear brand identity and way for your customers to differentiate you from your competitors.

So, how can you leverage your business branding to position yourself as an expert and trusted source to your audience?

Read on to find out more. 

What’s the difference between a brand and a logo?

While it’s easy to get the two misconstrued, a brand and a logo are two very different things. Creating a logo is just one small piece of the branding puzzle. A logo is an image or visual used to help consumers recognise a business. However, a brand is the foundation of a company – its personality. A brand will depict who the company is, what they represent, and how they want to be perceived by their audience (1).  Take Nike as an example: Their logo is the all-too-familiar tick; but their brand is their messaging, wording, key phrases, colours, and they way they use these elements to create an emotional response of inspiration, work ethic, and drive, to their audience. Their logo without their brand behind it is just a tick, but put it all together and it creates something special, and something its customers are proud to wear.

Branding helps you to connect with your audience

Not only does a brand give people a sense of trust and understanding of your businesses values and mission, it also gives them a sense of belonging. A good brand generates customers, but a great brand generates advocates (3). When your customers know who you are, and understand you, they build trust. Research suggests that 50% of consumers become more loyal to a brand during their first purchase, so it’s important to create a positive experience for your customer. By becoming real and personable with your audience through your brand’s personality, you can cement long lasting relationships with your customers (5).

Your brand is what makes your website memorable

Your website is a powerful tool to convert someone from a warm lead to a passionate buyer, so it’s important to use your website to create a long lasting impression on your consumers. Without clear branding on your website, your audience simply won’t understand the messages behind your business, or will struggle to refer you to their friends because they won’t remember you (1). There’s more to website branding and design than a logo and colours. Injecting your brand’s personality into your website will help to create a connection with your audience (2). It’s also important to remain consistent in your branding throughout your website – through language, fonts, layout, colours, and other design elements. What story does it tell?

Performance is a big part of the customer’s experience as well. A website which is slow to load, or crowded with unnecessary plugins, videos or features, will not do any favours for your brand identity. A study completed by Google found that 53% of website visits are abandoned if a mobile site takes longer than three seconds to load (6).

Learn more by reading the full article here: https://gipps.tech/blog/branding-its-as-important-as-your-website-functionality