Establishing a brand for your business is one of the most important things you can do to succeed. Solid and consistent branding helps establish credibility in your niche, increases the number of return clients you will have and improves overall company recognition and awareness.
Think about it this way; when someone asks you for a Kleenex, you know that they’re talking about a tissue even though they’re referencing the product by the company’s name. That’s because Kleenex’s brand awareness is so strong that their brand has almost melded with the product itself.
While this association level is challenging for a company to achieve, you want your business to develop as much brand awareness as possible. But how do you get there?
Having a well-thought-out brand voice includes having cohesion between your business name, brand colors, a logo, tagline, the tone of your content, and any other design elements that fit with your business. All these elements will come together to create your brand voice and should be utilized in all your marketing materials.
1. Presentations
Presentations are a huge part of the development of many companies and are a great place to include your company branding.
Let’s say you’re at a conference where people are sitting through several presentations all day. You may give an outstanding presentation, but if you didn’t include strong visual elements associated with your brand, people would have difficulty remembering which company offered the presentation.
To ensure your presentations are as effective as possible, you can get help with on-brand presentations by hiring a presentation design company. These designers have a deep understanding of effectively telling a story, incorporating design elements, and ensuring consistent and strong branding throughout each presentation.
2. Social Media
Social media has quickly become the best way to engage your audience and develop your brand. When it comes to incorporating your branding through social media, your audience needs to understand what they can expect from your content, and then you need to deliver that consistently.
For example, if you have a jewelry company and regularly post tips for styling the pieces, your audience will be confused and lose trust in your brand if you suddenly start posting content that doesn’t match the tone you’ve established.
Keeping your branding consistent across your social media channels is also important. Having the same handle, profile image, and tone across your channels will help your audience identify your brand and engage with it across all your social media accounts.
Creating a content calendar and repurposing your content across different channels are two great ways of ensuring your social media branding stays consistent.
3. Blogging
You may not think having a blog is relevant to your business, but blogging is an excellent way for any business to deepen its brand and really establish a strong voice. By writing content that talks in-depth about your mission statement, company values, and the story of your business, your clients will gain trust in your company.
You can also write content that highlights your particular niche or service knowledge. This will increase your credibility within your industry and allow potential clients to develop trust with you as they will have concrete evidence that you understand what you’re talking.
4. Tangible Marketing Materials
Today, marketing is almost entirely digital. This, however, doesn’t mean that tangible marketing materials have completely died out or serve no purpose. Since people are constantly being bombarded with email newsletters, pop-up ads, and social media posts, having something tangible could actually help your company stand out.
Tangible marketing materials include:
- Magazines
- Newspapers
- Brochures
- Posters
- Business cards
- Stickers
- Pens
- Pins/Buttons
Essentially, anything that includes your branding and can be physically held by someone is considered a form of tangible marketing.
One of the best things about tangible marketing materials is that they can serve as free advertising for your company. Let’s say, for example, you decide to include a branded sticker with each order your business makes; if the consumer then puts that sticker on their water bottle; when they are in public, other people will see that sticker and may create new business for you.
