The Importance of Branding

Is branding important for your business? (Spoiler Alert: YES) If you own a business, especially a small business, you’re probably very focused on doing what you do the best you can do it. Your number one priority is providing your products or services in a manner that works for your bottom line and satisfies the needs of your customers. It may seem like that’s all you need to do, but if you’re neglecting your branding, you’re missing an important part of a successful business.

Branding is how you “lock-in” customers to your business.

Why is branding so important? It uses human psychology to plant awareness of your business into your customers brain. Look at the image above, and you’ll probably realize that, even when they’re partially obscured, you know what businesses those logos represent. (To be fair, you may need to live near Boston to recognize a couple of them.) That’s because those brands have taken effective steps to ensure that you know them through and through, even when you can’t see the whole logo.

Here’s a tidbit that might drive the point home… did any one of those logos make you think that you need something? Maybe you got hungry or thirsty, or maybe there’s something you’ve been meaning to pick up next time you’re out. If so, then that brand has succeeded with you. So when you see it, you immediately know what you can buy from the company, and you might just do so right away.

It works in reverse too. When you’re thinking of pizza, coffee, or miscellaneous household items, you probably will think of one of those brands. That’s the goal! You want your customers to immediately recognize your brand without any confusion, and you want them to think of you any time they need what you have to offer. It’s how you “lock-in” your customers so they come to you, and keep coming back.

To achieve this goal, it’s important to ensure that your branding is consistent no matter where it’s displayed. You want all your materials, ads, promotions, website to look like they belong together: same logo, colors, fonts, design elements…

Consistent branding is key to success.

Look at the logos below:

Now, you know which businesses those are supposed to represent, but would you buy from any one of them? Or would you expect to have a bad experience? Something’s fishy, right? They’re impostors! Knock-offs! Frauds!

Would you believe that those are actually the legitimate original logos of the respective companies? But you won’t find them in use by these companies today, partly because design aesthetic changes with the times, but also because once a company rebrands, the old brand must be left behind or it risks confusing customers and scaring them away.

Big or small, branding is important for your business.

You don’t have to have a giant, world-wide business for your branding to matter. In fact, it’s more important for a small business to have an effective brand, because small businesses don’t normally have decades of widely-established brand loyalty to rely on. Small businesses are fragile entities, and must be handled with care.

Charles River Creative can help your business develop and maintain a brand that will keep your customers coming back. Give us a call to talk about how we can make sure your brand package is doing the job you need it to do.