Investing in your brand identity

WRITTEN BY: ALISON JOSHI, DIRECTOR OF JWJ DESIGN

Good, effective brand design is an investment and should be something that is planned for alongside any other part of your business strategy. Because it can be difficult to measure the ROI, many businesses don’t see the long-term value of branding. If you don’t invest time and money it can have a huge knock on effect to other areas of your business. 

WHEN TO INVEST

If you are just setting out on your business journey then cash flow can be very tight and understandably creating a strong brand identity may not be on the list of priorities. But, if you’ve been trading for more than a couple of years, you feel confident and have big plans as to where you want to take the business then now is a good time to think about investing in an effective brand identity.

Other key catalysts for a rebrand or refresh:

– If your business has grown in a slightly different direction than the one you had planned, or you’ve decided to expand your offering and target a slightly different demographic.

– If you have a leisure site and are updating your play equipment – it could be your old brand doesn’t sit well with this new refreshed look and feel inside.

– You went for a quick and cheap solution when you first started.

– The current identity is too restrictive and holds the marketing back.

– You don’t have any of the right file formats to use other than a small PNG file.

– The old brand identity looks really old and dated.

BUDGET IS IMPORTANT

Often the branding element of the marketing plan can come at the end of the project when all the money has been spent. Ensure you are keeping your brand investment front and centre so that the money doesn’t run out. This scenario can result in a ‘cheap’ solution which means that all the other work and money spent is not supported by a strong logo design.

Your logo and brand design, if done right, should work for the next 10+ years. If you go for the ‘cheap’ solution again you will end up revisiting this project in a couple of years and end up paying more in the long run.

THE REAL DIFFERENCE

Other than ££ there is a big difference between a £500 brand identity and a £3000 one. As with most things in life ‘you get what you pay for’ and in the design and marketing world this is even more accurate.

At JWJ Design we make sure we get to know your business, we try and meet you at your site, visit the area in which you trade, get to understand your target audience and what makes you stand out from the competition. We ask A LOT of questions – we want to know every detail about the business and what the plans are for the future. Do you have plans to expand, diversify or even sell?

Only by getting under the skin of your business can we then truly start thinking about what you look like to the outside world and how they perceive you.

It can be soo tempting to compare on price but you need to delve deeper and understand what it is you are paying for.

MEASURING CREATIVITY

If you have not dealt with design agencies in the past it can be difficult to see those that are offering good value and those that will cost you more in the long term. Some key items to look out:

– Have a look through their portfolio on their website and also ask them to send across any recent design work. (Us design agencies are not always the best at updating our own portfolios!)

– Their social accounts should also give a good indication of how they approach their projects and if they have a consistent brand for their own marketing work.

– Their ideas and design solutions should look original and not something you have seen before.

– Do they have an onboarding process and ask a lot of questions?

– Do they have a good reputation with anyone that you know and trust?

THE BASIC ESSENTIALS

You must make sure that you receive the following basic assets of your brand at the end of the project:

– Transparent PNG files of ALL your logo designs
– Full colour, white and mono versions
– Logo variants in different shapes eg. landscape, portrait and square
– Logo with and without a strapline
– Outline of the fonts used and how best to use them in your marketing
– Breakdown of your colours; ideally primary and supporting secondary colours – CMYK, RGB and Hex codes. Pantone is ideal but not crucial.
– PDF outline of your logo and brand – what is the master logo, which is a secondary variant etc.

ADDITIONAL INVESTMENTS

The list below is what we at JWJ Design also set up for our clients, based on their needs:

– Canva templates in the new brand style so you can post on social quickly and easily in the safe knowledge that it is all on brand and consistent.
– Detailed brand guidelines for internal and external use, which include tone of voice, image style and design style.
– Social header banners so your profile pages look consistent.
– Newsletter banner designs
– Powerpoint template design
– Word templates

Once all of the above has been designed you don’t have to do it again for a long time. Generating any marketing design will be a lot quicker and your business image will communicate the right message to the right target audience. Hopefully raising your profile and generating more income as you stand out more effectively against your competitors.