A visual brand is essential for ensuring you’re showing off all the best features of your business and getting your message across in a streamlined way, but we see some common mistakes. Avoid them with our quick guide:
1. Inconsistent Messages
You could have a beautiful logo, sharp images and clean colours, but it could all mean nothing if you aren’t consistent. All your visual branding is working towards conveying a message to your clients and potential clients.
If your message is changing often or your visual branding doesn’t quite hit the mark, you could be confusing your client. Clients who are confused by your visual branding become unsure why they should pick your business – your unique selling point is unclear to them. The result? It’s unlikely they’ll choose you over the competitor who has a clearer visual branding and consistent message.
2. Depending on Your Logo
Many people think that it’s just the logo doing the hard work on the visual front, but your visual brand is everything from your logo, to fonts used in documents and the colour of your office walls – everything works together to convey your business message.
Your logo is the face of your business, but all the other little details show your message to the world. Relying on your logo too much is like spending all your time designing the front cover of a book and forgetting to write the story – it can be disastrous.
3. Trying to Please Everyone
Appealing to a wide audience would be ideal – if you appeal to everyone, then it stands to reason that more clients would come in. Unfortunately, that’s not the way the story goes. Businesses that try to be liked by everyone often end up being loved by no one. The same goes for your visual branding. The colours, designs and fonts you choose are never going to appeal to everyone and that’s a good thing!
Don’t be scared to find your target market, no matter how narrow it is, and really focus on what they respond to the best. By doing this, you’re boosting your chances of engaging with that particular market and you are showing them you care about them enough to want to connect with them – this connection could be the cornerstone for your business’s future.
4. Jumping on a Branding Bandwagon
It’s easy to look at your competitors, love what they’re doing in their branding and try to emulate them – it’s almost natural and it seems like a logical thing to do. After all, if they’re going well and people are responding well to their branding, why not try to inject some of that into your business?
Remember, branding is supposed to set you apart from your competitors. In the end, trying to emulate your competitors is unoriginal and could land you in hot water legally if your visuals resemble your competitors’ (or any other businesses’) a little too closely.
If you’re looking to start building or improving your visual branding, get in touch with the team at Emroy to make sure your business is sending out the right message.
