FIRST IMPRESSIONS ARE IMPORTANT, AND LASTING!
For small business, branding is the first opportunity to connect and impress your target audience. But so often business owners do not recognise or take advantage of this opportunity.
“In our opinion roughly 80% of small businesses have poor logos, creating a neutral or negative brand promise.”
A strong logo and brand will instantly grab the attention and impress your target audience. The logo and branding needs to reflect the brand, it’s message, vision and make the user believe the product or service is amazing! If your branding does not convey the message that you do great work or provide amazing service, consumers may choose your competitor.
Your logo needs to represent your business and define your brand. You need to devote time to developing your brand identity with professional designers!
5 TIPS TO CREATE A STRONG BRAND
1. BRAND SPECIFIC LOGOS
Your logo needs to be clear to ensure people connect your brand with your product or service. It needs to convey exactly what you do and create positive brand association.
Unlike large companies, small businesses do not have the large advertising budgets to assist consumers understand their brand. Small businesses often use icons and graphics that specifically represent their industry, or rely on creative taglines to get their message across. Each association is important, you need to captivate your audience and make a lasting impression.
2. FITTING TYPOGRAPHY
Small business brands are often based on two elements: typography and a graphic icon or element. Together they build the structure of your logo! Apart from the icon, the typography is a crucial choice the designer makes when creating the brand identity. The font communicates so much about the brand, is it a corporate service, creative service, established or a new fresh, modern brand.
Fonts with serifs often represent more established or traditional professions like lawyers, accountants and doctors. Whereas serif fonts often represent more modern and creative professions.
The typography chosen for your logo needs to work in conjunction with the graphic element to increase the brands overall recognition.
View the logos we have created for small businesses here
3. COLOUR SELECTION
Certain professions or industries have typical colours their industries are associated with. For example, natural therapies or creative services often use purple.
Choose a colour that represents your brand, products or that will resonate with your target audience. For example, if you are targeting 6 year old girls, bright pink or purple will get their attention. But if your target is males in their 60’s then you might be better sticking to more traditional colours like blues or neutral colours.
When designing a logo and deciding on the primary colour that will be associated with your brand, always look at your competitor and make sure your brands wont be confused. When choosing secondary colours or a few colours to flow through to your branding, choose colours that compliment each other.
4. CONSIDER THE SHAPE
You need to develop a logo that is recognisable and works well on different executions.
It needs to fit within the restraints of a business card, signage, cars, uniforms, your website and social media etc.
Companies often create two versions of their logo, a landscape version and a more square/portrait version to accommodate different uses. It is also very common for just the icon to be used on social media and for profile type uses.
5. HIRE A PROFESSIONAL GRAPHIC DESIGNER
So many small business are missing the opportunity to truly showcase their brand and what they have to offer. This is your chance to stand out and be recognised for how amazing you are! The value of good design outweighs the initial cost!
You need to choose a designer you are comfortable with, who listens to you, does research and develops strategies to develop the best brand specifically for you.
Make sure your logo is custom and designed specifically for you!
IF YOU CREATE A LOGO THAT REFLECTS YOUR BRAND AND ITS VALUES, YOU HAVE BUILT A STRONG BRAND FOUNDATION AND A PLATFORM FOR GROWTH AND SUCCESS!
