Gone are the days when branding was solely focused on the product’s name, icon, and packaging. With the advancements in technology and the evolution of branding and marketing, there has been a considerable shift in the branding and identity scenario for businesses throughout the world.
Similarly, branding in Pakistan has also had a facelift. The branding and identity of any business formulate the basis for the entire marketing of the business. The identity and perception of your brand also highly influence the success of your business.
The branding and identity of the business are incorporated in all the visual elements of your business that are used for identity purposes, marketing, and promotion. It is so much more than just a logo. The logo, of course, forms the basis of the visual aspect of the brand identity, but there is so much more to it. There is the brand identity and then there is the visual brand identity. It is important and equally interesting to know the difference between brand identity and visual brand identity.
The difference between brand identity and visual brand identity
The brand identity, in all its essence, is the image of the brand among its users. It is the expression of any brand that is used to communicate with its audience. It includes the name, communication, visual appearance, and trademark.
On the other hand, visual brand identity is a part of the whole brand identity umbrella. It deals with the brand’s logo, color palette, fonts, typography, patterns, shapes, elements, and other graphics.
Now, it is time to discuss how important branding and identity are for any business. Let us have a look.
Importance of branding and identity for businesses
Differentiates your brand from the competitors
Brand identity is what truly sets your business apart from its competitors. Even if your business is involved in providing similar products or services in the market, it is the branding and identity that you create, that makes the audience perceive and believe that your brand is not only better than the rest of them but the best.
Sets the tone for your business
When thorough research, planning, and work are done on creating the branding and identity of your business, it truly reflects the brand’s core values and aims. This helps in setting the tone for the overall branding and marketing of the business too.
Creates harmony and consistency throughout the brand
Once you put enough work into creating the branding and identity of your business, your business reaps great benefits from it. Correctly done branding and identity of the business create a sense of harmony throughout all the marketing mediums. The consistency of using the branding identity throughout the business in aesthetics and layouts also adds a sense of trust and cohesiveness to the brand. The people can identify, recall, and resonate with your brand much more easily.
Trust attracts loyalty
Uniformity of using the branding throughout all the business’s physical and visual elements and presence develops a great level of trust in the brand. When people can identify something similar whenever they see anything that is a part of your brand, they feel happy and develop trust in your brand. The connection they feel with your brand develops a sense of loyalty and trust toward it. And as we said before trust attracts loyalty, so people automatically start trusting your brand more. It is customer loyalty that helps your brand’s boat sail among the harsh waves of new emerging competitors in the market.
Develops awareness
Using branding and identity in your brand’s favor helps to create awareness in the people about all the services and products that your brand offers. This is so because they can resonate with the elements of your brand identity that are used in the marketing and promotion of your other products. This leads to a rapid increase in sales too.
Now that we have established the importance of building a great branding and identity of a brand. It is only fair to discuss how to build it. Let us see that, shall we?
How to build a brand identity?
The first thing to do when developing the brand identity is to make it reflect the brand’s true values and make it consumer-centered. Thorough research needs to be conducted to identify how consumers interact with the brand, and the branding and identity need to cover all those areas completely.
Typically these areas include:
- Media coverage
- Social media coverage
- Visual branding
- Email marketing
- Advertising
- Publications
- Customer interaction
How to get branding and identity right?
As we discussed before, branding identity also encompasses visual branding. It is not sufficient to just create a solid visual identity and use it proactively, conveying the values of your business in the way consumers feel about your brand should be the target.
Branding in Pakistan has changed big time, and so have the aims and targets behind successful branding and marketing campaigns. The sole aim of branding now is to provide your customers and the public with the best experience and feeling whenever they come into contact with your brand. Be it through social media, your sales representatives, your print marketing, or your advertisements.
If your outlet is aesthetically appealing, the products are fantastic, and the ambiance is to die for, but the staff is stiff and uncooperative. The sales would be greatly affected. The staff of the stores/outlets, and the customer representatives online, need to be trained well to understand the brand’s core values, aims, and be courteous and well-versed in communicating the same to the customers. This effort on the personnel makes the brand thrive. This helps to create a friendly and welcoming aura in the outlet, it also helps to increase engagement, customer confidence in the brand, and sales.
Another thing that needs to be noticed is the feedback of the consumers. The feedback has to be held the highest as your brand’s aim is to be centered on the consumers and adapt accordingly to keep the loyal customers intact. Constant efforts are required to make sure the brand is well-perceived and received among the audiences.
Now, even though you have to be consumer-centered when it comes to branding and everything related to marketing. You should always keep an eye on losing your true aim, vision, and set of values in the course of pleasing your audience. Stay true to your brand’s identity and ensure that the audience sees your brand for what it truly is. After all, it is not the consumer-centric identity we are aiming to create, it is our own business’s brand identity.
Conclusion
Branding and identity are the two main areas that ensure the successful existence, penetration into new markets, and creation of a successful trustworthy brand in the eyes of the consumers. To nail every aim of the business that you initially set for your business when you started, you must put in keen effort in creating a perfect and successful branding and identity of your business. Good luck with that!
