June 2006

Brand Identity Systems

By Erin Feree, elf design

Although many small businesses defer an investment in branding until they feel comfortably established, experts advocate branding all businesses with a logo and consistent marketing materials. In fact, a consistent brand identity system should be an early high priority investment because of the impact it can have on your sales and revenue. A brand identity system:

• Conveys that you are established
• Attracts more clients
• Increases your credibility
• Increases ”memorability”
• Enables you to stand out
• Makes your business look "bigger"
• Improves your chance of getting venture capital or selling your business
• Brands your business
• Explains your company name
• Endears your company name to your clients
• Describes an unusual type of business
• Differentiates you from your competition
• Meets expectations
• Demonstrates your commitment and pride in what you do

The Layers of Your Brand
A brand includes many components or brand layers. The most important one is the Brand Foundation, the base from which all brand elements are created and measured for accuracty.

Brand Foundation
This layer consists of the following elements:

• Brand Vision—your plan for how your business appears to the world and how your company will to grow and change.
• Brand Mission—what your company wants to create through its products or services.
• Brand Values—what your brand stands for. These values help potential clients decide whether you can help them. They also help you decide who you’ll help and what you can't offer or deliver. Brand values are largely an internal measure against which you evaluate potential jobs, but they’re also communicated through your marketing materials.

Brand Basics
Brand basics shape your customers' views of your business. Telling customers how you want to be perceived is essential to the brand strategy of any small business. The easiest way to do this as a small business owner is through the following elements:

• Brand Identity—the suite of visual elements used consistently in your marketing materials, including your logo and visual vocabulary; stationery set, including letterhead, envelope and business card; marketing materials, such as brochures, postcards and flyers; and website.
• Brand Content—how you write and talk about your brand, including your marketing copy, tagline and elevator pitch.
• Brand Marketing—integration of visuals and text and delivery of your message, including advertising, trade show set-up and public relations.
• Brand Offerings—the products or services you present, as well as the quality and value of your services and any warranties you offer.
• Brand Experience—the process of working with you as seen from the clients' perspective. To create a positive experience, you must have a strong foundation of systems, procedures and processes around returning calls, availability, turnaround time and professional interaction and communication.

These basics also shape your brand personality—the persona your business projects to the world. They help define the way that your brand expresses itself and the characteristics that give your business a life of its own.

Competitor Comparison
This brand layer speaks about your business's relationship to the competition.

• Brand Positioning—how your brand compares with competitors. Most likely, many businesses provide products or services similar to yours. Brand positioning determines where your business falls on the competitive continuum.
• Brand Differentiation—differentiators make your business stand out. They’re what you offer that is unlike anything your competitors offer.

You can control these comparison factors through careful market research, market monitoring and your brand positioning and brand differentiation.

Internal Measures
This layer is defined largely through your business's actions:

• Brand Environment—the atmosphere within your company.
• Brand Promise—the underlying guarantee or benefits you offer as part of your services. This can relate to quality, service, affordability or speed of delivery. While your brand promise is initially shaped by promises made in your external communications, it is fully realized through product or serviced delivery.
• Brand Values—what your brand stands for. They help both you and your clients determine whether or not you want to work together.

External Measures
This layer is defined by the public’s perception.

• Brand Awareness—the level of public awareness of who you are and what you do. This is influenced by the strength and effective distribution of your brand basics as well as by word-of-mouth.
• Brand Gap—the difference between your brand positioning and differentiation and how your consumers and clients actually view them.

Brand Maintenance
’’Once you’ve established your brand and begun to put the basics before the public eye, there are other issues to consider:

• Brand Alignment—the biggest challenge in building a brand arises from the need to align all brand layers and create the same alignment between your audience and your message. You must make sure that the message you present is the same message your customers and contacts receive.
• Brand Management—this is the process of managing all brand layers and maintaining brand alignment. Because it’s an ongoing process; you should evaluate your brand layers and brand alignment periodically.

When all your brand layers work together, you’ll have a strong brand that will help your business grow and prosper.

Nine Key Characteristics of a Successful Brand Identity
Incorporating the following elements into your brand identity will help you achieve a successful campaign:

• Uniqueness in "look and feel" and message about your business helps ensure that your customers don’t confuse your graphics with your competitors’.
  
• Repetition helps potential and current clients remember and relate to your business. Experts say it takes between 6 and 12 impressions for customers to remember your business and connect emotionally with it.
  
• Consistency across your logo, tagline and materials reinforces your brand.
  
• Memorable elements help your business stand out. You'll create a memorable brand through consistency, repetition and unique marketing materials. Make your graphics memorable with a unique logo and a strong visual vocabulary. Create memorable text through alliteration, unique word combinations and lively imagery.
  
• Meaningful graphics make your company's message come to life through clever use of symbols, colors and type fonts. Meaningful text expresses what your business is about and adds depth to your developing brand. Most importantly, your audience will find your graphics and text accessible.
  
• Clear graphics and text communicate your message effectively. Make sure your graphics are crisp, clean and simple and that your text expresses your ideas clearly and unconfusingly.
  
• Honesty in your brand identity materials builds trust. If clients engage you and you don't live up to your brand promises, you’ll alienate them. Make sure you can stand behind your brand and deliver on your promises before you distribute branded materials.
  
• Personality ensures that your business doesn’t look like everyone else’s. Potential clients can immediately tell that all of your branded materials are coming from your business. If you own a one-person business, your brand identity might resonate with your own personality. If your business is larger, or if you want to make it appear larger, you should create a brand personality that connects with potential clients.
  
• Professionalism in all things, from the quality of your graphics to the care with which your text is written to your customer service and the way you treat people, is critical.

If you include these elements in your brand identity, your business will have a look and feel that enhances your brand, draws attention to your marketing messages and drives business growth.

Erin Ferree is a logo, print and web designer who has been helping small businesses grow with clean, easy-to-use website designs for the past nine years. To learn more, please visit http://www.elf-design.com/.