What on earth is a brand identity?!
And how can you use it to drive more sales in your creative business?
Welcome to Finding Simple & Calm, a place where I share my journey to living a slower life when everything about my life says otherwise. I write about the realities of simple living, motherhood, and being neurodivergent. I’m also passionate about creative small businesses, and I love writing about, and teaching, methods on how to reduce the overwhelm, spend less time doing the tedious business-y stuff, and more time being creative. I hope you can join me?
Short:
Your brand identity is the personality of your brand. It’s how you present your business, and how people remember it. It’s the feel that your audience gets when they use your service our buy your product.
There are four main components to consider when building a strong brand identity:
Colours
Fonts
Logo/ elements
Consistency
Make sure your colours, fonts and images (your logo and your elements) are the same across all of your digital platforms (social media and website) and physical products (product packaging, business cards).
Long:
Colours:
Do you have specific colours for your brand, or do you use whatever you feel like using on the day? In order to build a brand identity, you need to choose colours that match what you do. Think about what colours are relevant for your business. Perhaps black and grey aren’t a good fit if you’re a florist, and maybe bright bold colours aren’t right if you’re an artist niching in gothic greeting cards.
Fonts:
Do your fonts match your brand feel? If you sell high end jewellery then Comic Sans isn’t going to suit. If you’re a children’s author, your fonts may be playful and fun. If you sell organic skincare products for women, then a feminine and professional font would match your branding.
Logo/ elements:
Your logo should be relevant for your business. It should be professional looking and consist of your brand colours. Keep your audience in mind. What kind of logo would they associate your business with?
Elements are images and graphics that you use alongside your other branding to emphasise your identity. So, as an artist, you may use hand drawn paintbrushes or pencils in your content. If you’re a florist then flowers should feature in your branding. If you’re a writer, a pen or laptop or typewriter would be a good idea to really get the message across of who you are and what you do.
Be consistent:
Use the same colours, fonts and elements across all of your online platforms, including social media, your website, a selling platform like Etsy. Make sure you’re consistent in your physical branding too. Use branded stickers, tissue paper and flyers in your packaging (if you sell products). If you’re networking with potential clients, give them branded business cards that match your website and social media accounts.
Having a cohesive brand identity can help your audience to trust you. You’ll appear more professional, and as an expert in your industry. It also shows them that you care, and you haven’t just chucked together random colours and fonts, and created a confusing logo. If you don’t care about your brand, how can your audience trust that you’ll care about them in your services or products?
Being consistent with your brand identity can make your business easily recognisable. If I tell you to think of a brand with red and gold colours, you’d think of McDonalds. Your audience needs to be able to recognise your content in order to build the like, know and trust factor with you.
So, if business is slow for you right now (it usually is over the summer months), then now is a good time to take a look at your brand and make sure you’re being consistent and everything is cohesive. If your brand needs a makeover, I’d love to help.
Speak soon,
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