Branding

There are many things we do around here, but all of them center on drawing pictures. We develop front-end web designs, handle all of our own internal marketing, and we design outside print materials for some of our clients.

Each piece we design works hand in hand with the websites we design. All of the marketing materials, from direct mail to business cards, have a central design theme so that wherever the design is seen, they immediately think of the product.

That’s BRANDING: Using the same color schemes and design elements in all of your identity systems (i.e. cards, letterhead, website, advertising, and packaging) will further identify your business to your audience. Branding is creating an image, drawing a picture, in the mind of the public that is instantly identifiable with your business.

Think of a can of Coca-Cola. You know exactly what it looks like. And whenever you see the red with the white wave over it, even if it doesn’t SAY Coke, you know what it is. Same with the Golden Arches, or the Swoosh. I don’t even need to say the name of the company, and you know who it is.

That’s Branding.

Sometimes the designs for the websites come from existing identity systems our customers provide like Rob McHenry Photographer, The Workforce Alliance, and others. The web designs for these customers came from the designs of their business cards adapted to the web.

Even Real Development’s marketing started with the logo off of their letterhead, from which we then designed flyers, brochures, print ads, T-shirts, and the banners you’re seeing all over downtown, not to mention the website itself. Now that’s branding!

Other clients, like Diversified Benefits and Angular Systems, have branding based on the website, which was created first. Then the print pieces, brochures, and business cards, were developed based on the web designs.

In either direction we work from, the final product is the same: the website and all printed materials all match, strengthening the brand of those companies. That’s branding – each of these companies is creating an image that gives them instant recognition in the public.

Let’s take branding one step further.

Summer’s about here, and we are spending more time outside. And being as centrally located as we are at our new digs, it never fails. Every day we see a truck for one of our clients go by.

And you know what we rarely see? The company website addresses.

You may be saying to yourself: “Painting trucks is expensive! Is it really worth it to put my address on my truck?”

Heck, yeah! You have to drive people (pun intended) to your website. That means putting your URL (short for Uniform Resource Locator, a.k.a. Web Site Address) on everything you use to market your site. Trucks, business cards, television commercials, t-shirts, pens, Yellow Pages Ads, frisbees, radio spots, exterior signage… anything you have the name of your company on, your URL shouldn’t be far behind.

Having all of these wonderful marketing materials including your website is only as good as the exposure they generate for your company. And when it comes to marketing your website, putting your address on everything is as important as creating your company brand.

You never know when you’re going to be stuck in the drive-thru, or waiting for a train downtown and find yourself staring at someone’s website address on the back of someone’s minivan.

I can’t tell you the walk-in business we’ve gotten, just because of the signage on the windows here at “Command Central.”

And with these new Vinyl Decals that are all the rage, putting your web address on your car is not nearly as expensive as you think. And it’s even less to add it to your business card or radio/TV commercials, notepads, etc.

Even Coca-Cola has its web address on every can of pop – check it out for yourself, it’s at the bottom of the nutrition information. Do they know something you don’t? Yes, they do! As many psychological studies have found, it’s much easier to remember meaningful words than sequences of numbers. And if you want to give people a way to: find out more about you, order a product, request service, or give feedback, a web address is much easier to remember, especially when it’s related to your brand.

So, let’s recap. Two of the most important aspects of a marketing campaign are:

• Paint a picture in the mind of your prospective customer by using consistent color themes, styles, logos, and messages on all marketing materials.

• Put your web address everywhere so people can see your name.

Branding works for every business, large, medium, or small. It will work for you too!