Who Needs Branding?

A lot of people believe that branding is something that you only need to do if you are a big company or if you want to start a big company. This is wrong and I am here to tell you why.

The landscape of businesses is changing. Big megacorporations seem to be going out of fashion as businesses are becoming more agile, nimble and flexible. Anyone can have their audience now, but what does this mean for the modern-day marketer? What does it mean for modern-day business? This blog will attempt to answer this very question. Who needs branding? Let’s see a simple definition of a brand, A brand is a promise. A promise that a product or service will deliver a certain experience. It’s a promise that you will feel a certain way when you consume the product or service. And when you make a promise to a customer, you had better live up to it. The truth is that every single company no matter if it’s big or small needs to define their brand and so they need branding.

Let’s see if you need branding. Ask yourself these questions and if the answers are several yeses then you need branding.

Do you want to build community?

We believe that every community is built on a foundation of shared values. If you want to build a successful community, you need to make it easy for people to connect. The branding, positioning and marketing help establish a set of common goals and beliefs among your customers, employees, or other key stakeholders.

Do you have a different perspective?

You know that you have a voice, there’s a certain way that you think and philosophies with the world that can be infused into your business. While you may not think that’s important, it can help your business stand out. This is where branding comes. You position yourself for the people who will listen and connect with your thoughts.

Do you want to stand out?

Branding is the tool that helps you define your identity that leads to creating content about your product and company, that makes stand out. Branding/positioning is the process of creating a name, symbol, slogan and/or design for a product or company that are memorable and unique. The goal of branding is to develop a name that customers can identify positively with their products.

Do you have a mission or vision, a purpose greater than money?

Here’s our mission at ADS to create value for our clients, if we couldn’t create the value they were seeking for we won’t take any money. And you can see that we have a greater purpose than money.

Do you have that kind of purpose, mission or vision and if yes. Then branding helps you convey it to your community.

Do your staff need direction

If you are a business owner, it is important you lead your staff in the right direction. A business owner is responsible for providing direction to their team as well as lay down specific guidelines that are relevant and essential to the success of your business. It’s important that you ensure your team understands your vision and is clear about the direction you want the business to take. For you to do this, you need to set up effective communication channels, clarity of thoughts. All these can be done with branding.

We hope this blog has helped you understand the concept of branding. Now that you have a better understanding of the importance of branding, we hope you can use this information to improve your brand and take it to the next level. If you’re interested in seeing what we can do for you, contact us today. We look forward to hearing from you soon!

How design affects your online sales?

You would have heard the term “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” however the fact is most of the time we tend go by book’s cover(packaging). Why because it’s easy for us to decide, think it like this you don’t know the writer, the content inside the book or anything, so what is left for choosing is the title or the book cover for that instance. In conclusion our initial appearance will decide our last impression. An unattractive package will lead the product to remain in the shelf, because Human eyes don’t read but they scan things, we stuck on the things which feel good. We don’t want to waste our time on the product which doesn’t feel good. The average human consideration span time is really short.

As a business owner or you have to communicate your brand’s vision, message across your audience. When your user encounters your brand through your website, social media, product packaging or anything make sure they feel good towards your brand. It should tell your credibility, reliability, values, the product they can expect etc…

Let’s see how design affects your business and sales –

Proven Stats: Design Sells

Awareness of the value of good design is at an all-time high. Good design is recognized as a major differentiator in ensuring product success in a crowded global market.

—Paul Hatch, Design House and Deana McDonagh, University of Illinois

Here is an interesting analysis of how visuals affected the marketing strategies of online marketers last year: –

  • 75% of opinions on website credibility come from web design.
  • 94% of first impressions relate to your website’s design.
  • 89% of people shop with a competitor after a poor user experience.
  • About 80% of the users will not return to a badly designed web page.
  • About 75% of users make judgments about the company, its values and their credibility based on the web page.
  • 38% of people stop engaging with a website if it’s unattractive.
  • 60% marketers agreed to the fact that visuals played a huge role in creating an impact.
  • Most marketers ended up spending about 10%-20% of their annual budget on visuals.
  • 35% marketers said that they would spend about a third of their annual budget on visuals the following year.

Triggers an emotional response

Humans are primed to associate expressions. For example when you see someone smiling that means he is happy. Just like this we associate colors, shapes, patterns with emotions. which lead us whether we like it or not.

This is the power of design, using right images you can generate an emotional response you want.

Let’s take an example of Mc’donalds, for a starter its logo is yellow and using red as a complementary colour. This is because they want to trigger your craving as we humans unknowingly associate warm colour like red, yellow with food.

good design mcdonalds
Mc’donalds

Reciprocate your time and attention

Basic design preparation activates a positive emotional response which triggers reciprocation of anyone’s time and attention.

I know you are passion about your business but how you are going to make them believe, the answer is through preparation. Preparation is what they see first, for instance scientists at the University of Washington studied that VC’s do like to see passion but preparedness is what most positively influenced funding decisions.

This is not just about pitching it to VC’s because if you are in business you are pitching your product every time your customers encounter your product.

Let’s take an example, which one would you want to give attention –

poor design affects sales
Ugly looking website
good website design
good looking website

I know, you may think why comparing apple’s website with some unknown ugly looking site, but that is not the point I wanted to show you, human eyes can identify quality work.

Helps you stand out from competition

Human beings have an attractiveness bias; we perceive beautiful things as being better, regardless of whether they actually are better. All else being equal, we prefer beautiful things and we believe beautiful things function better. As in nature, function can follow form.

Steven Bradley

Differentiating from competitors can be one of the biggest challenges in business. Design is important tool for this, helps you capture attention, connect with your audience, makes you being ahead of your marketplace. In the word of Norio Ohga, former Chairman and CEO of Sony, “At Sony, we assume all products of our competitors will have basically the same technology, price, performance, and features. Design is the only thing that differentiates one product from another in the marketplace.”

Captures your target audience

It’s like creating for those who are ultimately going to use it. Smart design showcases your products and services in a way that resonates with—and motivates—your target buyers. And also it adds one bonus which is- design creates barrier for those who is not your customer.

You can’t make everyone happy, there is a certain group of people who will fit you with your product or service. First, define your user and then create an environment most suitable for that ideal group of customer. Read more about customer segmentation.

Design helps you showcase your values visually

“Choose the right purpose, people will be attracted, motivated, and unified.”

—Robert Wong, Vice President at Google Creative Lab

Design is that magic element that will communicate your values, mission, vision, who are you and why you do it. Through suitable design you can connect with customers who share same values or would relate with your values.

Let’s assume you are in business with full of competitors, if not than it will not take very long to get crowded with competition, leading you have to differentiate your business from competition. you have to communicate what sets you apart, “why” should they buy from you? What does your brand stand for? What is it about?

Reference links –

How Visual Design Affects Sales and Marketing

Design impacts your business success

Design impacts psychology

How Can Web Design Improve Sales? [+5 Ways to Increase Sales with Web Design]

You Now Have a Shorter Attention Span Than a Goldfish