Why is Branding Important?
Whether you're a small business just starting out, or a company looking to grow and become more well-known, a strong brand is the single most important point of design and advertising that companies overlook. Your brand is your identity and it is the first thing people think of when they hear your name. Without a good brand, your name will inevitably fade into the sea of other generic and unrecognizable companies out there. Below I've listed the 5 most important reasons your brand has to be great.
1. Unique Identity Improves Recognition
The best examples of companies with unique identities would be McDonalds, Nike, Google and Apple. Think about how we instantly recognize the golden arches of McDonalds or the swoosh from Nike. The first part of branding is your logo. The logo is the face of the company and is the single most important graphic. It will be put on almost everything from business cards, invoices, flyers, banners, and any other piece of important information or advertising you can think of.
2. Branding Creates Trust
A professional brand and look creates quite a bit of trust and credibility. People are much more likely to do business with a company that appears to be polished and legitimate. If your company appears to be inconsistent with your branding, people will begin to trust you less.
3. Branding Inspires Employees
Many employees need more than just work to be great at their jobs. They need something to work towards. A strong brand can inspire your employees to rally behind it and work towards making it as great as it can be. When your employees are proud to work at your company, they will work harder to make it even more successful.
4. Strong Branding Supports Advertising
Once you have your logo, you need to focus on advertising. Advertising is a big part of establishing a strong brand. You need to create a definable impression of what your company does through advertising. If you target too small of a demographic, you risk stagnating and not being able to expand into new markets. On the other hand, if you have too broad of a focus, you won't be able to create that definable impression and risk confusing would-be customers.
5. Branding Generates New Customers
This is the real reason you're here, right? I thought so. Word of mouth is still the most powerful form of advertising and in order to make it the most profitable, you need to create a strong brand. This is only possible if you have established yourself with strong branding and a unique identity that your customers won't forget.
Wrapping Up
Successful small and big businesses alike have one thing in common. Strong branding. Without a recognizable, strong brand, companies wouldn't be able to grow as well as they have and wouldn't have ben able to establish themselves as leaders in their industries.
