The Importance of Visual Elements in Your Branding Strategy

If you are a startup or a business looking to build its brand, developing your story, personality, vision and mission, you need to ensure that you include a strategy for visual components as well. You may have a great business but without visuals, you may not be able to capture your audience’s attention and build brand recognition. By including visuals in your overall business strategy, you will aid your brand’s success on a long run. There is no denying the fact the marketing world today is becoming increasingly visual so not adapting your strategy accordingly is not an option.

The Importance of Visual Brand Identity

Brand identity involves all the components that together represent your brand perception, and your visual identity includes all the visual components. Times have changed and the way you present yourself visually is more than just design and colors. Consistent brands with visual identity are more effective in engaging with their audience as it is the exact reflection of your company. This means that you need to put in time and research to make sure that you present your brand accurately, effectively and positively. This begins with knowing your audience. If you do not know who you are trying to attract, then your branding, marketing and operational strategy will not matter. Visual aspects of your brand are not for you but for your consumers, so they should be based on what they want or would like to see.

The following are some of the things you need to consider for creating a strong visual brand identity;

1. Get Your Logo Design Right

There are chances that you will go through many design iterations of this but it will be worth the effort. Your logo design will be stamped on everything involving your business including your website, stationery, packaging, letterhead and products as well. This makes it one of the most important visual aspects of your branding strategy so ensure that your personality should shine through. Think of all the brands you see around you and how instantly you recognize them. Your logo design should not be any different. Furthermore, try to get your logo professionally designed. This will not only save time, but will also ensure that your Logo Design is according to modern standards.

2. Create a Consistent Color Palette

If you look at established brands, they all use consistent color palettes which their audience remember. These multi-national brands are consistent with their colors throughout their images, designs and texts. So, you should choose a handful of colors and apply them in all your aspects. The colors you choose should reflect your brand strategy. For example, if you run an environmental consultancy, green is the color to go with.

3. Select a Font that Matches your Brand Personality

After your color palette, you need to be careful of the font you use as it can speak a lot about the type of business you are in. For example, if you run a friendly, light-hearted business targeting children such as Chucky E. Cheese, then you might want to lean towards Comic Sans and nothing to bold or serious. The font should match your business personality as well as your audience’s perception of you.

4. Choose Images that Target Your Audience and Reflect Your Brand

If you look online, you would see many irrelevant images on websites and social media pages that are not related to the business whatsoever. This not only confuses your audience but may also mislead them. This is why you should have images that tie back to your brand and speak to your ideal customers.

5. Visual Inspiration and Emotional Influence

The more of an emotional connection you can make with your target audience, the more likely they will purchase from you. Businesses should know what they want their audience to feel when they come across their brand and visuals can quickly tell customers whether your brand is a good fit for them faster than words.

Test Your Initial Concepts

Marketing is said to be a trial and error process. When it comes to visual branding, you should test and optimize the elements until you get where you want to be in terms of meeting your ideal customers’ need. With all aspects of marketing, strategy should be put on top priority as it is the backbone of everything that you do. If you can get your branding strategy in place, creating the visual elements will be much easier.