Your Essentials Guide: Branding Through Designing

When it comes to top marketing priorities, maximizing ROI and increasing revenue, design plays a pivotal role. Not only does design help attract attention towards your marketing, it also enhances the quality of your message.
Age-old marketing trends are simply not performing as they should. So, the only way you can make the shift to top-of-the-mind recall or better output to your marketing efforts is through building a stronger brand identity.

But how?

Humans are visual beings. More than half the human brain is devoted to processing visual information. We can remember more than 2000 pictures with at least 90% accuracy in recognition tests. Visual stimulations can be used to elicit certain memories and emotions.
Isn’t this reason enough for you to perfect how your brand is perceived by your customers?
Building the right visual identity through designing is supremely important but it isn’t such a difficult task. It sounds less daunting when you break it down into its absolute essentials.

Here are the essentials you need before you get on with designing

1. Defining the Target Audience 

Here’s a hint before we dig in: Your target audience is not “everyone.”
Understand and identify your particular niche before you define your target audience so that you can dominate the space. As your know-how of customer insight deepens, you’ll start to experience higher conversion rates and improved ROI—key metrics that matter to all marketers and marketing bosses. A target market is the specific group of people you want to reach with your marketing message. They are more likely to buy your offerings and tend to return for more, and they are united by some common characteristics, like demographics and behaviours. The better you define your target group, the more you understand what appeals to them, what your visual competition is and how different their content-consumption pattern is in terms of visual sense as compared to other TGs. Once you have your Target Audience defined, you will have your bullseye laid out for you. Then it is only about shooting the arrow.

2. Defining the Brand Essence

 Your company’s brand essence should be a fundamental strategy for your growth. Your essence is your company’s north star to guide your decisions and it amalgamates concepts like values, mission statements and brand visions to determine what you stand for as a company. Your brand essence is the soul or DNA of your company. If you have clarity on what your business stands for, it’s going to be an easy feat for you to convey the message to your target audience as well.Usually, companies describe their “essence” within a couple of words. You’ve probably heard of Reliance’s “Growth is Life,” or HDFC’s “We Understand Your World.” These words highlight the company’s purpose and let customers know if they’re connecting with the right people. Once you define your brand essence with the heart of your company in mind, it’s much easier to design logos, sites and other creative elements that speak to your audience.

Simply put, the formula for defining your brand essence would be:

Brand Essence = Goals (what you want to do) + What you do (USP) + Your values (how you do what you do)

3. Emotion Mapping

 Emotions play a pivotal role in the human ability to comprehend things, situations and feelings. Positive experiences ignite our curiosity, and negative experiences protect us from repeating oversights. Humans form emotional connections on three levels: the visceral, behavioural, and reflective levels.

A designer must address the human cognitive ability at all levels to evoke appropriate emotions so as to provide a positive experience. A positive experience may include positive emotions (e.g., pleasure, trust) or negative ones (e.g., fear, anxiety), depending on the circumstances. Designs which tap into the user’s emotions are considered to do more than just respond to their stated needs and provide a greater level of user experience.

4. Typography

Individuals perceive your brand through words in various situations – whether they are viewing your TVC, seeing your website or scrolling through your social media channels, it’s an experience for a customer. Typography depicts tone and values that your brand stands for just like colour visually represents a message for your customers. Every type of font has a different meaning and thus will portray a different representation of your brand and what your business is known for. The purpose of having several kinds of font is to have a vastly unique effect or tone. For instance, sans-serif fonts are typically advanced looking. They are usually clear, easy, simple to read on a big scale and perfect for several things these days. However, serifs seem obsolete, look conventional and give an older feeling, but they are considered easy to use for the longer type of content which includes blogs and books.

In a nutshell, your brand identity is your competitive advantage and shows your customers what your business is about and what should they expect. And if you want your brand to be perceived in a positive light, it’s crucial that you nail your brand identity and create designs that accurately portray who you are to your customers. And now that you know how to nail that identity, it’s time to start designing.

Let us help you through your branding ideas. You can write to us on info@podssolutions.com or call us on 9867299977.