Branding is such an important part of successful business management. With successful branding, you can create a relationship with your customers. Think about the big brands you know. For many, a simple logo is enough to know who the company is, what they do, and even how you feel about them. A brand you loved as a child can capitalize on that and work towards making you feel nostalgic, for example.
It does take a long time to build up such brand notoriety, but there are plenty of things that you can do right now to improve your branding and consequently your marketing all at once.
1. Redesign Your Logo and Marketing Materials
If your logo is busy, unmemorable, ugly, big, or too plain, it’s time to change it. You need to invest in professional design skills so that your logo can be clever, copied over into many different formats, and ideally be remembered on the spot. It’s the best way to draw your company together under a single image.
2. Create Fun Cards People Will Want to Take Home
Business cards, information cards, newsletters, even receipts, all of these can be improved with design. By making the items beautiful, people will want to take one just because it’s like bringing home a little painting. You want them to look at it a few times before they finally get around to getting rid of it, and hopefully, by that time, they will have remembered your brand enough to turn to you when they need what you sell.
3. Create Beautiful Packaging
For stores that sell their own products, the packaging is key. Beautiful and thoughtful packaging can really improve the user experience of opening an item, and when done right, can even be worthy of being put on social media.
4. Create Merchandise that Sells
You can sell merchandise for any brand. It can be a great way to add a new revenue stream to your business.
T-Shirts
A well designed graphic t-shirt can be a cult hit if designed correctly. It means more than just putting your logo on the front of a t-shirt. If necessary, hire a design professional to create a screen print that is thoughtful, beautiful, and cool. That way, people will want to wear your shirts just because they like the look of it, and in turn, you get extra income and free marketing.
Tote Bags
Tote bags are another great way to market your product, especially if you design them to be eco-friendly. Instead of cotton, use hemp-based bags, for example, and make them large and sturdy enough to be used again and again by your customers. You can absorb the cost by putting the price of products up a little higher so that customers can feel like they are getting a gift with every purchase.
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Key Chains
Key chains and other bobbles are other great merchandise products you can sell. Try not to fixate too much on a logo or your company name, and instead choose branding that reflects who you are or what you do, so that people will be willing to buy it and will think of your brand whenever they see it.
5. Make Your Store Insta-Worthy
Every store can be worthy of a great photograph if you put effort into it. This applies to boutiques as much as it does hardware stores. Just put effort into how products are placed, keep the place clean, and consider a paint job or adding custom features. A hardware store could invest in wooden shelves or in a garden wall that looks great and showcases your tools.
6. Get Your Employees on Board
You don’t need to force your employees to put a company sticker onto their vehicles, but there are other fun ways to make everyone feel like they are a part of something. If you run a veterinarian clinic or a kennel, for example, you can get them all animal lovers license plate frames. These custom license plate frames are fun, light-hearted, and when everyone on your staff has them shows a uniformity that can help showcase how strong your brand is to customers.
There are so many great ways that you can use branding to reinforce your brand, message, and logo. These easy marketing ideas can even help you boost profits and revenue streams. The secret to their success, of course, is that they absolutely must be well designed. Don’t skimp out on the design process and hire a quality designer to create a logo and affiliated branding content for you to use. The extra it will cost upfront will be paid back significantly later on.