Looks, Books, And A Lot Of Hooks! Making Your Business Image Important In Every Way

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A successful business is a lot to do with how we are perceived. If we want to be a better leader, the advice is that we have to practice faking it until we make it; we put this image on of the person that we want to be. It is all about growing into that image. And when we are growing a business, a lot of what makes it transcends boundaries and building up our brand image is always going to be the most valuable commodity. But what can we do when we are looking to build up a proper image? A lot of it has to do with how we look, but it's also about hitting the books and coming up with a lot of marketing hooks! Let's delve deeper.

The Power Of Semiotics

The study of signs and symbols highlights the vitality of any business image. When we start to talk about marketing components like a website, we have to think about those small images that we present to the customer that either inspire them to click or go away completely. We have to remember that web design is all about the layout and the journey. But also, the images we present are going to raise subconscious red flags if we do it wrong. It's important to consult a marketing firm, or a design company like Connective Web Design to go through the imagery. We have to remember that semiotics can provide an entryway into a customer's emotions. Using symbols and signs effectively, through our logo, our website, as well as any promotional material, can ignite a spark in their minds.

Learning To Cultivate Your Leadership Image

Hitting the books is part of what we need to do as we nurture our business. In one respect, we start to learn about how we can lead and figure out our style of leadership through trial and error. But when we start to figure out what we don't have, this is when we have to hit the books. There are so many ways to improve our leadership, by looking at those that we admire but also understanding that it's not about emulating these people.

When we start to improve our processes within the business and understand how to speak to people differently, this doesn't mean the battle is finished. We have to remember that it's an ongoing process that we fine-tune. So many business leaders feel that they don't need to make drastic alterations to who they are because it's their business and they can do what they want! This is a very unhealthy approach to run a business.

The Importance Of Consistency Across Every Channel

From our brand to our leadership, and everything in between, the importance of consistency isn't just relating to our physical appearance, it's our actions and interactions. While there's a lot of talk about in terms of the message, especially from a social media platform to the website, we have to go further to bring this message into the real world. We can do this through training our staff members, ensuring that everything has a specific tone of voice, but also understanding that we aren't above it all! Consistency and the overall image comes from the leader. This means that we've got so much of an influence on the final product, that we had better hold onto it tightly. But this doesn't mean that we should control everything with a vice-like grip. If necessary, go back to your business plan and see if you have gone further away from what you envisioned. From branding to products to employees, consistency is what will make our business image transcend. Keeping everything on tone is vital.

Our image is always important, but how we bring this image to the masses is not about the marketing or the employees; it is about the whole entity. Developing a business is about those smaller components that get everything up and running, but in order to make it successful, it's about making that impression in a customer's mind. The image we present is not just a design, it's the entire package. When we need the looks, we need to hit the books, and we need to have a lot of hooks.

Why Your Brand Guidelines Are So Important

No matter how small your business is, you need people to know it's you. Your branding is key to the identity of your business and will also have a lot to do with its success. The idea of building a brand identity and creating brand guidelines can be daunting, though, but it doesn't need to be. There is plenty of information out there to help you and free tools too. 

Remember that consistency is the backbone of an authentic, trustworthy, and recognizable brand and customer experience, so this means having consistency in the way you look, speak to, and service your customers and target audience. Staying consistent takes effort, and it also means you have to have rules, and this is where you need to write yourself some brand guidelines.

Brand guidelines are a set of rules about how to represent your brand across channels and assets, helping your business build credibility and recognition as you grow. They can include visual guidelines such as logo usage, color palette, typography and they can also cover your company's mission, brand voice, and imagery.

You then need to use your brand guidelines when you are designing brand assets such as your website, invoice templates, brochure, social media accounts, and packaging. Make sure any new employees are aware of them, and of course, any designers you are working with are too. 

You can either create your brand guidelines yourself or outsource them to another company to do it for you. If you're not sure about it, you can search for other company's brand guidelines online as an example. You'll find some great ones and very detailed, but you can use these as a guide and adapt it to your company. This way, you'll make sure you don't miss anything, though, and you'll also learn from someone who has done it and shown that it works. Check these out as good examples:

Walmart Corporate Brand Guidelines cover just about everything you can imagine. It includes direction on the brand's editorial voice and how to use its logo in print, online, on promotional merchandise to name a few. It also covers appropriate fonts and how to use logos, icons, and taglines correctly.

Then there’s the Mozilla Style Guide which is another really useful one to look at. It has an online style guide to help its open source community understand how to use its logos and trademarks for Mozilla, the Firefox browser, and its other products.

It isn’t just about looking pretty, according to a study from The Verde Group and the Wharton School, two-thirds of all shoppers use more than one channel to make purchases so with all the online and offline opportunities to make an impression, it’s about consistency across all channels and touchpoints to make your business branding and identity familiar, pleasing to the eye and recognizable to your customers. 

Keep it simple by focusing on a small number of fundamental brand values; be consistent because every aspect of your business should make customers feel the same way about you. Additionally, communicate your brand. Make sure every advertisement, brochure, and letter helps reinforce the same message. If you have a logo, use it everywhere, but make sure the quality is consistent. 

Remember to be honest. If you don't believe in your brand, no one else will.