You started your business almost a decade ago as a solopreneur. You worked tirelessly to establish your amazing reputation, both with your clients and your peers. I can’t image how many long hours you logged taking care of your clients and managing the day-to-day of running a business.
Today, you have a bustling storefront that also serves as the heart of your tribe.People come to you for training, guidance, and advice on top of your services. Your name automatically rolls off the tongue when someone asks any of your many loyal clients where they can find what you offer.
What more could you possibly need? Business is booming, your partners are more than happy, and your clients are doing all the advertising for you. You are not only respected, but also genuinely loved in your community. You can’t see anything but growth in your future. What could full-service branding do for you at this point? Here are five ways investing in your branding can help thriving businesses:
1. Rediscover your brand clarity
You did a lot of brand discovery work up front when you started your business and it really paid off. It got you started on the right path and helped you reach the people you wanted to serve. But your business has grown a lot. Chances are your original values, ideal clients, peers, and goals have changed at least a little bit. Your entire mission and purpose may have evolved as you added people to your team and expanded your offerings.
Brands are evolving things. Even if you had a crystal clear understanding of your brand 10 years ago, it doesn’t hurt to take some time to reevaluate things. Growing businesses need brand clarity to make sure they’re still headed in the right direction, talking to the right people, and communicating the right message.
Moving forward without clarity means you put your hard-earned brand reputation at risk.Having brand clarity helps you take care of the brand you’ve build and allows you to make mindful decisions about how you continue to grow your business.
2. Align your visual presentation with your awesome brand
If you’ve never invested in your visual identity, you might be sending out mixed signals. On one hand, people know you to be an established trustworthy awesome business. On the other hand, your outdated website, mismatched flyers, and inconsistent packaging scream “inexperienced!”
It’s not that you can’t have a successful business without a good visual identity. But you’ve worked so hard to build an amazing brand. Shouldn’t your visual identity showcase and support that? What if your logo, business card, website, packaging – all your marketing materials – were working together to show everyone just how much you’re worth their while? How much more could you accomplish?
3. Create a cohesive experience for your clients
Your clients feel like family when they walk into your office. They love talking to you and feel safe enough to open up about their needs and struggles. They come back again and again and love to share your business with their friends. You’re obviously rocking the customer service part of your business!
But your clients’ experience and impression of your business isn’t limited to your face-to-face interactions. Your brand is also being built with every Facebook post, newsletter, postcard, and flyer they see from you. You’re making an impression whenever they read a blog post or reach for that hand-made product they picked up at your store. All of those experiences are an opportunity to reinforce your brand and make an impression.
Investing in your branding will help you make sure every interaction someone has with your brand is consistent with your values and mission.
4. Save you time and money by taking the guesswork out of marketing
You have an event coming up and you know you need to start promoting it now. But you feel overwhelmed by the 2,465 tiny decisions you have to make. Should you make a flyer, brochure, or postcard? What color should it be? What fonts should you use? Should it have photos or illustrations? What should they look like? You already have so much on your plate that thinking about marketing only adds to the pressure.
Investing in your visual identity means you can avoid all that. Having a defined brand style in place, you’ll never have to wonder what the right color or fonts are. You won’t have to waste valuable time trying to find just the right photo or endlessly messing around with color schemes. Instead, you’ll have your very own custom design standards to guide you and speed up the process. And you’ll always be confident in knowing that your marketing pieces fit with and support your brand.
5. Bring you joy and pride
A mismatched thrown-together DIY visual identity can easily turn into a big point of frustration. Even if your business is thriving and things are going really well for you, the fact that your graphics are all over the place and don’t work together can start to weigh on you. It can be a tiny little gnawing in the back of your mind or a huge feeling of embarrassment when you give out your website
A good visual identity brings you pride and confidence. It makes the wonderful work you’ve put into your business tangible and visible. It puts your amazing offerings and caring service in the spotlight. It shows that you’ve been in business for a while, that you’re worth trusting, that the beautiful things your clients say about you are true – all before you even say hello.
Branding and visual identity design isn’t just for new businesses. Established and thriving businesses have so much to gain too! Even if you already have recognition and tons of attention, it’s not too late to discover and define your brand. And it’s definitely never too late to put some work into establishing a visual identity that reflects and maximizes on the brand you’ve worked so hard to build.