Giving Your Brand The Right Feel

It’s one thing for branding to look good but it also needs to convey a certain something. That feeling you want people to feel when they see your brand or use your product or service. The feel of your brand can make or break first impressions and leave lasting ones. It can also help bring in clients when they would otherwise just pass you by. So how do you convey this feeling?

First it’s important to remember that there is a lot more to branding than just images. There is a strategy behind them, mostly based around your target market. This strategy looks at who your target market is, what kind of personality they are and what they are looking for in a product or service. Your brand should be built around these factors of course but it should run deeper than that. You need to look at what triggers their emotional impulses, those impulses that tell them to buy something on a whim. This will often be due to a feeling they get from your brand and how it makes them feel at first glance.

A common example is that of fast food chains. You will notice a lot (pretty much all) of these chains use red in their branding. Think about it; McDonalds, Hungry Jacks, KFC, Red Rooster - They all have red in their branding. That’s because red is known to trigger peoples appetites. So when you see these common brands, more often than not it makes you hungry. The feeling these brands give off is important to them when bringing in walk by (or drive by) traffic. Think of colour for your branding and the feeling you want to portray. Want to look warm and inviting? Maybe orange is your colour. Want to show you care about health and well-being? Green might be the way to go. But colour is only the start.

How you come across also depends a lot on your tone of voice and overall personality. Say you’ve gone the warm and inviting approach and chosen orange for your branding. You need a tone of voice and personality to your web presence to match that. So when it comes to your web content, you want it to have that human touch, show people you care and throw in a bit of humour. Alternatively, if you are running a B2B business and want to come across as corporate and professional, your tone would be a little more serious. You do what you do and you do it well. Think of the kind of client you want to attract and direct the tone of your message towards them.

So you’ve got them in the door, GREAT, but the work doesn’t end there. You want to keep that feeling running during and even after you’ve done business. This comes down to the most important element of all; customer service. I mentioned make or break before and it’s here where it is more relevant than ever. You might give off a warm, inviting tone but if you act cold to your customers, that feeling will break like a pane of glass off a high-rise. You want to keep that feeling of warmth going, talk to your customers like you would a friend. Ask them about their day, take an interest in what they say. Even if you are acting corporate and professional, take an interest in their business, tell them how you can help and address the sore points of that business. 

So look at your market, what is their personality? How can you draw them in? How can you evoke a feeling from them and how do you keep that feeling going through the whole business process? Combine this with great imagery and you have the recipe for a great brand.