When you’re putting a business together, you have to balance a lot of different priorities. One of the most important things is the logistical chain that connects you and your products to your clients and customers: do you have the warehouse space to store your products? The right number of professionals for the business you need to do to make a success? Do you have couriers in place to transfer stock from your warehouse to your stores or direct to customers?
It’s a huge challenge getting all of these in place, and making sure you’re still turning a profit, but you can’t stop planning there. You need to think about how you can present your business to customers to make it as attractive as possible. Unfortunately, efficient service and a good value price point aren’t enough: customers need to be able to find you and learn about your service in order to choose you. And that requires branding. Your company needs an identity, broadcast far and wide so customers know you’re the right choice for them.
Doing this effectively requires research: good branding is far more than a logo. It’s affected by where customers see products, adverts and reviews, the experience they have when they call you or walk into your store and the design for your website. It makes sense to work with an experienced branding agency to get the research you need to make the right decisions to create a brand that will work for your business and to put them into action in the most effective, efficient way.
One of the most important things you can do is make sure all your branding is pulling the same direction. It’s far easier for customers to make a decision to choose you when the story your branding is telling is consistent. If half your branding is promoting you as a luxury brand, emphasising your high quality and unique design, while the office half doesn’t acknowledge that and instead talks about value, savings and utility, the two campaigns cancel each other out! Customers have no way to judge which strand of the brand is correct: customers looking for luxury will be turned away by ‘everyday value’ messaging and those interested in the utility of the product will be confused by its supposed exclusivity. That’s not to say there’s no way to promote your products as high quality and good value, but that has to be embodied by all your branding from the off, rather than having separate messages warring with each other.