Find Your Signature Brand Style to Stand Out From the Pack

You can’t start a business without tackling branding. A cohesive signature brand style will create a strong perception of what your business is at its core. It’s something that you will be able to use in every aspect of your online presence. Even without your name attached, someone should be able to recognize a piece of visual content as yours. This goes a long way in turning that person into a loyal customer. Think about what you can do to make your business more memorable.

Consider Your Audience and Values

When you have a diverse audience, your marketing efforts are diluted. The tone of your signature brand style needs to speak to your ideal customer, as opposed to everyone who could possibly benefit from your products or services. Not being able to connect with them is arguably the biggest mistake your business could make. You have to know what is going to best resonate with your ideal customer. Otherwise, if your personality doesn’t mesh well with theirs, they won’t think your offerings are really the answer to their problems. With that in mind, you have to clearly define your target audience before all else. Once you have, it will be so much easier to determine where and how you should market your business. Then you can make a lasting impression in a positive way.

Look at What Your Competition is Doing

Competitive analysis is important at every stage of your business strategy. It helps you see what is and isn’t working within your niche. To make your analysis useful, you have to choose the right competitors to analyze. Direct competitors are businesses that are targeting your same audience, with similar products or services. Indirect competitors, on the other hand, are either targeting the same audience with a different offering or a different audience with a similar offering. In both cases, look at their branding strategies. As you size up your competitors, you are empowering your knowledge of the industry. Note that you don’t want to copy what your competitors are doing, though. Instead, you should draw inspiration so that you can weave certain ideas into your own signature brand style.

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Determine a Color Palette and Fonts

Your signature brand style has to consist of elements that are simultaneously attractive and readable. Look at combinations that work together instead of clash. And make sure that they appropriately convey your brand’s purpose. Of course, this can be a challenge considering there are thousands of color variations and fonts to choose from. But you’ll know what the right fit is when you see them in conversation. When you have a good brand identity, your business benefits from what is known as the halo effect. This is the favoritism that a consumer has toward a product line on account of their positive experience with other products made by a particular business. Brand strength equals brand loyalty.

Create a Logo that Fits Your Personality

A logo is an organization’s specific symbol or design that can be found on its website, social media channels, and products. It should be built during the positioning and creation phase of your signature brand style. The main point of a logo is to act as an identifier of your brand. It could be something really obvious or something that only people who know you would understand. Something highly modern and professional or something colorful and comedic. Letters or cartoons. Whatever the case may be, your logo should be simple. You want to communicate who you are and what you value as a brand, and you can’t do that if there’s a lot of clutter in the design.

Stay Consistent and Recognizable

Everyone on your team should be clear about the guidelines of your signature brand style. It has to be present across your business’s content marketing strategy, whether it’s in the messaging or the multimedia. That’s why your business should make a brand style guide. This is the rulebook that details how your brand is going to be presented to the world. It protects the application of your brand identity by encouraging creative consistency in what it looks, feels, and sounds like. With brand building being an ongoing process, you need to make a significant impact on your customers with every product you release. That way, regardless of which touchpoint you meet them at, they always remember you.

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Examples of Great Signature Brand Styles

The reason why some companies have been succeeding for decades with no signs of stopping is that they have branding that simply cannot be replicated. Next time you are out driving, make note of how many iconic signature brand styles you come across. Here are three companies with notable visual identities.

Apple

Name a more on-the-nose logo than Apple’s apple. This simple fruit with a clean bite taken out of it can be found on the back of all of the company’s products. But it isn’t just the apple that makes this company’s signature brand style stand out. As a technology company specializing in consumer electronics, Apple pushes the boundary between present and future. In their commercial for the iPhone 13 and 13 Pro, Apple really plays into this innovative image. While they could have just placed their product against the black background and explained the phone’s features, they took a different route entirely. With colorful, dramatic graphics, they emphasize having a creative vision.

GEICO

When I say “that one gecko that sells insurance,” do you know who I’m talking about? Odds are, you are familiar with GEICO’s marketing that centers on Martin, the company’s animated mascot. Since Martin’s introduction in 1999, he has become an integral addition to the company’s signature brand style. You can even find him front and center on the homepage of the site! But commercials are where Martin’s personality gets to shine through. GEICO has one commercial, in particular, that is entitled “The Gecko Eats a Burrito.” In it, Martin is discussing insurance in a casual atmosphere with two people as they eat Mexican food. The bit is centered around comedy, much like in the rest of the company’s commercials.

Target

Known for its bullseye, Target is all about its red and white color scheme. Its English Bull Terrier, aptly named Bullseye, even features the design on his face. As you enter Target’s “The Holidays are Meant to Be Shared” commercial, their logo is the first thing you see. It brings this visual back at the very end to come full circle. However, the actual content of the commercial revolves around the people who Target aims to provide for. And the holidays are the perfect time to emphasize family and once-a-year products. By spanning the video across various cultural traditions, Target promotes itself as a store that values the business of people from all walks of life. Their YouTube channel is actually full of personal, celebratory customer stories.

Your signature brand style needs to be built on an idea that you can commit to. Whether you are the CEO of your company, the social media manager, or a writing intern, you should be incorporating branding into everything you do. Want to ensure that this is the case? Get in touch with the WEBii team for all of your web design and content needs. We will work with you to create something that effectively showcases your purpose, values, and strategy.