Can Your Brand Grow With Your Goals?
You may think that branding is a one-time investment of effort in your business, while your business’s growth is constant work in progress. I don’t blame you for having that opinion. Branding components like your colour palette, logo, fonts, and strategy are silent employees in your business’ operations. So silent, that you often forget what they’re doing for you long after they’ve been created.
The visuals of your brand (logo, fonts, colours) are creating a mood that your customers are reminded of every time they look at or even think of your business. All of that stems from the strategy (positioning statement, competitor analysis, tone of voice, and more) you put in place. You can’t watch a Nike ad and not feel motivated or at least think about the last time you exercised. Every business, no matter how big or small, tickles up some emotion in their ideal customers through its visual branding crafted strategically.
So when it comes to building your very own brand for your business, should you create it yourself? Yes and no. Branding is a building block of your business, but it’s not the only one.You need to perfect the product or service before giving it a brand strategy and identity. I recognize the reasons behind why you may need to create the brand yourself or hire an expert. You could choose the most suitable colours, shapes and fonts but all that means nothing they are not centred around your brand’s tone of voice and strategy.
DIY-ing your logo
It’s easy to think that if your ideas are the heart and soul of the brand, you must be the best person to decide on the logo. Maybe you are. The idea is unique because you are the source of inspiration, but a designer will have the right tools to execute that unique idea with flair. Or maybe you aren’t. And your idea is too playful for your ideal client who resonates with clean and crisp lines. You can always look to places like Pinterest and many other sites for inspiration, watch a couple of Youtube videos on creating logos, and read up on colour psychology to ensure your ideas meet a common ground with branding basics. But always remember sometimes just because you like your logo, doesn’t mean that it works for your brand. It is crucial to always keep your ideal client in mind.
DIY-ing your colour palette
When deciding the colours that represent your brand, you will be sorely tempted to pick your favourite colour, followed by your second favourite colour, and maybe bring in your third favourite colour… you get the idea. As mentioned earlier, there is a whole arena of colour psychology and designers rely on this science behind their art. Certain industries use specific colours to denote a mood. How will you pick your brand colours? Also, designers don’t just use the basic colours that are easily recognizable, they look at tones, tints, and shades. What you label as ‘blue’ may actually be cerulean to the trained eye. (Anyone else love that scene from The Devil Wears Prada?)
DIY-ing your website
There are so many DIY-website builders being advertised out there, and yes, some are quite easy to use. However, customers who land on your website form their impression of it in a fraction of a second. Still want to build that website yourself? If your answer is still yes, I get it, hiring a professional web designer can be a huge investment if you’re just starting out. My advice is to keep it minimal, you can always build on something minimal later down the line when you have the resources to hire a professional web designer.
Whichever choice you make, be it DIY-ing your brand or getting professional help with it, you have to ask yourself, ‘Can my brand grow with the business?’ Business growth can mean many things to different entrepreneurs, it may be more clients, more stores, more e-commerce offerings. But what does it mean for your brand to grow alongside your business? You’re probably thinking colour palette, logo, and fonts are static things, why do they have to ‘grow’? Let’s look at the spectrum of scalability, from the little things to the big things.
The Little Things
Suppose you’ve created your logo yourself, it meets the legal requirements (did you know DIY design software like Canva has certain restrictions?) and looks amazing on your website. You’ve gotten attached to it, your customers remark on how memorable the logo is, and it has truly become the face of your business. Now you’ve got the chance to promote your business at a fair, you need to print business cards and a 6-foot tall standee for a fair. You look at the final result and in one glance, you can see that the colours don’t match from online to offline prints, or your logo is pixelated.
If you haven’t created a vector-based logo, there is a high chance that you can’t print the logo without losing out on its quality. So what does this mean for you now? You may have to change the logo, which means undoing the reputation your brand has built, and renewed marketing efforts to remind your customers that your business has a new look.
You could also hire professional design help to replicate the logo, which you could have done in the first place.
The Big Things
Imagine your business is centred around a product or a range of products. You’ve gone from asking customers to DM you on social media for orders to now being able to host a website. With a choice of so many DIY website builders out there, and your somewhat admirable tech-savvy knowledge, you’ve managed to put together a sleek-looking website. But when it comes to certain functionalities, you’re a little stumped. Can you fix the clunky website appearance on a mobile phone, so it doesn’t lose the essence of your brand? Even if you’ve got a good eye that can be a good judge of what looks good on the website, can you ensure the consumer journey through your website is smooth? Is the checkout page secure enough to protect your customer’s privacy when they enter their card details to buy your product? Does the fine print on your website protect you and your business from any cybersecurity breakdowns? These demands might require a designer with a coding background to ensure a seamless experience on the website. Without a deep-rooted technology grounding, DIY-ing a website can go from easy-to-create to confusing-to-solve real fast.
When building your brand, get help whether it’s hiring a professional or consulting one. The time you invest into building the brand at this stage will pay off in the long run. If you are a DIY-er, I offer brand and website audits! Get in touch with me to audit your brand and website to the next DIY level.
