Here, all of your questions are answered. Well, maybe not *all*! But certainly some!… (And if you have something which I haven’t addressed, please give me a shout!)
The word ‘brand’ seems to be used frequently these days! Many people believe that a brand is simply your logo. However, it is much more than that. A brand is the emotional relationship between an organisation and its audience. ‘It’s the perceived image, as a whole, of a business. It’s what other people say about you when you’re not in the room’ (Jeff Bezos, CEO and Founder of Amazon).
Many elements can contribute to this emotional connection including customer care, tone; message and communication, social media, advertising and PR. Other aspects include intangiables such as values, personality, character and physical identity markers like colours, textures, patterns and typefaces. All of these individual attributes combine to create your brand style.
Having said all that, I truly believe it all starts with your logo! Your logo is, essentially, the face of your business. Most likely, it is the first thing a potential customer will see. It is the foundation upon which your brand identity is built. And, therefore, it must be perfect for you!
Branding is the process of developing this perception of your business.
I use the terms ‘brand design’ and ‘brand styling’ (interchangeably) as an overarching idea which encompasses how your brand is communicated and showcased to your target market.
One aspect is how your logo is used to create and build your brand (remember the emotional connection with your audience?) for example; its use on business cards, marketing materials and website.
Brand styling can also include the photography or artwork used to promote your product or service, how you engage with your followers on social media and how you make your organisation distinctive and recognisable.
With my brand design services, I can help with all of this! I can point you in the right direction of excellent photographers (to do a bespoke shoot or to purchase styled stock photographs from) to speak to your customers through images – perfect for social media, website and selling platforms.
I can also help with how to style your brand through the use of graphic design through physical and digital materials; for business stationery (business cards, headed paper, notecards), marketing materials (flyers, leaflets, brochures and posters) and website artwork, in order to curate your brand and style it exactly as you wish.
As explained above, it’s extremely useful to cultivate and build your brand so it becomes recognisable to your audience. You want a customer to see your logo it invoke feelings of quality, great customer care and attention to detail (or whatever your core values are). This building a relationship will most likely foster trust and loyalty in you and the products or services you are selling.
Nurturing your brand and communicating your message in a consistent way is another method of building this distinction, setting you aside from competitors.
As part of my business service offers, I can help you with the following:
Brand design
Brand stationery (business cards, headed paper, compliment slip/thank you notecards)
Marketing materials (flyers, leaflets, brochures, posters and adverts)
Website design (set up, build, integration and development)
SEO (search engine optimisation) – the use of strategies and techniques used to increase your website’s ranking for specific terms on search engines such as Google.
If you require further information about any of these sevices, please don’t hesitate to contact me – I’d love to hear from you.
Brand design, brand stationery and marketing materials projects can take between seven 14 days and website design projects can take between 14 and 28 days (longer for ecommerce websites).
Before I begin any brand design or website design projects, I will send you a design questionnaire which asks questions about you and your business, in order to obtain information which will help me get a better sense of what you are looking for. Here is your opportunity to really help me!
With brand design logo projects, after I send your design concepts to you (following your questionnaire answers), you have the chance to become involved again, requesting any amendments you’d like to see.
With website design projects, after the questionnaire, I will send three website mock up links to you by email and you will be able to select which you’d like for your own site. Whilst your site will look exactly like the demo site in terms of layout, format and structure, there is great flexibility when it comes to colours, functions and features, so there’s lots of ways for you to really be involved. To read more, please visit: Process | Step Three.
In the unlikely event that you don’t like any work I have undertaken for you, please email me at any point during the process to let me know exactly what you aren’t happy with and we can work together to ensure you are completely satisfied with any artwork or website design.
In order to fully understand the brand design and/or website design process, please visit the step-by-step guide here.
ONLINE PRESENCE
A Facebook business page is no longer enough!
It has now become a prerequisite for every business to have a website. Your customers will expect one – and may be disappointed to find you don’t have one.
Having a website, professionally designed and developed, shows you mean business! It illustrates that you have put the captial, time and effort into collaborating with a designer to create a space on the internet you can be proud to direct your customers to.
YOU CAN CONTROL THE MESSAGE
What’s amazing about your website is the ability to control whatever is said on there! They are your words, your message and you can guide people to believe in your mission statement and core values through imagery, tone and content. And it works all day, all night – even if you take some time off!
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION
Ensuring your website can be read and ranked well by Google
Basically, keywords (words you’d like potential customers to type into a search engine to find your website), are utilised throughout your website to make it super clear to Google what your site is about.
Even with Google’s changing algorithms, keywords still play a major part regarding search engine optimisation. Therefore, I may make suggestions to amend your content (without changing its meaning), incorporating agreed keywords (words you’d like potential customers to type into a search engine to find your website).
SOCIAL MEDIA INTEGRATION
Whilst building your brand through visuals and message, you can also ensure your marketing is consistent and integrated – this can be accomplished by showing your most recent Instagram posts on your website or your latest Tweets. Using the biographies on these social media platforms, you can direct visitors to your website. And then they can see on your website what they’ve just seen on your Instagram account; building repetition and recongition.
You could also use social media to run competitions or giveaways and then put all of the information people need to enter on your website – enabling them to check out the rules – and then go for a wander on the ‘About’ page or, better yet ‘Services’, ‘Shop’ or ‘Contact’!
UNIQUE SELLING POINT
Whilst simply creating a website will make you stand side-by-side with your competitors, we can elevate that status by really communicating your USP well! For example, I love the way my clients become friends. I believe this is something really special that I can bring to the brand design and website design process that not everyone can. And I really want to tell people about it – so I use my website. And we can find what makes you different from your competitors and we can explain it on your website; then it can trickle down onto social media, word of mouth and any marketing or advertising you may do!
BECOME AN AUTHORITY
You can also use your website to create a News or Blog page, where you post stories and information about your company and industry. Showcasing new products, providing insight into legislation which may impact your customers or developments within your field (and so on) can allow you to become an expert in your field.
Using your keywords within your news stories can also improve your SEO by raising your Google ranking.
Fear not! I don’t just launch your website and leave you to it!
There are two ways in which your website can be maintained and worked on. The first is simply to allow me to do it for you! I work at an hourly rate of £30 so if you provide me with a list of changes you would like to see on your website, I will respond promptly with an estimated cost for the work.
Alternatively, for simple edits such as adding, removing and amending pages, blog posts and images, I provide online documentation with screenshots and easy instructions to follow so you can be completely independent and work on your own website as you wish!