What is a Brand?
With any business, website, blog, charity, school, event whatever you need
a brand. What is a brand? A brand is a uniformed approach to the way you
present yourself and your company/charity. It is something that makes you stand
out from all the other people you’re competing with in this increasingly
competitive world. It gives people subtle clues as to who they are dealing with,
what they can expect, who you are and what you stand for. Good website and
business branding is easy to recognise, eye catching and clear. Normally you
keep the colours you use consistent, maybe picking a dark colour and a light
contrasting colour that work well together. The whole of your branding basically
revolves around these two colours so pick wisely! Personal branding (the way you
dress yourself, style your hair, the way you walk, the way you talk etc is
equally important but not relevant here ;) ).
A brand ~ your shop front
A brand is much more than simply what your website looks like, it is
basically your shop-front which is open twenty-four seven through your website,
through your leafleting, through your staff uniform, your product labels,
everything that your company or charity does contributes to your branding. How
you talk to people, how you engage with them, your company/charity core
values, what quality service you provide all adds to your branding. If you take
a big fast food chain, you don’t expect the same level of service that you would
do if you went for afternoon tea to The Ritz or the Savoy Hotel in London. This
is to do with the branding. The Ritz brands themselves as being good quality,
having high levels of service, nice surroundings, you pay to say you’ve been to
The Ritz for afternoon tea!
In a fast food chain you pay low prices because
you’re expected to eat your burger as quickly as possible, tidy up after
yourself and the only thing that really counts towards service is when they tell
you to have a nice day, and that is only when they remember to do so! But the
branding allows you to realise that you’re not to expect great quality service,
and that if your burger is a) hot, b) cooked through c) edible then they’ve done
their job successfully. Some companies are proud to be cheap(ish) and offer
basic standards. Places like Travelodge and Premier Inn offer a fairly basic but
cheap service, and are happy to tell everyone that this is the case. This is
their unique selling point. They’ve taken everything back to basics and provided
you with whatever you need for a good night’s sleep but at a reasonable cost,
without the extra frills you would expect in a better standard of accommodation.
They’re very clear in the branding that this is what you can expect and attracts
a particular type of customer. (Me!)
Brand Match
Branding also needs to be matched to the person you’re aiming the website
at, so for teenagers and young people bright and informal works well, where as
with older people a more formal but still friendly tone applies. This applies
to both the colour scheme and general look and feel of it to the logos, photos
and language used. It can help to picture who your website is aimed at, (give
the person a name, sex, age, occupation and then imagine you’re talking to that
person.)
Pitch it Just Right
The language used on websites also need to be pitched at the right level,
so if your target market is a university graduate, you would probably phrase
things differently than if you were pitching it to people from set 6 of
Educating Yorkshire.. If you’re doing a serious website with academic papers,
you are naturally going to aim for a more stuffy, serious feel than if you’re
doing a website for your local Youth Club.
Men knit too
Also think about the gender of your audience. Does your branding appeal to
both men and women alike if your target market is mixed genders? Very girly
branding can be off putting to men, in the same way as a manly feel can put off
women! Obviously if you’re writing something aimed at just men or just women,
you can be a little bit more gender biased with your branding and website
design. Ideally both sexes need to feel welcome, remember : men knit too. Women
do mechanics! (not like that, pervert)
Get the brightness right
If your website is very content (text) based, consider having it with a
light or white background with black writing as it can be tiring to the eyes
after a while (if you don’t believe me, go try reading something on a black
background with white text for an hour or two.) White text on on dark
backgrounds works best on Power Point presentations, where as dark text on light
backgrounds works better on websites.
Give it to them straight
Your main page needs to scream ‘this is what we aim to do, this is how
we’re doing it, this is someone who has really benefited from our product
/service, you can trust us!’
Charities / not-for-profits need to prove that they can be trusted, but are
approachable and well informed. Not too scary, or people will be too afraid to
contact people. Their aims and goals should be clearly stated, so that everyone
knows what they’re offering, when/where/how they can access the services, who to
call to discuss any problems and to know that they are in safe hands, that
confidentiality rules are going to be adhered to etc. If you can refer
yourself to a charity or for a particular service, this should be
clearly stated, as often you find that you have to get your GP to refer you or
you have to make an appointment. Nothing worse than finally plucking up courage
to go to someone only to find that you’re not able to refer yourself!
It also really helps if you have plenty of content. People sometimes want
an answer without having to ring up, or read a story of someone who had been in
this particular situation and got through it, but without feeling that they will
be steered towards a particular choice. They need to feel that you’re providing
them with a safe space to come to their own conclusions about what is right for
them, and give them the confidence to believe that whatever decision they came
to is the right one for them.
Companies who offer services/ products still need to have strong ethical
foundations, they too need to prove that they care about you the customer and
that they know that you will deliver good quality value for money products in a
reasonable time scale.
If you’re selling something make sure it is obvious from the main page what
it is that you’re selling and why we should buy from you, rather than heading
down to the local supermarket where chances are they’ll be able to find a
similar object. What makes your product special? What special features does it
have? Is it handmade, does it solve a particular problem? What reassurances can
we give you to make you understand that we can be trusted, and that it is ‘safe’
to shop with you?
Shout your good points from the roof tops
If you have specific qualities like your products are hand made, made from
good quality materials, have eye catching or designer properties, solve a
particularly tricky problem then highlight it. Don’t
hide the fact that you're selling good quality, hand made, eye catching,
problem solving products ! Shout it from the roof tops. Also state why we can
trust you. We know we can trust big companies because they have specific
policies in place, but how do we know we can trust you? We get the impression we
can trust you if you tell us you’ve had this person telling you how much
difference you’ve already made, if your website has correct spellings and the
text on it is meaningful.
Testimonials are vital. If anyone tells you you do something well or you’ve
really gone the extra mile and they’ve told you you have, get their permission
and sing it from the roof tops. Put it on a testimonials bit on your website,
preferably the main page.
Look at your website/business from the outside. Imagine that you had only
just found your company/charity (as a customer/client). What kinds of things are
you likely to want to ask? Write a list and then answer each question on your
website. When you look at your main page, what do you see? What kinds of subtle
information do you glean from your text, images, logos etc? I find I wouldn’t
trust a site with a high number of spelling mistakes, or where vital images are
missing. Worse when you have links to pages that go nowhere, or go nowhere
useful. My personal bugbear are pages that read ‘under construction’. If it’s
not ready for people to look at it, don’t publish it!
What do you do that will make a difference to me?
<<<<THIS IS THE KEY QUESTION>>>>>> (Offer a
listening ear, a space away from problems, a time saving device, a heap of money
saving or time saving tips, an item that will brighten my day, something that
will last twice as long as the cheap alternative from the supermarket etc?) It
needs to be clear what you can do to make a difference to me that makes it
worthwhile me bothering to get out of my pyjamas, off the sofa, and to your
office/shop/stall and to fight the moths coming out of my wallet and actually
buy something from you, or take you up on some service you’re offering.
Have a useful strap line. This is a simple sentence that summarises what
you’re doing, is a bit catchy and gives the reader some idea what you’re doing
and entices them to buy/come to you. If it’s vague there really isn’t any point
having it. Say you were selling cookies, (no not the mini word document, the
edible kind) You might say something like ‘ Home made all butter chocolate chip
cookies just like Granny used to make’ This works well, and entices you to buy
(mouth watering now? Thought so).
Having a good, easy to use layout is vital, people should be able to find
the information they need easily without having to dig down to the bottom level
of the navigation system simply to find out your telephone number and when
you’re open for business. It helps getting someone who has no idea about your
particular organization to take a look through and find out relevant information
(you can ask them to look for specific things and see how quickly they find it.
It is useful to repeat this a number of times with different people, as some
people are more internet savvy than others. What appears obvious to you, might
not be to anyone else! Also ask someone who DOES know about whatever your
organization or company does for feedback, you might have missed something that
they can think of.
Use Social Media Right
If you use social media, (Like Facebook or Twitter) this is a great way of
keeping in contact with clients and customers and attracting new clients and
customers by word of erm click... But make sure that you keep your branding in
line with your website, and keep the things you post relevant to your products
and services. Don’t allow any automatic news feeds to fill your feed up on a
daily basis with rubbish. This can have a negative effect on your branding and
your business. Use social media for telling people about the services you offer,
the products you have just got in, any special offers or promotions you might
have, or something you’re particularly proud of, or something good someone said.
Or teach the people something, like how to do something, or offer a snippet of
advice or information.
Make life as easy as possible for your clients/customers. They don’t have
time to dig for anything, they get easily bored so give them something to do
(something to click on to get to where they want to be is a good idea). Make it
possible to browse all your products in a category in one click if possible, so
that they can see what you’re offering. If something is a specific size, state
it clearly, so you’re not having to look somewhere else to find out what it is.
If they can buy something make it as easy as possible for them to buy it. State
your package and postage prices clearly so that there are no hidden surprises
for people at the end.
Always give more value than they’re expecting and see the products and
services you offer as adding value to your clients/ customers lives.
Good luck.
