Branding can be an allusive process that to be honest most companies overlook the value in. This is mainly because it’s hard to really understand a clear path to branding. Out of all the website marketing options I think it’s the least pragmatic. I mean, you can do a website banner add with a discount or the options that your target audience wants and probably grab some new customers. This is a pretty straight forward compared to branding your company. It’s really hard to see the ROI or even conversions with branding. In fact, it’s even really hard to just track branding. That doesn’t matter though! Allusive or hard to track, branding is very important, and in most cases will have the most value to your website in marketing next to maybe SEO or Design in the long run. With that said here is 5 helpful tips for your website to help your branding efforts.
1. Business Mascots
Even if you go way back to the 50’s, companies have been using mascots to get their branding efforts remembered. I mean remembering a fish in a hat with sunglasses is for more easy and fun when thinking about StarFisk tuna than well a tuna can. The nice thing about business mascots is they are what people see in their thoughts when remembering a brand. This gives the business a great way to set the tone for their image. More examples are Reddit, Mail Chimp, Mozilla, Twitter, Sticker Mule, and of course Web Host Pro‘s Mr. Pro Bot.
2. Keep it consistent
Having a message that changes often will hurt your long term effects on your customer’s ability to remember you. Find the top things your company is good at and focus when presenting your message. If you are an animal saving non profit than focus on the way they are saved, or where they go after being saved, or make a consistent enemy. Just make sure and go over the same message in different ways. This is how you will be remembered better from your branding efforts. It’s saying a name three times to help remember it. Your message needs to be repeated and consistent.
3. Establish a tone
This one can be a little tricky but it’s very helpful. By establishing a tone, I mean a level of seriousness so to speak. See some companies do better with a playful tone and others need a more serious tone. Think of Facebook vs Twitter. Facebook has a serious tone which is why people think they are in a safer environment and submit all their personal information there (they are not at all FTR). Where Twitter is more playful so people don’t take it as seriously. A better example would be a lawyers office vs. a kids dentists office (Pediatric I believe). A lawyer will want to have a “I’m going to stay focused and kick ass tone” where the dentist for kids will want to be fun and comfortable.
4. Find colors and styles that you will repeat
Choose your website colors carefully so you can use them for a long time. You’ll need about 4 or 5. Decide if you want a simple Twitter type vibe or a high tech Amazon vibe. We could get back into the tone for each one but this part is to emphasize on using your colors all over. Including your banners, videos, swag, stickers. These colors are remembers just as much as your logo, mascot, or any other part of your website. Think of yelp for example, you get a image of red. Think of Web Host Pro and you’ll think blue, think of Pinterest and you’ll think red again. Here is a color matching tool I love to use: https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel/
5. Last but not least, splurge on your logo
I know logos are so basic how can you justify spending $200 on it. Web design is only about $500 for the whole site! Well sadly your logo will at last your website. In fact if you get a good logo, it will be around through 5 or 6 versions of your website and then some. Keep the logo simple, don’t rely on colors to define it, and make sure it conveys your company’s tone.
I hope this helps your website and if you have any comments feel free to post below or contact us anytime!