Graphic Designers help you with your ‘visual branding’, you know, your logo design, marketing collateral such as brochures POS and the like, websites, the things that make you look good.
Designers wrangle your visual communications into a coherent and easy understand visual message.
BUT, yep there is a but, if your other business brand strategies aren’t in place, no amount of glam glitz or glamour will help you keep a healthy client base coming back for more (see example below).
Other Business Branding?
It’s about developing and continuously adjusting:
- quality customer service policies
- business systems and procedures
- communication policies (offline and online)
- customer touchpoints
- knowing how people interact with your business – how your staff speak to customers (in-store, phone and email), see below for a bad customer experience etc.
Marketers, Public Relations, Business and Social Media specialists (and sometimes designers depending on their speciality) can help with your business branding strategies. Still, I like to think it is all a matter of common sense.
A personal example of a bad customer experience.
I’ve recently delved into the realms of kitchen mastery, well at least trying a few new recipes. One particular recipe was full of unknown wholesome products.
I went on the hunt for ingredients, so logically, the creative person that I am, I ventured into a well-polished visually branded store. The logo design was fantastic, lovely website, signage, etc., the kind of account every designer would love.
I had a great sense of optimism, feeling fresh and ready to embark on my wholesome cooking adventure. A while later … after trying to locate various ingredients and feeling a tad overwhelmed, I tried to seek help. I finally got the attention of a shop assistant, then was quickly rebuffed with a wave of the hand and a grunting of “somewhere over there”.
Gah, really, I gave up and walked out.
On my way home I thought I’d swing by another store selling the same products, the store not so well visually branded, the kinda store a designer thinks “yeah I could improve that”.
Within 5 minutes (I kid you not) I had all my ingredients and signed up for a loyalty card.
Why and how? A good understanding of customer service and I’m betting some simple but effective established business strategies!