Making Your Brand Stand Out Is No Piece Of Cake. Here's Why.

I recently downloaded a fantastic e-book from American inbound marketing giant Hubspot called “Branding in the Inbound Age”. At 76 pages, it’s a fantastic resource for a small business marketer like myself and I’m keen to share some of the content with you along with my key take outs.

Consumers are inundated every day by visual content, both in person and online. Your business is just one of a gajillion results that can be found on the results pages of search engines like Google. Your awesome new shop front signage is just one of hundreds of visual cues seen by over stimulated passers-by each day. And don’t get me started on your Facebook ads… So it’s easy to agree with author Patrick Shea’s comment “making a brand stand out is, needless to say, no piece of cake.” But don’t panic, all is not lost. 

The first step to successful branding in the inbound age is consistency. I’ve always said it… “consistency is the key”. If you’re a small business trying to market yourself, you’ll no doubt have a website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. You might produce YouTube videos, white papers, webinars, ebooks, infographics etc.

Here’s a snapshot of Hubspot’s brand consistency check list from page 20 of “Branding in the Inbound Age”.

Tone and voice – What does your brand sound like? Irreverent, silly, professional or all of the above?

Font – be consistent as much as possible in your visuals. We have no control over the font used by Facebook of course.

Colours – stick with your core colours but have complementary colours to give designers room to be creative but still on brand

Design Elements – use your logo, banner, mascot consistently

Messaging – how do you message your core products and services?

Positioning – what’s your brand’s take on controversial industry issues?

Whatever you have and whatever you do, every piece of marketing content you produce should always project your brand consistently.

Next week we’ll be looking at your core value proposition; what you do, how you do it, who you do it for and what sets you apart from your competitors. Stay tuned!

Author: Jody Sharpe, Branding & Online Marketing Specialist at Sharpe Design Solutions