Do you want to make an impact in your marketplace by maximizing your exposure and relationship with your customers?
Small business often function out of fear of the unknown and prefer to stick with an idea they have seen done for the past 20 years (or is the “norm” in their industry); however in today’s marketplace of increased competition and the ability to view all the options with search, standing out from the crowd is of the utmost importance. Although you might have a website and even a Facebook and Twitter page without proper utilizing these together customers can become confused, causing more harm than benefit.
Visual Identity = Establishing your brand in an over-saturated market
Do you have a set of fonts you use on every company publication?
Do the colors on your website also correspond to your storefront?
Whether you like it or not you have established your identity in some way, Good or Bad. When you chose to skimp on a piece of marketing material and do it in house instead of professionally designed your making a choice about your visual identity.
Establishing a set of fonts, colors, and graphics, although difficult to stick with, is critical to standing out and making a strong visual impact on potential customers. This is why it is crucial to ensure that you have someone on your team who can maintain your visual identity through all materials in your organization.
Below are three steps that can help establish your business, organization or brand.
One way to stand out from the sea of businesses is visually, with a strong logo and web site (Visual Identity) to enhance the customer’s experience, setting your business apart and promote positive reviews and recommendations. Having a website that shows who you are, what you offer, and why you offer it will give the consumer the information they want to know at a fist glance without having to dig through pages of fluff (which probably won’t happen as the majority of viewers don’t make it past the home page).
Secondly growing a relationship with the customer can create a bond that will keep the customer repeatedly coming back. Rather than just posting coupons and deals to promote your products or services to create a professional relationship that calls for response other than purchasing your product. Before you can push a sale onto a potential customer the relationship is crucial to develop otherwise you can push away many potential sales.
Lastly networking with other businesses in your area even your “competition” can help with your visibility as well as sneakily increasing your Google search ranking. Although it might not seem wise to connect with the same businesses your competing with you can gain a lot of useful information by seeing what the competition is doing and how you can potentially build upon that to improve and gain an important edge.
I hope you can see the need to use a logo design, web site design, social media, and marketing to successfully create the visual identity your business needs to stand out from the crowd and make an impact in the marketplace.
