Are you running a small online business and wondering how to stand out from the crowd?
It’s understandable. There are almost 1.95 billion websites on the Internet! With that much competition, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle.
How do you make your company memorable in this sea of websites? You need to have a strong, clear brand that tells people who your company is and what you do. You need to have a brand identity.
It’s not difficult to accomplish. By putting a few simple tools into your branding toolkit, you can create an effective, professional brand strategy.
What Is A Brand Strategy Toolkit?
With just a few core elements, you can strengthen and reinforce your company’s brand across all of your marketing materials. Having a consistent style and tone in all of your visual and written communication will make your company recognizable and memorable.
Everything from your small business website and email templates to your advertising banners and physical mailers should follow the guidelines you establish in your brand identity toolkit.
The Elements In Your Branding Toolkit
This brand toolkit template is a good guide for online entrepreneurs who are doing their own marketing.
Mission Statement
It may seem out of context to have your mission statement an element of your visual design, but the truth is this is the center of everything. You need to be very clear on who you are, who your audience is, and how you present yourself to them. Knowing your mission statement will guide every other item in your toolkit.
Logo
Your logo is probably the most important branding piece for your business. This is the main visual item that everyone sees and associates with your company. Logos come in a variety of sizes, designs, and colors but for it to be effective it must be meaningful to you and your customers.
Tagline
The tagline is a clear, simple statement that supports your logo. It can be a description or elicit an emotion in your audience, and oftentimes will do both.
Color Palette
A guiding element of the design of your brand is your color palette. After the logo, your customers will begin to identify your brand by the colors you use. Because colors can go in and out of fashion, it’s worth taking the time to do some research on what’s “trendy” and what has staying power.
Fonts
The last element of our toolkit is the font or typeface you choose. Similar to the logo and colors, this becomes one of the elements people will recognize and associate with your brand, so it’s important to select it deliberately.
Don’t just use whatever pulls up by default on your computer. You want your font to reflect your brand. Are you clean, accessible, and fresh? Or are you modern, sleek, and cutting edge?
You also want a primary and secondary font for your marketing material. They should be complementary to each other and should include both a serif and sans serif typeface.
Creating An Identity People Will Recognize
With these five elements in your branding toolkit, you will create a meaningful way to stand out from the crowds online. People will easily identify your brand through your marketing materials and advertising.
Explore our site for more information on marketing for online businesses.