Stephanie Donelson

In my last post I highlighted the customer journey and creating buyer personas and not only is it important to know your customers well, but they need to understand your company so they can know what to expect with each experience of your brand.

Branding

Is your brand fun and affordable? Or, is your brand high-cost and luxurious? 

By clearly communicating what your brand is your customers can quickly decide if you’re right for them. Some important elements of developing your branding include:

• What’s your mission?

• Why are you passionate about what you do?

• What are your company values?

• What words do you want associated with your brand?

• What’s your brand voice? (Funny and friendly, knowledgeable and formal, etc.)

Once you know who you are, it’s important to remain consistent with your messaging. By being consistent, you establish trust with your customers. Be proud of your company branding. 

Logo

Your logo can either be image-based or text-based, but it should be clear and easy to recognize and understand. Think about some common logos you see all the time and what elements make them so recognizable. 

Image-based logos

• Apple

• Android

• Airbnb

• Red Bull

• Shell

• Mercedes 

Text-based

• Google

• Amazon

• FedEx

• Walt Disney

• Visa

• Yahoo!

• YouTube

Jot down some things you like about those logos and then some ideas for what images would represent your brand if you’re going for an image-based logo, or what font styles capture your business’ personality.

It’s best to work with a designer who can take your vision and turn it into a working logo.

Some common things a designer will want to know when starting the design process includes:

• What do you do, and why do you do it?

• What makes you different from the competition?

• Who are your customers?

• What’s your personality?

Logo design best practices

• Keep it simple: Having too many elements detracts from your design. Some of the most recognizable logos are super simple, like Apple, Nike, and Twitter. Leave out unnecessary elements and taglines.  

• Size: Build for web but design so it can scale up well.

• Use one font: Most brands use sans serif or serif fonts as they’re easy to read.

• Make it memorable: The design should be unique and memorable.

• It’s versatile: Does your logo work across a variety of media? Will it be effective online? In print? In a video? Only printed in one color? 

Brand colors

An easy way to reaffirm your brand identity is through the color palette you use on your marketing materials and website. Certain colors evoke certain emotions and by being strategic about your brand colors, you can make sure people quickly know what to expect with your brand by the colors alone. 

Quick brand color guidelines:

• Blue: Trust, dependability, intelligence

• Red: Bold, youth, power

• Green: Health, nature, growth

• Purple: Creativity, mystery, wisdom

• Orange: Friendly, confident, enthusiasm

• Yellow: Warmth, energetic, joy

• Black: Luxury, elegance, formal

• White: Clean, safe, pure

You’ll have a primary color but then should have two accent colors that go with your primary. There are two popular options for choosing coordinating colors: analogous or complementary. Analogous colors are colors that are near each other on the color wheel and complementary colors are on opposite sides of the color wheel, most often in a triangle pattern. 

Your color palette will be important when it comes to designing your website. 

Storytelling

Just as the tourism and activities industry is moving toward focusing on experiences for customers and not just a tour, you should be focusing on creating experiences with your branding and storytelling. 

Storytelling essentially shares branded stories about your company, your mission, your values, your customers, and why you do what you do. We’re emotional beings and we make better connections with stories than with facts and with storytelling, you help customers make those connections faster. 

In a previous post, I covered buyer personas. These personas come in handy by helping you tell your brand’s story and figuring out how each of your customers can make an emotional connection with that story.

Storytelling happens at every stage of the buyer’s journey, from learning about your company on your website, to viewing your social media pages, to making their booking, and staying connected to your brand through email.

Three components of successful storytelling: Authenticity, trust, and value.

Being authentic and genuine with your target market goes a long way. If you live out your brand’s values, it’ll show and you’ll organically build trust with your clients – instead of having to buy it. 

Best practices for brand storytelling:

• Be consistent

• Make it emotional

• Make it relatable

• Use real experiences

• Be consistent

• Be confident in your messaging

Remember, your storytelling goes beyond the sale. It’s not just about getting customers to make their booking, but to connect them to your brand.