Nowadays, building and maintaining a brand is key to your business’s success. It’s important to create relevant, unique, and strong branding to grow your business and build loyal customers that can connect with your identity. Read on to discover the importance of good branding strategies and which branding trends you should be watching out for.
Why Is Branding Important?
Your branding serves as the personality of your company. It conveys who you are and what your brand represents, so it’s important to have a good branding strategy to promote your products, attract new customers, and keep the existing ones engaged.
First impressions are important, so make sure you keep your branding clear, memorable, and consistent in all your marketing channels. Develop a good web design, product packaging, and maintain your social media channels to keep your customers engaged and excited for what you have to offer.
Five Big Branding Trends to Watch
Minimalism
Minimalism is one of the top branding trends because it features an uncluttered aesthetic that promotes direct communication. It only includes the essential elements such as simple text, basic shapes, and limited color palettes to let the viewer see things that you only want them to focus on. If you want to impart an uncomplicated brand personality, adopt the organic design elements of minimalism and let your products speak for themselves.
It’s also an ideal style for stunning product photography. If you leave a large open space, you’ll be able to stick to one focal point, and your subject will have more impact. Also, using simple wordmark logos is more elegant and eye-catching and makes customers easily remember your brand.
Immersive Brand Experience
This innovative trend is all about inviting interaction through a themed event, interactive videos, or online games to build a more engaged and connected community. The goal is to make the audience feel part of the things being presented to them and make them explore it with their senses. Here are some strategies you can use to explore this concept:
- Use 360-degree Video Content: You can use 360-degree videos to introduce a new product or highlight important features. You can also create more compelling messages or tell stories and take your viewers on a virtual tour.
- Create Real-time Product Experiences: Let your customers visit your store or try out products virtually through the use of augmented reality. For example, create AR-enabled mobile apps to allow them to see how a specific product looks on them. This interactive strategy can eventually increase conversions and improve customer experience.
- Tell Stories: Set your prospects’ expectations by integrating stories into your marketing messages. Making your customers the star of your stories will attract more audiences and make your business an immersive brand. Also, if your stories articulate your values, they will strengthen the customers’ emotional connection with your brand.
Brand Activism
Consumers prefer to interact with brands that share their commitment to making positive changes, from sustainability to social equality. Demonstrating how you’re deeply engaged to the things you believe in plays a huge part in the customers’ buying decisions because they want to align their values with a company that contributes to the greater good.
Humanized Brand Personality
It can be hard for customers to trust some brands because they feel like they’re out there to simply get their money. They feel treated like robots that are meant to absorb any corporate offers and generic marketing messages. Practice brand humanization through your marketing messages to make your brand more friendly and approachable.
For instance, you can showcase pictures of your employees on social media, post videos on your website featuring your whole team, or quickly share a humorous anecdote. These will put a face behind your organization’s logo and make customers have a connection to actual people in your company.
Nostalgia
When you get branding inspiration from past trends, recognizable icons, and much-loved symbols, it evokes feelings of excitement, fondness, and comfort in your audience. There are various ways to induce nostalgia in your brand such as reminiscing about an outdated item, paying homage to a historic event or using retro-style advertising to promote a new campaign.
Branding trends will continue to change, but keeping up with the latest strategies will make your brand remain fresh, relevant, and one step ahead of your competitors. The most important thing to remember is to keep your branding messages direct, simple, and precise. As long as you keep your customers in the center of your efforts, your branding will serve your company in the best possible way.