How To Choose The Best Colors for Your Brand and Enhance Your Brand Image
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The colors you use can be vitally important in promoting the recognition of your brand. Think of the iconic red on Coca-Cola cans, the green and white logo on Starbucks cups, or Facebook's instantly recognizable blue and white logo. Building an attractive brand image can translate into greater brand recognition, higher revenues, and increased brand loyalty.
Why Is Brand Image Important?
Consumers aren't just looking to purchase daily necessities from businesses — they're also looking for businesses they can place implicit trust in. Trust plays a role in 92% of big purchases in the American marketplace. Additionally, a substandard product and lackluster customer service constitute the biggest breakers of trust for American consumers.
If you're a new business, brand image helps create a great first impression, showing your customers just how much thought and care you've invested in your products or services. Creating a first impression that resonates is critical. Here's why: it only takes someone 7 seconds to form an impression of your brand. So, those 7 seconds have to count.
If you're a little more established, brand image continues to work in your favor by inspiring instant brand recognition. A study conducted by Onbuy.com showed that a whopping 71 percent of consumers placed great importance on recognizing a brand before they made a purchase. And it isn't just important to attract customers — 82 percent of investors say they focus on brand recognition when making important business decisions. If you're looking for long-term business success, taking the time to build your brand image is well worth the effort.
What to Consider When Crafting Your Brand Image
At its core, brand image is what your customers think of when they're in the midst of making a purchasing decision. To craft an appropriate image, one of the first and most important things to do is determine who your target audience is. This will help you decide what kind of image you want to build. A design aimed at business executives, for example, will differ drastically from a design aimed at stay-at-home parents. Did you know that 64 percent of brand-consumer relationships are based on shared values?
It's vitally important that you highlight the values you share with your target audience and convey them in a way that resonates with them.
Once you've settled on your target audience, you can begin to build your brand persona with this audience in mind. Will your design elements identify your business as fun and quirky or sleek and futuristic? What are your business goals, and how do they align with the goals of your customers? Identifying these elements will lead to better decision-making when creating the aesthetics of your brand.
Ways to Enhance Your Brand Image
There are many factors that go into creating a strong, cohesive brand image. Writing strong SEO content brings consumers to your website and imbues your brand with a professional image. Meanwhile, a social media presence enables you to connect with your customers in a casual, personal setting.
One of the vital aspects of a strong brand image, however, is your use of color. Your imagery is one of the first avenues by which your customers will access your brand, and it will almost instantly garner an emotional reaction (whether positive or negative). Strong colors such as red, for instance, will encourage your customers to feel alert, active, and energized. Cooler colors, such as blue, encourage feelings of calmness. Meanwhile, mid-tones like yellow can attract attention.
A strong sense of your brand mission and target audience is vital in crafting your brand's color scheme. You want your targeted customers to see your brand as the solution to their challenges. Insurance companies, for example, regularly use a blue color scheme to portray themselves as reliable and trustworthy sources.
A brand that wants to be seen as more fun and exciting may choose a brighter, warmer color palette, while a brand associated with the outdoors may choose greens, browns, or blues. Your core business mission as well as the age, lifestyle, and desires of your target audience will play an enormous role in the color scheme you choose to represent your brand.
If all of this sounds a little overwhelming, relax. We know that color palettes, tints, and shades can be confusing. However, our friendly, experienced employees can help you figure out exactly what you need to create the perfect images for your brand.
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