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Design and Identity: Create Your Company Image Carefully

iring a graphic artist means more than employing someone to publish a web site or create a logo and business card for your company. A talented designer should ideally help you achieve your marketing goals by developing an overall concept or identity for your business. This involves the personality for your company, and the associations and feelings customers attach to it. It relates to the way the public perceives your creation and the overall feeling that you want to promote with your sales, advertising, and design.

A consultant can work with you to purposely create your set intentions so that you are attracting the market that you desire and manifesting the business you envision. It is a wise idea to consult with several designers or firms before selecting the one that you want to collaborate with in order to establish or redefine your image.

• What are your personal and company values? Determine what it is exactly that you want your business to promote. Carry this theme throughout a mission statement, all advertising campaigns, your logo, and marketing strategies.

• What type of personality are you now displaying? What type do you want to display? Are you shooting for integrity? Trustworthiness? Earth-friendliness? Loyalty? Confidentiality? Pinpointing these traits will enable you and your graphic designer to select visuals that extend these ideas. Well-educated marketing professionals know the subtle, yet powerful, suggestion of colors, shapes, images, and fonts. Use these to your advantage to express your goals.

• How can day-to-day communication support your business identity? Set protocols or standards for yourself and employees when engaging with the public. Educate your company on these ideas and explain the value in doing so. Utilize the techniques on your web site, for in-house appointments, and for e-mail and telephone conversations. Ask for customer feedback either via your web site or in person so that you have an idea of how clients are honestly responding to you.

• What are your philosophies on pricing? Are you competitive with other similar businesses? Are you purposely charging more and for a good reason- because your services are top of the line? Are you aiming more for deep discounts and clearance pricing to attract a different shopping crowd? Do you generally overprice with the intention to markdown later on? Does your pricing directly correlate to the value of products or services you are promoting?

• What services are you offering? Does your client base fully comprehend your range of services or availability of items? Clear up any miscommunication of this information by marketing brochures and keeping them in-house for the convenience of your crowd. Post this information on your web site, and, moreover, verbally announce your capabilities face-to-face when meeting new clients, attending meetings, or making special appearances.

• What's your company story? Is it important to publish the biographies of the key players? Do you have a statement of qualifications that is available for your clients? Are you a franchised enterprise or a small, locally owned business? Is your company a family business that has survived many generations? How does this tie into your image?

• When was your business established? If you've been established for fifty years, your clients should know this information. Make it work for your concept by publishing this information in your advertising. Use company anniversaries to market promotions and highlight your history.

• Are you marketing a slogan? You don't have to be an internationally known firm to employ the use of a saying, song, or jingle. Choose that one supports the identity you are striving for and advertise it on the radio, in print, and on-line, or television if this fits your company personality.

• What are the positive factors associated with your business and what image do they feed into? Are you also selling security, relaxation, glamour, purity, or another type of benefit with your product? What is the direct result of your service? Perhaps your items are highly unattainable by other firms and rarity or extreme quality is one of your added benefits. Clients should know what they are paying for and why. How does the public react to your line of work and how can you best tell clients about these additional bonuses related to your company?

Your company identity is communicated daily whether you intend for it be so or not…By putting a little extra time and effort into the awareness of how you are transmitting your image to the public, you can concentrate on fine tuning your marketing skills.

Brett Jones can be contacted at brett@justpay10.com