Branding at Columbus Creative Copy
What is a branding package? What is included in a branding package? Why does your business need one?
Brand is a word that gets thrown around quite a bit these days, and the value of a good brand design has largely increased over the years. The market is saturated with many different companies offering a similar variety of goods and services, the only difference between them being their brand. A businesses’ brand is really all they have to set themselves apart from their competitors. Keeping in mind that the majority of the market of consumers are millennials like myself who care more about the beauty than the functionality of any given product. (half kidding). Anyways, the world’s most reliable source of information, Wikipedia, defines brand as this “A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.” Pretty straightforward.
So we’ve got that down… but what does it mean when a firm, like Columbus Creative Copy, says they offer “branding”? Developing a brand is a complex job, with way more that goes into it than meets the eye. Brands are created and sold by a team of professionals in the form of branding packages or branding kits. Said packages are inspired by the founder’s vision for their company as well as hours of research, graphic design, and copywriting on our end.
What is included in a branding package?
Keep in mind that not every business will need each element of branding, I’ll briefly touch on who these elements are most important too here. Final decisions on what will be part of your brand’s branding package will depend on preliminary research and discussions. For now, here’s 10 different elements of a brand kit that CCC can do for you.
Logo
This one is quite obvious. Think of your favorite brands across multiple different industries, you can probably picture every single one of their logos. Logos are the most crucial aspect of your visual brand identity no matter what kind of business you are in. The design of your logo is what your consumers are going to have in mind when they are considering which business that they want to work with.
You need a logo aligned with your brand that your audience will remember. Your logo is your very first impression and the most notable way to set yourself apart from your competitors. Not only is it your first impression, but also your groundwork for the rest of your marketing efforts. All of that said, it’s important to your business that you invest in its logo and design.
Also, understand that logos may be part of a branding package, but also may be purchased separately under our graphic design team!
Color Palette
Your color palette goes hand in hand with your logo, and may be just as important. Colors also greatly influence your overall brand recognition and appearance. Having selected colors associated with your new business is key to a successful future for your marketing endeavors. Take the CCC website for example…. There is a very key color palette as you move across the pages. If I started a print advertising campaign, or a instagram campaign using the colors red, white, and blue, you’d probably not recognize us as the same company.
Believe it or not, there are countless studies surrounding colors and the way they make people feel; from the color itself, to the shade and texture of the color too. Adding a color palette to your branding kit assures you have a behind the scenes professional creating an intentional response from your target audience.
Typography
I would argue that this key aspect of any branding kit is often overlooked, your typography, or fonts, make a huge difference in the presentation of your brand. Having selected fonts that are utilized across all of your marketing efforts transforms a sloppy start-up or self-employed individual to a professional company that takes pride in what they do. If you think your typography isn’t important, or that selecting your fonts is as simple as a drop down box, think again.
Customized fonts are included in our branding kits here at CCC on the basis that we strongly believe that no brand should go without them. As professionals we see the value in consistency. Fonts and typography are the next level per say of brand perception.
Website
Website design is not always associated with branding. However, at CCC we think it’s silly to even think about running a business without investing in a killer website that represents your brand. Back to the point I made earlier about the age of millennial consumers; if myself, or any of my friends for that matter, are looking for a new product, or someone to do a service– the first place we are going is to the internet.
If I saw a roofing truck on my street and I wanted to look them up to see some of their work and get a quote, I am going to look them up on trusty ole’ google. If that company doesn’t have an online presence, or I can’t tell for sure if the website I am looking at is them, odds are I am taking my business somewhere else. We millennials rely on websites, web presence, and web reviews to make our decisions.
CCC goes about web development in one of two ways, if you choose, CCC will design a basic webpage for you with the key branding elements that we designed and landed on together as part of your branding kit. This will be a one time web set-up included with your kit. However, if you would like us to continue to update your website and manage your content going forward, we do that as well. Option two for website development is that we will sell you the branding elements (logo, font, colors) and you can take those to another web design company and have them build it out for you!
Email Templates
On the same wavelength of web-design, is the design of your email templates. The fact of the matter is that for businesses in today’s market, the majority of your cash flow is going to come from your online operations and marketing campaigns. This is especially true for those engaged in e-commerce. A branding kit of every online store would be incomplete without branded email templates.
Branded templates turn your regular old newsletters into strong promotional tools that redirect your customers back to your site for more! If you’re like me, you live on your computer and email is your primary tool to communicating with your customer base. People like us, brands like ours, need this key element in our branding kits.
Business Cards
Regardless of what kind of business you are, your size, etc. everyone needs to have a trusty set of business cards. You and your employees should have the ability to pass their contact information along quickly and seamlessly. Business cards are easy to design and inexpensive. CCC will provide you with your custom branded business cards, as well as an easily edited template for future employees!
Package Design
Odds are if your business requires packaging design you know it already. Package design is another one of those elements that really hit home with your visual brand perception. Packaging plays a huge role in the decision making process. Think of the last time you were holding two similar products in your hands, likely you chose the one that was more visually appealing. So if you’re producing consumer packaged goods, you should probably invest in some professionally designed packaging.
Letterhead/Brochures/Other Print Designs.
I grouped these together for one main reason, CCC has a strong push for sustainability and tries to minimize the amount of print work that we do, obviously we will never tell a client no! But these things aren’t necessarily our main elements to branding kits. I will say, however, it is great to get customized letterhead if you are sending out a lot of email attachments. It is a great marketing tool to have your company name, phone number, and location on the top of your documents that way you are easily reached with questions from clients.
If you are the kind of business that you expect to need a brochure, we are happy to put that together for you as well. You want to ensure that your language in the brochure aligns with the rest of your brand identity. Furthermore you want to have that brochure reflect the brand elements across the rest of your marketing efforts, ie. colors, logos, etc.
Style Guide
Our most comprehensive and recommended branding kit comes in the form of a complete style guide. A style guide is a comprehensive rulebook with all specifications related to your brand. In particular, it will include your mission, vision, core values, company voice, logo, typography, and principles. What that means is the entirety of your branding is wrapped up with a bow and ready for reference at any given time. Style guides are our recommendation for anyone looking to continuously present a unified vision of their brand. Especially if you’re entering a competitive market, a complete style guide and brand uniformity makes for a far-reaching and exceptional marketing strategy.
The listed items aren’t neither universal nor exclusive. These elements of a brand don’t necessarily have to be included in each and every kit. Use this blog as a basis you can rely on to understand what visual branding can do for your business. Also, understand that in some cases, it’s even better to decide against a branding package in favor of separate branded items.
If you hire a small firm like CCC that is flexible and open for communication, there should be no problems with that. You will be able to select the required branding elements and find the optimum solution for you and your business.
Columbus Creative Copy covers all of these elements and more! Contact us to discuss branding packages and pricing structures that work for you!
