Branding has always been important, but it has become increasingly important as marketing efforts have changed and platforms have evolved. Simply put, branding is the representation of your firm or business. It includes your logo and how it is used, fonts, styles, wordmarks, taglines, and related supporting graphics. Though branding is a recent development for law firms, it quickly followed the implementation of strategic marketing efforts. Not giving enough thought and intentionality to branding can sink an otherwise potentially effective marketing plan or strategy.
Branding enables consumers to quickly recognize a business or firm. It may also communicate and reinforce certain feelings about the organization or convey specific attributes (hopefully, those that the company intends to communicate).
A logo may include a name or abbreviation, perhaps stylized or graphically represented (think Coca-Cola or CNN), along with some other graphic depiction.
The graphic within the logo may be abstract (think the Nike swoosh) or might portray an actual object (think Apple’s apple, Microsoft’s windows, or Chevron’s chevron). Its design should be set and consistent, using the exact same colors and layout.
Be assured that branding is more than a logo.
All the other design considerations and options in any piece of branded material must match, coordinate, and support the logo. The font of any accompanying text, the style of any included photos, and the design of any other graphics must all blend together to support the entity’s brand.
Effective marketing includes a multitude of digital elements, from digital ads, to emails, to social media, to videos, all rely heavily on graphics.
Thus, branding has become one of the most important considerations in any marketing effort. And branding must be consistent across platforms to foster the greatest opportunity for connecting with consumers.
Any marketing strategy must therefore start with branding.
Creating a unique graphical standard that can be repeated on any marketing product, digital or otherwise. Then these branding guidelines must be zealously protected and enforced. Digital platforms have created a lot more opportunities for making impressions on consumers so the competition for their attention is ever increasing. That means that an effective marketing strategy will necessarily include as many different platforms as possible. Each platform has different capabilities, design parameters, and limitations. And a firm may engage different vendors or contractors to design, create, or manage their marketing efforts on those different platforms. This creates lots of opportunities for inconsistency, especially if there are no branding guidelines.