Brand essence is intangible. It’s a feeling evoked by your favourite brand that’s unique, a core characteristic separating it from the rest. It sums up the brand. It is consistent and unifies consumers, making it a rallying cry from which people can stand.
Brand essence appeals to emotion. It’s why many people go to that same fast-food chain again and again, despite there being several other options are out there. Or the reason why people continue to buy an electronic gadget from a specific brand every time a new model comes out, even though the device costs an arm and a leg. Think Apple.
It’s because consumers have fallen in love with these companies’ brand essence, the brand promise. And they want to be part of it.
So, how can you capture brand essence?
For a product to achieve the sort of brand essence that inspires trust among consumers, specific characteristics can help a lot. For example, your brand should be:
- Authentic: Offers something consumers can relate to
- Relevant: Offers something of value
- Enduring: Offers something that can last a long time
- Memorable: Offers something easy to remember
- Focused: Offers something consumers can easily understand
Trust is an integral part of a consumer’s decision when buying something. As cited in Harvard Business Review, more than 80% of consumers consider trust essential in buying. The digital age is also more consumer-centric. And today’s consumers are more interested in buying from purpose-driven brands that share their values.
Businesses have recognised this shift. As a result, the needs of the end-users play a critical role in developing new products that are loved by customers. This shift makes communicating your brand essence to consumers crucial to brand marketing.
And in this digital age, a web design company who knows what it’s doing plays a crucial role – websites are where customers often get their first impression of the brand.
Below are a few tips on how to capture brand essence in web design:
1. Choosing appropriate brand colours
Colours can establish your brand and improve recognition as customers associate meaning with specific colours. Your brand’s colour can include everything, from the colours in your logo’s design to the colours in the packaging. Hence, understanding how colours affect consumer behaviour can help you pick the right colour combination for your brand.
Using your logo’s colour palette on your website can make your visitors instantly connect your site to your brand. For example, the colours red and yellow are the most common combination used by restaurants. Seeing this colour combination can make you immediately think of a fast-food restaurant.
This connection is because colour psychology plays a huge part in brand marketing. So, incorporate your logo’s colour scheme into your digital environment.
2. Using effective typography
Typography, or the appearance and style of text on your site, is an essential part of web design. It’s a design element encompassing fonts, capitalisation, spacing sizing and others. When implemented correctly, typography can increase your content’s readability.
An unfocused, cluttered text can reflect poorly on your brand. Additionally, your brand might be perceived as lacking vision, theme or focus. In such a case, there’s a good chance your visitor will click that back button faster than you can say ‘comic sans.’
Remember, the way texts appear on your site may be perceived as arrogant instead of confident, childish instead of innocent and garish instead of innovative. And often, the boundary between them is thin. Typography can give your site visual logic and, aside from colours, give your brand a distinctive look. Ultimately, your typography should convey your brand’s message and what it stands for.
3. Adopting the right tone of voice
Using the correct tone can pull the other elements together to deliver the perfect message you want to convey to your customers. A voice that doesn’t match your brand essence can subtract from your credibility. Your trustworthiness will plummet.
A consistent tone of voice, on the other hand, can communicate your brand message more effectively. Along with your brand’s visual design, tone of voice can be a powerful method of giving identity to your brand. It can affect the way the public perceives your brand.
Giving your brand a specific tone of voice is like giving it personality. And a magnetism that pulls them to you. This personality can give you an idea of how it would ‘speak’ to the public. What message will your brand talk about?
Getting the right voice for your brand can assist you in the following:
- Building brand authority
- Emulating face-to-face communication with customers
- Getting ahead of the competition
- Creating a connection with your customers
The first step to finding your brand’s voice is to use your brand’s mission and values and your customer’s voice – or how they communicate with each other – as guides. You can then match your brand’s tone of voice to whatever format you use.
4. Using appropriate functionality
Your site’s design functionality can also be used to convey brand essence. Your website designer can design your site with a traditional approach or ease of use as a design priority. Most ‘traditional’ websites use drop-down menus on the navigation system to move around the site.
But if you want to convey something new and exciting, you could use animations and change the navigation system. You can surprise visitors with something new and present your brand as an innovator.
It would all depend on your brand personality. If you want something ‘solid’ and dependable, go for the tried and tested functionality. For something fresh and exciting possibilities, go for something creative.
Conclusion
Brand essence is what separates your brand from others. It’s your brand’s unique identity that can inspire loyalty among customers. Conveying your brand essence through your website is crucial, as websites are where customers are typically introduced to your brand.
Brand essence can be captured through your web design using appropriate brand colours, typography, tone of voice, and functionality. Capturing brand essence is a critical step in how to design a website. Contact us to know how we can help your business grow.
