Branding is a marketing practice that requires a company to create a name, symbol or design that makes them easily identifiable. Having this brand helps you distinguish your products and services, and makes you easily identifiable in your industry. But branding is more than a name and logo – it’s about your image and your voice, as well as your values.
A lot of people confuse brand identity for the brand image. Ultimately a successful brand identity translates into a positive brand image.
Why is brand identity so important?
Add personality
A brand identity should communicate your company’s overall message and promote your business goals. Are you a young, fun business that uses humour and words like ‘fam’ instead of family – maybe you associate yourself with bright bold colours? Or are you a more sophisticated, high-end clinic that has a formal, professional feel, with a more muted, classy colour palette?
Whatever you decide is best for you and your clients, ensure both your visual and verbal brand represents your target audience. Logo colours and style, grammar, the welcome message used by your receptionist, the tone of voice in your socials – even what platforms you choose to use! These things represent you and pitch you to appropriate audiences. Your branding will evoke specific emotions in your audience, so you want to know who your ideal audience is, and create your brand for that audience.
E.g. A young, sports-focused physio clinic might use a social post saying “Today we welcome Sarah to the X Physio fam! Sarah enjoys surfing and eating pizza. She also has loads of experience with sport injuries and treating elite athletes – win win! ” A more sophisticated clinic, with more mature-aged clients might post “Welcome to Sarah, our new physio. Sarah has a wealth of experience as head physio of an elite sporting team and we are so happy to have her join us here at X Physio”.
Builds Loyalty and trust
An important area of brand identity is building loyalty and trust with customers through creating an emotional connection. A strong brand conveys your values, which helps attract the right potential clients for your clinic. These types of relationships, where there is a mutual connection, helps make it easier for your business to develop a long-term relationship with those clients, leading to greater customer loyalty. And don’t forget retention! It takes less money to retain a client than attract a new one, so keep your brand consistent through all new and retention activities.
Differentiation
One of the ways you can separate your business from the competition is to have a unique brand that differentiates you in the marketplace. Having this differentiation from your competitors helps make you stand out in the crowded industry. One way is through developing a professional, creative identity design. If all the clinics around you have blue logos, think about using purple, or orange for example. Of course these colours need to fit with your values, ideal audience and so on, but with branding, don’t just do what everyone else is doing! Be bold. Be different.
Think about what sets you apart from other clinics – do you have a gym? Do you work with a multidisciplinary team on site? Are you super cool and fun? Are you up-market? Find your point of differentiation and embrace it.
Creating a brand identity for your business is so important as it allows you to create and foster relationships with your customers. We know that creating a powerful and clear identity for your company helps create a successful relationship with your clients.
So if you haven’t yet got yourself a brand identity document that covers logo, colours, fonts, values and tone of voice – we recommend getting one. Design it with your staff, or get a professional involved for expert advice. Then use it as part of your induction process so all staff are on the same page!
If you need any help with your branding, of if you’d like a no-obligation chat, please get in touch!