In a world filled with countless businesses and an ever-expanding digital landscape, standing out from the competition has become an indispensable challenge for entrepreneurs. Therefore, having a brand for your company is essential. A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. It is something that can take years to build, but only minutes to destroy. The stronger your brand flows throughout the entire business, the better the chances are of building a long-lasting connection with your customers.
As mentioned, building a brand isn’t something that can be done in a matter of weeks. I have worked for months on incorporating my brand identity through different elements of SensoriumArte, before even knowing how my customers will respond. To build a brand, there are certain key elements considered to be important. Today, I will be sharing with you what I have learned to be key factors when it comes to building a memorable brand and how I have incorporated it throughout the entire company. I will also share how I have used these key elements to lay out the branding and visual identity that I find most fitting to SensoriumArte.
The difference between a brand and a logo
Before I dive deeper into how I designed my brand, I think it’s important to determine what a brand is, and how it differs from a logo. I came across a definition that resonated with me. It comes from a branding expert called Marty Neumeijer, and he said the following: “A brand is a result. It is a customer’s gut feeling about a product, service, or company.” To give more context to this definition; as a business, you don’t have one brand. You have millions of brands, which represent the number of people in your target audience. The brand is your reputation, and every person is going to be a little bit different about what that reputation is.
The question you need to ask yourself is: What reputation has my brand created? Reputation is something you create through the products you offer, the messages you spread, the look and feel of your product or website, and the company culture. Within these elements, you will find your tagline, your logo, your vision, and much more. As you can see, a brand is affected by almost everything and everyone within the company, and a logo is just a symbol.
To increase the possibility of SensoriumArte getting a positive reputation, I have ensured that my branding and visual identity are seen throughout the entire company. I know my intentions for starting the business are pure, and that I truly want to deliver unique and personalized wall art. But to showcase this throughout the entire business is difficult. You have to integrate this into your social media content, your website copywriting, your about us page, and even your customer service and logistics department. Everything has to be aimed towards providing the best possible experience for your client, which will increase the chances of building a positive reputation in your market.
Key elements for building a memorable brand
Building a solid brand allows you to build relationships with your audience. It gives your audience the opportunity to get to know you, your company, and everything you stand for. Because a brand is so important, it needs to be developed flawlessly. I have created SensoriumArte’s brand by covering 5 specific topics, each of them very important. I’ll go through them 1 by 1.
Brand Strategy
A well-defined brand strategy lays out the foundation for your brand. Within your brand strategy, you disclose your brand’s mission, vision values, positioning, target audience, and unique selling propositions. It shares the most important information that mentions the essence of your company.
With SensoriumArte, the mission and vision were clear. It has always been about finding a way for people to reminisce about their most significant, precious memories. I want to inspire people to create memories, explore, and live outside their comfort zone. As you can see, I deliberately chose to position the brand as something more than just a business that offers personalized wall art. I want to show people that SensoriumArte is more than that.
As a company, we provide two clear unique selling propositions. First, we are proud to say that we have created an augmented reality-supported application, which allows the customer to scan their soundwave and playback their audio or video files. But to me personally, the biggest unique selling proposition is the intuitive customizer, which is the place where customers can pick templates, make adjustments, and create their own personalized wall art. I might be biased since this has taken us a few years to make. Not saying it should have taken so long as it was a learning process for me, but we have really aimed to build something that works as smoothly and user-friendly as Canva.
The target audience is something that is still extremely difficult for me. Even now, weeks before the launch, I’m still not entirely sure who the customer audience is. I have researched this by looking for countries that spend the highest average amount on home decoration. But the foreign markets are so unknown to me, that I also want to offer the products here in The Netherlands. Next, I looked for audiences that are most likely to purchase home decoration products. This, unfortunately, already highlighted multiple audiences; from homeowners to wall decoration enthusiasts, I could see multiple people being interested in our personalized wall art.
To make it even more difficult, I have created different templates for different occasions; there are templates for people who got married or engaged, templates for people who graduated, templates for people who had an amazing vacation and want an art piece that reminds them of that moment, and so on. All of these occasions have different audiences. It surely gets difficult, but just doing the research does give you a general impression of what kind of personalities your target audience has, what their interests are, and perhaps even where you can find them.
The brand strategy is the foundation of your brand. Everything that’s next, is based on these core values that you have determined.
Visual identity
Next up is the visual identity. Within the visual identity, you can find elements such as the logo, color palette, and imagery. These visual elements can significantly contribute to the way the company is perceived by the target audience. Since these elements are seen across multiple channels and touchpoints, the identity must be cohesive and aesthetically pleasing. All of these components are just a way to deliver your brand essence.
I had a lot of difficulties determining the color palettes, imagery, and logo for SensoriumArte. For the first design, I went for a pastel green brand color. For the second design, I went for an orange tone but combined it with elements that better represented the idea of soundwave art. For this final design, I went for a white base. But, to make sure that the design still fits the positive, exploring attitude of our company, I dedicated significantly more space to imagery. Images that add color, depth, and perspective to the design.
The logo is something I kept basic as well. it shows an element of the product we offer, which is soundwave art. The sensorium is the place in the brain to which impressions from the external world are conveyed and perceived. I found this very fitting, as it totally aligns with my desire to go out there and perceive the world in my own way.
Brand storytelling
Storytelling is a way to reach out to a human’s emotions and memories. Crafting a compelling brand story builds an emotional connection and enhances brand recall. A well-told story communicates the brand’s values and brand’s purpose, leaving a lasting impression on consumers.
Luckily for me, Sensorium has quite an original story. Or at least, that’s what I think. I may not write the greatest blog, but I do love to tell a story. What I have learned to be important when writing your brand story, is to be authentic and write it with passion and belief. Writing the About Us page was something that took a lot of tries to do. Even though some people find an About Us page to be a simple add-on, and something almost nobody visits, it still mattered to me. Even if only 2% of the visitors visit that page, I want to make sure that they realize that I have a genuine passion for this project and that I will do everything in my power to keep improving the user experience for our customers.
Whether you have an exciting story, or the story is plain and simple; tell it. What are your goals with your business? Who do you want to help? Companies that are transparent about their story, ambitions, and goals are often seen as trustworthy, which will ultimately positively affect your reputation.
Brand messaging
Brand messaging is the way your brand communicates its unique value proposition and personality through its verbal and nonverbal messaging. Your messaging can be inspiring, motivational, or informative, as long as it resonates with your target audience.
Through brand messaging, people can build a relationship with your brand. It is how they get to know your mission, vision, and unique selling propositions. Brand messaging tells your target audience who you are, what you stand for, and why you are different from other brands.
I had a lot of difficulty coming up with the brand messaging. I even had a lot of difficulty writing this part of the blog if I’m completely honest. Since I didn’t have a super-specific audience, I wasn’t sure how to shape the brand messaging correctly. What worked for me was to not focus on the specific demographics of your target audience, but to focus on their interests. I was looking for people with a passion for exploring, creating memories, and enjoying life. whether it is a 25-year-old woman, or a 48-year-old man doesn’t really matter. These interests can often be found in a wider demographic spectrum.
Throughout my messaging, I wanted to share that I’m passionate about SensoriumArte and that I want to do everything in my power to keep it going as long as possible. Sharing my USPs, and showing the recycled materials we use and the print quality we offer. Even on our socials, I created a content calendar that, depending on the platform, shares transparency in the form of behind-the-scenes content, or shows our quality by sharing beautiful product shots.
One thing that I do want to mention on the topic of brand messaging is to keep it simple. If your brand’s personality comes across as confusing, people will have a harder time relating to you. The last thing you want to do is create a whole brand strategy that ends up confusing the consumer.
Customer experience
Delivering an outstanding customer experience can significantly help get a positive brand reputation from consumers. Offering an exceptional customer experience is something that isn’t just done in the faq, or by providing shipping details. A customer experience is something that has to be integrated into the entire business. Think about customer service, think about shipping times, think about product quality, and design process. Many elements come into play here.
I decided not to view customer experience just as ‘helping the customer out’. To me, the customer experience is about providing the best possible interaction between our company and the customer with every touchpoint we have. Whether this is the advertisement they see, the customizer they use to create their personalized wall art, or the track & trace they automatically receive when the order has been shipped.
Each of these elements I have optimized. I have created a fully intuitive customizer and provided a how-it-works video on the home page so people have a guide when they have any questions. I have written numerous SOP templates so that everyone on the team knows how certain processes work, and how to get back to customers when they happen to have questions. And, I created my own augmented reality application to allow people to truly get the feeling of reliving their art.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Communication on social media, Email flows, content strategy, and shipping times; there are so many components that influence the customers’ experience with your brand. I am aware that everything I have built and written might not stay the same. By listening to the customers after launch, we can use their feedback to further improve the experience of our customers.
