5 Branding and Logo Best Practices

Jan 28, 2020

Are you embarking on a brand identity journey? Or have you decided it’s time to change directions and rethink your whole image?

Whatever your reasons for focusing on branding and logo design, understand that there’s so much more to it than reaching for your sketchpad, doodling designs, and deciding which one is your favorite. It takes careful planning, research, and strategy to differentiate yourself from the competition.
Create a powerful and memorable brand identity that communicates effectively with your target market by focusing on the visual and emotional elements. Here are five branding and logo best practices to help you move through the branding and logo design process:

1. Simplicity is Key
For your logo to have the most impact, you shouldn’t overwhelm it with too many elements. A complex concept may confuse your audience and keep them from understanding your brand’s core message. Simpler logos are also more scalable and flexible, making them easier to apply across all your marketing collateral.
Aim for simplicity by using fewer words; tight taglines are also much easier to remember. However, don’t strive to be so simple that you end up becoming forgettable. Yes, there is beauty in brevity, but creativity and distinction are also crucial.

2. Decide Your Design Direction
Trendy or Timeless? You may like the old-school charm of vintage fonts or prefer something bolder and more modern. But does your logo preference reflect the nature or your business or company culture? Each business has a unique personality; their branding and logo should honor that.
Understand the different styles, fonts, and graphics. Learn about the psychology of colors. With so many existing, successful logos out there, it’s impossible not to be able to name a few that have captivated you. The goal isn’t to replicate but to gain inspiration.

3. Consistency
Avoid confusing your audience by keeping all your marketing collateral consistent. Everything from your images to font colors to graphics should complement your logo. Your logo has a specific color scheme and moving away from that palette when designing your marketing materials will only puzzle people. It will make them question who you are and what your brand represents.

4. Research and Strategy
Apart from knowing what you like, you also need to know what to avoid. Do your research before sitting down with a designer and going straight into the discussion on typography, colors, and symbols.
Start by compiling the logos of all your competitors and ensure you don’t end up creating one based on what you thought came to you in a dream – only to realize later you had seen it before. The last thing you want is being accused of copying someone else’s work or looking like an existing brand knock-off.

5. Dig Deep
The secret to developing a memorable logo and branding is knowing who you are, what you stand for, and whose attention you want to attract. Define what makes you different and what you value most.
Your logo doesn’t necessarily need a symbol that represents what you do. An abstract image works just as well and may even leave a more lasting impression. However, whatever shape or color you decide for your logo, it needs to be something that captures who you are as a brand and conveys the message you want to share with the world.
At NUEX Creative, we believe that design and strategy matter, and that they should never be an afterthought. We offer a branding strategy and logo creation services.
Let us help you tell your story. Get a Free Consultation.

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Top Advertising Trends for 2019

Mar 11, 2019

Now that we’re settling nicely into 2019, it’s a good time to re-examine our advertising strategy and see if we’re headed in the right direction. Did the 2018 predictions come true? Did some trends prove to be more impactful than others? Are there some tactics worth exploring this year? Here’s what we know:

The Rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
We already use artificial intelligence in our everyday lives without even realizing it. You use AI when you interact with Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa. But did you know that AI is what filters your emails in Gmail, improves your social media experience, and makes recommendations when you shop online?
In the world of advertising, AI is helping marketers become more consumer-focused. AI is helping enhance user experiences, enable personalization, and automate complex tasks faster and more efficiently. And with less time spent on testing multiple creatives and conducting surveys, marketers have more time to innovate and think creatively about their next campaign. With AI doing the heavy lifting involved in gathering data and insight, marketers focus their energy on delivering relevant and compelling ads and driving results.

Marketing Automation
With the rise of AI-driven technologies comes more marketing automation. Through automation, we can better track customer activity across multiple channels. Customer profiling is improved, giving us a more precise picture of our target audience.
Marketing automation also gives us the tools to track the performance of our advertising campaigns quicker and more accurately, allowing us to make adjustments immediately. With valuable insight gained through marketing automation, you minimize second-guessing or making risky decisions about advertisement design, content creation, or merchandise branding.

The Dominance of Video
Consumers are spending more and more time on their smartphones consuming videos. According to the 2019 statistics infographic by Digital Information World, 52% of marketing professionals name video as the type of content with the best ROI. And according to 70% of the marketing professionals surveyed, video converts better than any other medium. And a whopping 92% of shoppers say that visuals are the most influential factor affecting their purchase decisions.
If you haven’t added video to your advertising yet, 2019 is the year for you to leverage the medium to engage old and new audiences. Think along the lines of in-stream video ads on YouTube, Facebook Video, and Twitter Video. Start using Facebook Live and Instagram Stories. Create product or service promotional videos or product demonstrations, explainer videos. Encourage your audience to create videos about your products. Go live with interviews or share video captured from your corporate events or product launches.
While technology seems to be the answer in this increasingly digital landscape, it’s not enough to use the tools and rely on them to make the hard decisions for you. Creativity is still king. Successful advertising still demands innovative thinking and smart campaigns.
At NUEX Creative, we know how to dissect insight and data and implement them in your advertising strategies.
Let us help you focus on your branding and delivering impactful user experiences.
Improve Your Advertising Today! Get A FREE Strategy Plan

The Top 7 Branding Mistakes Your Business Is Making

Mar 07, 2019

Branding has the power to impact everything from your reputation to your bottom line. Unfortunately, too many companies haven’t quite grasped the importance or understood the impact of branding and end up committing branding mistakes that hurt their business.

Here are the seven most common branding mistakes you should avoid:

1. Failing to Align with Your Brand’s Mission
Your business is only trustworthy if it stays true to who and what you claim to be. Your audience is watching, and if you make a move that contradicts your mission, vision, and values, you disappoint your customers and hurt your reputation.

2. Not Tracking Your Efforts
It doesn’t matter if you have the most amazing products or offer exceptional services if you’re a business who has confused branding with marketing or advertising. You will inevitably commit mistakes and ultimately hurt your sales.
If you’re not tracking your branding efforts, then you’re not identifying where you are failing and where you are succeeding. Marketing and branding should not be confused; however, they do work together and knowing how your branding affects your marketing and vice versa is crucial to business success. Remember that your branding is who you are while marketing is your tactical strategy to build awareness around that image.

3. Not Doing More to Stand Out
Differentiating yourself from the competition is how to get attention. With so many brands who are doing what you’re doing, you need to let the world know how you’re doing it better. Your branding should express what makes you unique and why they should make the switch.

4. Lack of Consistency
The quickest way to confuse your audience and lead them to question the legitimacy of your brand is to be inconsistent with your messaging and imagery. Everything from your colors to your voice should be consistent.

Your company visuals should match across all social media platforms, marketing collateral, and your website. Your company should use the same name, colors, logo, and taglines both on and offline. Not only will consistency help your audience remember you, but it builds trust.

5. Not Realizing That Everything Is Now Global
The Internet and social media have given all brands a global platform. When you put yourself out there, you allow the whole world access to your image and voice. Be careful with topics that touch race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, politics, and so on – unless your brand is built on controversy and aims to invite debate and unleash firestorms.

6. Employees Who Don’t Walk the Walk and Talk the Talk
Your brand goes beyond what you see on social media, your website, on billboards or TV. Your brand isn’t just the products on the shelves. Your brand extends to all your people. So if you have employees who are poor representations of what your brand stands for, your company will suffer.
Engage your employees and give them a sense of pride to represent your brand. Give them a reason to be ambassadors who proudly spread your message.

7. Not Knowing Enough About Branding
Business owners know their product, logistics, finances, hiring the right people, and all things related to operations. What they may not be so great at, is defining their brand and establishing a differentiated presence in the market that makes them attractive and memorable to customers.
Ultimately, the biggest mistake businesses make in branding is not knowing where to start and how to achieve its success.
Let NUEX Creative help you stand out and create a unique experience that leaves your audience breathless and wanting more. Differentiate yourself from the competition. Let us help you tell your story in a new perspective.

If you’re ready for takeoff, get your FREE consultation today.

How To Design A Conversion-Driven Website That Increases Sales

Mar 06, 2019

For businesses to survive in this digital age, they must adapt to the changes in consumer behavior. And while you may think that means focusing on social media because that’s where most consumers spend their time, you’re wrong.
Too many small businesses have made the error in judgment by believing that a social media account is all they need to market their business. After all, it’s free to set up while websites can cost from a few hundred to thousands of dollars to launch. But while a site requires an investment, the returns more than cover it. Also, you’re never entirely in control. Remember, social media platforms continuously change – from their algorithms to their rules to pricing.
Your website, your content, your message. Think of your website as the “home base” of your online presence while social media is the marketing tool to get people to your site. As your business’s online hub, your goal is to make it as engaging and worthy of your visitors’ attention and time. Here’s how to design a website that converts and boosts sales:

Clear Call-to-Action
To drive sales, you need to place your CTAs where they are noticeable. The button should stand out, grabbing the visitor’s attention and inviting them to click. It can work with short phrases such as ‘Buy Now’ on a button in a contrasting color that pops out from the page.

Video Content
Quality imagery and excellent copy are key. But if you want to drive conversion rates, your website needs video content. Video increases the time people spend on a site by a whopping 71%. According to a study by Renderforest, including a video on your homepage increases your conversion rates by 20% or more. The study also reveals that 64% of users are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video.

High-Quality Product Images
As people react better to visual stimuli, invest in high-quality images of your products. Professional imagery is more appealing and trustworthy.

Capture all your product’s angles and make it easy for visitors to browse. Use a zoom feature that allows people to see the details and textures of your products. You may also want to show your products in action to help visitors imagine what the product looks like in their hands.

UX Matters
Remember, conversions involve more than online purchases; they also include form submissions and other forms of opt-ins. User Experience (UX) impacts all types of transformation significantly. If visitors can’t figure their way around your site, they will leave without buying, signing up, or anything.
Design your site so that it’s easy to navigate. Optimize page speed for an uninterrupted browsing experience. Use attractive and well-designed CTAs and headlines. Your website pages should also be consistent and use images wisely.

Simplified Checkout
A long, complicated checkout process is a sure-fire way to lose customers who don’t have the patience or time. When the process takes too long, visitors abandon their carts and move on. If you can’t implement a one-click checkout, you should streamline the process as much as possible by requiring minimum data input.

At NUEX Creative, we know all about how to make your website stand out, differentiate you from the competition, and how to boost your sales. If you need a conversion-driven website, we would love to help you.

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