6 Good Reasons to Hire A Branding Company

What comes to mind when you think of Nike? What about Coca-Cola? Or Starbucks? 

These are some of the biggest brands in the world, and they’re recognizable because of their branding. 

Over time, these companies have used images, messaging, logos, design, and more to create an immediately recognizable brand identity. Even more important than that, they stand out and appeal to potential customers. 

For any organization, branding is an important part of its growth strategy. Yet, developing a brand identity can be challenging. 

That’s where a branding agency can help. Learn more about why you should hire a branding company to solidify your business’s brand image in this article. 

Looking for a branding agency? Search top service providers on The Manifest. 

What is Branding?

Branding is the process of creating a unique and recognizable look that helps companies distinguish themselves from competitors. Brands should be memorable and distinctive, but most importantly, they should attract customers.

Branding companies can formulate a branding strategy and create a cohesive look for their clients. This often includes developing images, style guides, and other brand assets. 

Here are a few things a branding company can help your business with: 

• Naming 
• Slogans and taglines
• Logo designs 
• Brand documentation 
• Editorial style guide
• Typography
• Templates for PowerPoint, email, and stationery 
• Social media presence

With these assets, branding companies can help you create a cohesive look that portrays your message well. 

6 Benefits of Hiring a Branding Company

1. Develop a brand strategy with industry experts/li>
2. Build brand recognition
3. Differentiate your business from competitors
4. Enhance visuals and create a fresh look
5. Improve your online presence
6. Reduce hiring costs

Develop a Brand Strategy with Industry Experts 

A brand strategy is the long-term plan to help companies establish their brand’s presence. This is more than just creating a logo, a color palette, and a few images. Rather, a brand strategy is about growing awareness and recognition of your brand over time until it’s a household name. 

To create a brand strategy, branding companies will think about their client’s business and how they plan to grow. They will even research their clients’ target audiences to determine the best way to position the brand in the market. 

With the information they gathered during their research, branding experts can create a custom strategy to convey their business’s messaging. 

For companies that don’t have in-house branding experts, creating a branding strategy is difficult. While in-house graphic designers, social media experts, web designers, and others can help your business maintain your brand, they simply don’t have the experience to develop a brand strategy from scratch. 

By hiring branding professionals that know how to formulate brand messaging and create a comprehensive look and feel, companies can get a better return on their investment (ROI) than if they were to try and tackle branding on their own. 

Build Brand Recognition

Believe it or not, brand recognition can increase sales. The more consumers are familiar with your brand, the more they trust your business and are more likely to make a purchase. 

Brand awareness also ensures that your brand is top of mind, so consumers that are looking to purchase your products or services will search for your business by name. 

The best way to build brand awareness and recognition is by creating discernible messaging as well as a unique brand aesthetic. Branding companies have experience in not only developing a brand, but creating one that can grow through marketing and advertising.

Differentiate Your Business From Competitors 

There’s nothing worse than your business simply blending in in the market. In order to attract customers and cultivate customer loyalty, companies need to stand out. The only way to do that is through branding. Otherwise, companies risk losing clients to their competitors. 

Branding companies know how to help businesses carve out their niche in the marketplace through messaging and imaging. While the brand has to be unique, it also has to reflect the industry and what the business delivers. 

For instance, Patagonia, REI, and The North Face are all retail companies that specialize in producing clothing and gear for outdoor activities like hiking, fishing, surfing, and climbing. While they’re all in the same niche, they’ve each been able to differentiate themselves in the marketplace through their branding. 

Their logos reflect their ties to nature and the outdoors, yet they’re all unique. 

Patagonia and REI both showcase imagery that are resonant of mountainscapes, but Patagonia follows a more natural style while REI’s logo is more minimalist. REI further differentiates itself by adding a pine tree and using blocky text instead of Patagonia’s serif font. 

The North Face, on the other hand, takes another approach altogether by pairing their brand name with a minimalist version of a sunrise or sunset. 

Balancing the brand messaging between what is expected from the industry and what makes the brand stand out is an art form. In this case, Patagonia, REI, and The North Face balanced this perfectly. Branding experts know just how to toe the line. 

Enhance Visuals And Create A Fresh Look

A picture is worth a thousand words, and the imagery linked to your brand is essential for portraying your business’s values and personality. 

Whether your business needs images for your website, social media, or other types of content, a branding company can ensure that all of your images have a cohesive look and feel. 

One way to do this is by developing a color palette and style guide that will drive how your images look going forward. 

Consider Coca-Cola’s brand. Over time, they’ve created one of the most recognizable brands in the world through their use of color, typography, and lines. In this ad, they didn’t even need to include their brand name, yet people instantly know what it refers to thanks to the color and shapes used in the image. 

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For the background, they used their iconic, bright-red color. The image is simple: using their other brand color, white, the image depicts two outstretched hands passing an unlabeled bottle between them. The lines for the arms are curved and reflect the flowing curve represented in the logo and packaging. 

This extremely minimalist image, yet conveys their brand messaging extremely well. Coca-Cola’s brand is portrayed as bubbly, light, and happy. At the time this image was released, they were running the ad campaign, “Share Happiness. Share a Coke,” which is reflected by the image of passing the bottles between two people.  

In another image, they showed a group of happy people toasting with a Coke in hand. Using photography, they achieved the same look and feel as the illustration above. Even though it’s in a different style and medium, the imagery still reflects the brand well. 

A great branding company can help your business create images like this that reflect your business values, mission, and products. 

Improve Your Online Presence

In this day and age, how your business is perceived online can make or break it. In fact, 97% of consumers use the internet to find a business or product during their buyer journey. Therefore, your online presence has to reflect your brand. 

Branding companies can help you create a style guide or images that can make your online assets more recognizable and more appealing for customers. 

For example, consider all of the content Starbucks has to produce online – they have a website, mobile app, and social media profiles on every major platform. Yet, for these assets to be effective, their brand has to be pronounced and noticeable. 

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If you look at all of their digital assets, you’ll notice that they have the same look and feel on each one. This is thanks to their strong branding. 

They often use a combination of dark and light shades of green on their visual assets to promote their brand. They also highlight their logo in a lot of their images and focus on their products in their posts. 

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While social media managers and graphic designers often create the content for social media posts, branding plays a huge role in creating a cohesive look on these platforms. 

By developing a brand image, you’ll find that your social media profiles and advertisements perform better. You’ll also create a better user experience for users on your website and mobile app. 

Reduce Hiring Costs 

Hiring in-house graphic designers, social media experts, web designers, and market researchers to create a brand identity can be a costly process. 

Developing a brand from scratch requires experts from several different fields and hiring an entire team is expensive. In addition to salaries, companies would have to pay for benefits, PTO, and more. 

At the same time, you can hire a branding agency for just that particular project. Once it’s over, you don’t have to worry about retaining an entire team like you would have if you hired internal workers. As such, outsourcing can often be more affordable. 

Rather than hiring individual experts, companies can hire branding agencies that already have full teams that can dedicate their time and effort to developing a custom branding experience. 

Branding experts have extensive experience developing brand strategies and creating brand assets that can help grow your business. As a result, you’re likely to find that you’re happier with your brand identity after working with an outsource provider. 

Create a Cohesive Brand Identity By Hiring an Agency

A great brand identity should be unique, eye-catching, and represent your business’s mission and values. 

Branding agencies are able to create a brand strategy and brand assets that will differentiate your business from others in your industry. As storytellers, they’re able to use images, copy, and more to personify your company’s voice and vision. 

With a strong brand image, you can carve out your position in the marketplace, enhance your online presence, and develop stronger customer loyalty. 

Looking for a branding agency? Search top service providers on The Manifest.