Grow It is a Dublin based marketing & design agency. Grow It specialize in immersive content marketing, graphic design and marketing consultancy. If you’d like to get in touch please see the Grow It contact page here.

Branding is one of the first things any business starting out needs to tackle. Deciding on design, theme and tone of voice for your business can determine a large part of whether you’ll be successful or not.

For any new brand, it is essential that they take the time to think long term with their branding. They need to be clear about the messages they want their branding to portray. Decipher how you want your business to be seen in the public eye. It is a hugely important part of your business.

Branding Big for Small Business

Good, powerful branding can give the impression that your company is a much bigger deal than it actually is. This is essential, especially in the B2C environment. With the multitude of free platforms available to your business, you can immediately be perceived as a strong professional outfit.

It is imperative that you have your logo, website and promotional material all designed to match. That design then needs to be applicable across the board. You will have branding guidelines for any graphic designers you work with. You need this so that your material can all still represent your brand, they way you want it. Now your content can have the same feel, regardless of who you’re working with.

You can use services like Paletton to help decide on a colour scheme that matches your industry and brand values. This infographic too from BufferApp is can help you decide on a colour that reflects your business idea and branding values:

Tone of Voice

Tone of voice, along with your design is one of the most important aspects to your branding. Again, your tone of voice will have to reflect your brand values, how you want to be perceived, which will dictate the way people talk about you. If customer service is going to be a large part of your business then this is something you’d have to think about even more carefully.

When starting out small with small numbers of staff, it is often more natural to have your tone of voice match that of the employees that work there. This is probably more applicable in the tech startup area, but can also work for on site businesses like coffee shops, restaurants etc.

Your tone of voice along with your design is something that has the capacity to change. It will naturally evolve as you develop your business further. Think of it like a car that you modify as you go on. You change bits here and there to improve performance or to alter the style as you please. At the end of the day however, it is still the same vehicle.

Your Brand is Your First Pitch

When starting out, your brand building exercise will prove to be your first business pitch. Potential clients will look around at your website, social media profiles, promotional materials before they buy. This will largely decipher whether or not they like your business. Strong branding will be perceived as a sign of professionalism and strength.

Your Branding helps to ensure the customer that you know what you’re doing. Good branding is a sign that your strategy is well thought out, therefore capable of tending to the customers needs too. This rings even truer if you work in an agency environment.

Tips for getting started:

  1. Establish your brand values.
  2. Choose a colour scheme that represents these brand values. Incorporate this into your logo and web design.
  3. Establish your tone of voice that represents these values and industry.
  4. Use the above to develop brand guidelines both for written content and design.

We live by these same guidelines building our brand.

  • Grow It, a marketing agency with content and services designed to help SME’s increase business and grow (our brand value).
  • We chose green (colour representing growth) as our core colour.
  • We implement grass elements ( another sign of growth) into our graphics.
  • We have a gentle, helpful tone of voice with the aim of helping other businesses to grow.

Get it Right From the Start

Do not rush into the development of your brand, even though it should be a priority when starting off. You’ll need to carefully decide on what you want your brand to be. Branding dictates your image from the start and will be something that sticks with your business down the line.

A fatal wrong move or decision made at the start can have a serious affect on your business moving forward. If you need any help with your branding, don’t be afraid to give us a shout.