When selecting branding packages for a small business – including law firms and other professional firms – there are some key questions that are vital to think about before even thinking of calling the branding agency.
We look at the key steps that will help propel your law firm brand, your small business or any other brand into heightened public awareness.
What is a branding package?
It will comprise a bunch of elements that establish the overall look and feel for your ‘brand’ – be it a bicycle shop, a plumbing business or a law firm.
This will include your logo, the color selection for your website and overall brand assets, the graphic elements, typography and personality of your brand.
You want to project an image and ‘feel’ that meets your customers’ expectations, be that trustworhiness, efficiency, professionalism or whatever.
reach your audience.
Accentuage Your ‘Difference’
How will you differentiate yourself from your competitors? It is important that your brand’s image will try and adopt a unique approach that will make you stand out and a good branding package or arrangement should ensure that you create that uniqueness.
It will not however come down to a single factor, but rather a range or combination of branding elements that together create the image you want.
See: Top 10 Marketing Tips for Law Firms by Kevin Vermuellen
The Logo
Your logo will be one of the front-and-center elements of your branding and is therefore vital. But while it is an essential element, it is only part and parcel of the overall branding and marketing strategy that you want to project.
It’s no good having a clever logo that appears to meet your brand’s personality and needs, but where the additional elements fail to build upon that image and to carry through on the brand values you are seeking to project.
When working on new branding or any visual brand identity consider the following steps:
Keep it simple. A logo should not be over designed or complex with too many colors. Make it easy to understand and recognize and also relevant to your business and to also reflect the values and personality of your business or professional firm.
Keep it versatile. Remember that a beautiful logo should be able to be used across your marketing material, including your website, social media channels and elsewhere. It should ideally also be able to be reproduced in different sizes without loses the identify and effectiveness of the logo itself.
Make it memorable. This may be harder to achieve than the other requirements, but if you can make a logo stick in the minds of your clients or customers then you are succeeding. Test some ideas, test shapes, colors and other elements relating to your brand name or business name.
Make it resonate with personality. Different businesses will have different brand requirements and the design process for the brand will change depending upon what they do. For instance, a law firm that handles class actions will want to distinguish its law firm branding from others by perhaps striking a different note. With law firm branding try and avoid the generic scales of justice and Corinthian columns which fade into the legal background of so many law firms. Here are some examples of great law firm logos to think about.
If you are marketing a service business use something bold and emphatic about what you do, as distinct from perhaps a luxury brand, which may have more elegant fonts and imagery to represent the sort of business you are.
The Value Proposition
Establish a value proposition or mission statement. These may be different things, but having a ‘statement of intent’ that reflects what you want your brand to do is important – both for yourselves and your employees and also for your customers or clients.
Determine its brand values and personality: What sets the business apart from its competitors? What values does it stand for?
Answering these questions can help to establish the unique personality of the brand.
They can help motivate your firm towards achieving a common goal. So think hard about your value proposition and how your business or firm will be better / different / better than your competitors. Just remember, you need to be authentic and honest here, not just clever and facile with what you say.
Remember too that you want your statement to be specific to your values and business.
For instance, here’s Home Depot’s mission statement, which (if you remove their name) could pretty well apply to any business anywhere, any time, any how. Too general, too overarching, boring.
“The Home Depot is in the home improvement business and our goal is to provide the highest level of service, the broadest selection of products and the most competitive prices.”
The Typography
Choosing the ‘right’ typography is a key part of any complete branding package and is an element that will help convey the personality and value of your business or firm.
There are various factors you need to think about as a small business owner that go into choosing the right typography that fits your brand including your brand ‘personality’, which should reflect the nature of your business.
For a law firm, for instance, it should promote a serious, professional look while a less serious small business like a party hire business or similar might have a ‘playful’ typography that has a sans serif typeface. We outlined these points in a 2020 article that remains relevant in any law firm branding or small business branding exercise.
The typography should also be consistent. Don’t mix them up so that you create a disjointed feel to the website and other promotional material used in your media kit, branding material, social media and so forth.
Avoid over fussy or decorative typefaces. They can confuse and complicate the image you are trying to achieve. Over-designed typefaces make reading harder for your customers or clients.
Either way and whatever you choose make sure you do some testing with others to make sure that the typography works for your intended readership (ie – you customers).
The Marketing Materials
When developing your marketing material or marketing collateral make sure you keep to your typography, your brand colors, and the overall look and feel you want to achieve.
The supporting material should be guided by the branding.
A good design studio will ensure that you have a consistent look across all your website and publicity material including not only your digital media, but also your media packages, media graphics, your email templates, business cards and all the other professional branding material necessary to provide the image you want to project.
Brand awareness is key to achieving that consistent result and to obtain the best results you’re seeking for your business or firm.
Be Consistent
Consistency is one of the key features for effective branding. You need to ensure you are using the same visual elements, the brand style and ‘look’ for your business or firm across the website, the social media channels and all your marketing material.
Establishing a clear and consistent brand identity is crucial for a small business, as it helps to establish credibility and trust with customers, and makes the business more memorable in a crowded market.
Check Some Great Small Business And Law Firm Brands
Among the businesses that have used their brands to great effect, using both creativity and some cohesive brand identity that create a top brand image.
Often smaller or larger businesses will also identify their value or purpose for some greater good, or incorporate an element of humor or at least humanity that can resonate effectively with their prospective customers or clients.
Here are some that work well in our view:
- Patagonia: This outdoor clothing and gear company has built a strong brand based on its commitment to sustainability and social responsibility.
- Warby Parker: This eyewear company has built a loyal customer base through its affordable prices, stylish designs, and commitment to social responsibility (e.g. the “buy a pair, give a pair” program).
- In-N-Out Burger: This fast food chain has a devoted following due to its high-quality ingredients and made-to-order business model.
- Zappos: This online shoe retailer has built a strong brand based on its customer service and hassle-free return policy.
Your Tag line
Making a good tag line or strap line or sloan can help reinforce your law firm or business image and value. Give some careful thought to that and try and avoid hitting too many key points that simply complicate and confuse the image you want to project.
Think about some great tag lines for major business’s like Nike’s ‘Just Do It’, or Meow Mix: “So Good, Cats Ask For It by Name”, or Lay’s potato chips “Betcha Can’t Eat Just One”.
It is easy to become trite and hokey with your taglines. Check this resource for some sample law firm tag lines, or this ‘slogan maker’ for some great ideas if you want to kick start something that works for your business.
There are plenty of great slogans and tag lines out there – just as there are plenty of bad ones. Here’s one of the latter, which tries to hit every high point that just about any business in the world would want, from The Home Depot’ –
The Branding Package Takeaways
So where does that leave the client looking for a great branding package? First, do some thinking yourself. Get ready before you approach any design team about your business, your values, your vision for what your business should or could be. And most important, knowing your target market.
That has to be the first step. Building your business visual identity is more than just developing a main logo and a new website design.
A good branding agency will understand that and help develop the design elements that will build your online presence and create your brand personality.
It is a creative process. But it is also one that starts with you and your staff, building ideas about the brand vision you have – before you pick up the phone to call the branding service that will deliver it for you.
