A brand kit, also known as a brand identity kit is a tool of expression for your business. It contains the visual assets of your business that tell your brand story. These assets include the logo, colour palette, typography, image style, template structure, and messaging.
In a market where every company is competing for a piece of the pie, the image of your brand is what will give you or deny you your share. Your business is the product or service you offer. Your brand is the feeling or emotions that are conjured in your target audience when they think about you.
The values your brand stands for or doesn’t stand for are expressed in one way or another. The standards your business upholds create an impression on your audience. Your brand uses one tool to achieve this- an effective brand kit.
According to branding statistics, it takes approximately 7 seconds for your brand to make a visual impact. A strong brand identity kit will aesthetically unite its elements to give your target audience a lasting impression visually while communicating your brand’s values.
One thing is for sure, a business without good branding will not make its mark. If your target audience does not know what you are about and hence is unable to connect with you, you have no business running a business. It is reported that over 50% of customers do not do repeat business with companies that had an unappealing design or none at all.
Like water is for fish so is a brand kit for your brand. Here are five reasons to leave you persuaded.
1. A Brand Kit Promotes Brand Consistency
The brand kit is primarily used as a reference point for all content for your brand. This ensures that stipulated standards and guidelines are adhered to. A reference point ensures consistency is maintained throughout the content that is churned out by the creative team.
When the visual assets of your brand are applied across your social media sites, website, and ad campaigns and your essential business stationery, harmony is created. This makes your brand easily recognizable.
Customers are consuming content on the internet 24/7. When a customer sees your ad campaign on Facebook for a product you are advertising, they expect to recognize the website they’ll make their purchase from. All thanks to a brand that they could easily identify and hence trust.
Consider your color profile for a minute. How you apply it across your marketing channels, website, business stationery, and products will increase your chances of brand recognition by 80% experts say. The more a consumer can tell your brand apart from others, the more confident they grow.
What is the coveted result of consumer confidence? An increase in leads and conversion.
2. A Brand Kit Makes You Stand Out
The meticulous application of your visual elements to your brand will attract the attention of your audience in no time. An effective brand identity gives you a professional look which gives an edge to your brand.
If you are given a set of colored pencils and a blank piece of paper, would you be able to sketch the Nike logo in its color? I bet you will. The logo has stood out over time.
Your brand logo is the number one element that will tell you apart from the next brand. It is reported that 75% of people will identify a brand primarily by its logo.
The logo carries a huge assignment for your brand. It ought to communicate what your business is about and what it values. Does your brand have competition? Then ensure that your logo delivers its assignment well.
Your brand’s visual style and color profile come a close second to the logo enabling you to stand out. Your target will more likely remember your brand by your colors if they won’t recall your logo. In marketing your physical products 85% of consumers will make their buying decision based on the colors used on your the products or packaging.
3. A Brand Kit Promotes Ease of Application
Having a brand kit as a reference point makes accessibility easy whenever content needs to be created. Your creative team, a new hire, or a freelance designer will find it a breeze to have a template of brand standards and elements they can quickly apply.
Furthermore, external parties will appreciate the efficiency that comes with a readily available brand kit should they want to design creatives that are on-brand.
However, the bigger advantage of the kit is seen when your team has people with little to no inherent design skills. How is a brand to be confident that the visual content created for its channels will be consistent with who they are? You answered it right.
4. A Brand Kit Saves Time & Money
A brand kit is a resource that has all your brand’s visual components in one place. This makes it easy and time-saving for anyone who needs to design a creative for the brand.
Your designer will not be looking through hundreds of photos to get your brand’s imagery style. Neither will she be generating hex codes and getting confused at its consistency whenever your color palette is needed.
To craft your brand kit,
- You can hire a designer to do it for you
- You can get a done-for-you brand kit template that you can edit on Canva
- You can do it all yourself on Canva using its brand kit feature
Canva’s Brand Kit feature is the best thing that happened to small businesses. Available to Canva Pro subscribers, it allows you to house all your visual assets, including custom fonts, and apply them to your content with ease. This increases efficiency and saves you time.
You can use the free version of Canva but you will be limited to 3 colors on your palette and available fonts. You will also need to manually fetch your logo and other elements when you need to design your templates.
Once you have made your initial financial investment of getting a brand kit, you do not have to spend more money to get professional service from a designer. You or your team members can apply the brand kit to your visual channels whenever needed. And just like that, money is saved!
5. A Brand Kit Makes it Easier to Rebrand
Businesses pivot and changes may need to be done to the overall brand. A pre-existing guideline will help create a smooth transition during the rebranding process.
Rebranding could be necessary to tap into a new business or get into a partnership. Whatever the compelling reason, having a brand kit template that reminds you of who you were will be a great starting place to point you in the direction that you should go as a business.
Should your business have a brand kit? The answer should be a resounding yes.
