Top 6 Reasons to Invest In Your Branding
#1 Build a solid foundation. A solid brand foundation means you don’t need to re-do the branding a year or two later. Get your brand message right on shelf the first time, so that it’s an easy extension to your website, social, and online marketing. Make it one cohesive target.
#2 Plan for the future. Is your agency asking the right questions? A good branding team will extract the present and future expectations of your brand — like where you envision your business in five years. We can’t tell you how many times an entrepreneur comes to us with one product, but the more we chat, they have multiple other related ideas up their sleeves. For example, if the goal is to expand from drinks to powders to bars, then your brand identity needs to be strong enough to encompass all these products.
#3 Dream BIG! A good branding team is a creative partner and collaborator. They’re going to create a foundational brand strategy and dream up different approaches from storytelling to design, leading you through the creative process vs. you telling someone exactly what you want them to do. A good agency will surprise you with their creative genius. Hire for what you never could dream up.
#4 Standout from the Pack. An experienced agency is going to look at your competitive set in-store and online and will build your brand to stand out from the pack. A pretty package doesn’t do much if it looks just like the rest of your competitors. Pretty is short term. Pretty AND compelling is what you need to get into big box retailers faster.
#5 Own your story. A good branding team is going to dig until they find your most compelling points of difference in the marketplace and tell your story so consumers get what you’re all about. If your product is all about functional nutrition, then the audience should experience your brand voice from naming to packaging to expo booth. Tell your story once and do it well.
#6 Live your best shelf life. Brand studios like SHELF know the ins and outs of packaging design and can get your product “shelf ready” without missing required packing copy or elements. Even if a category is newer to us and we need your help gathering information, we know what questions to ask so you’re buttoned up. In the end, we’ve seen countless companies we’ve worked with repay themselves multiple times over for any branding efforts, with the open doors and opportunities that come from a cohesive brand. #standoutfromthepack #shelfstudio
