Let’s explore what a brand really is and why branding is important. You might think you know what a brand consists of, but in reality, a brand is much more than a simple logo with some colors. In fact, a brand branches out and encompasses your whole business, not just your logo. This article will explore how you can use your branding to tell a story to your customers. This is your first chance to impress your customers and give them insight into what they can expect when working with you.
Your brand should have a personality to it. Your personality is infused with the personality of your business. As a campground owner, your brand needs to display what your customers are looking for. Perhaps it’s a laid-back campground in the woods where they can get away from their hectic day-to-day life. But if your logo conveys a hectic campground with too many things going on, it can drive away potential clients.
When you craft your brand, you need to keep your entire business in mind. Branding encompasses your logo, content, design, colors, customer experience/customer service, and much more—all of these need to be consistent throughout your entire operation. We will cover some specific elements that make your branding unique and how you can use these elements to tell a story with your branding.
During this journey, we will be focusing on a campground that needed some help changing its branding. Their image was outdated and needed an immediate upgrade to stay with the current standards. Like many campground owners, they thought branding was limited to a logo and some flashy colors to attract more customers. So, let’s take a look at how rvResortScout explained to these owners just how powerful and important branding is and how they used this knowledge to revamp their brand completely.
Logo The Most Basic Form of Branding
Let’s start with the most obvious one, the logo. When thinking about redesigning a logo, the most important facet is making sure it resonates with your target audience. Think about every great logo out there and then notice how well it compliments their target users. From the Nike Swish to the Starbucks Logo, they all target and appeal to their audience. For our campground owners, we ask a few simple questions such as who is your target audience, what image are you trying to display, and is there a specific color scheme you are trying to stick to?
Once we understand what our clients are looking for, we can then show them how their logo can tell a story. Your logo has the power to display emotions and invoke certain feelings from your target audience. If fun is what you want your logo to display, then bright, flashy colors with an eye-catching design might be the way to go. On the other hand, if you are looking for a laid-back feel, then more neutral colors with a simple text logo could do the trick.
For the campground we were working with, they wanted a laid-back feel. With that information, we began to piece together what their logo should look like. Colors, emotions, and design elements are all taken into account when crafting a logo. This just steps one but one of the most important elements of branding. Having a logo representing your brand builds trust, tells a story and invites people to take a closer look.
When thinking about your logo, think of the story that it is telling. Does it align with your campground’s overall message, or is it out of place? Be honest with yourself, and if it does seem out of place and out of line with your companies message, it could be time for a change.
Color and Its Importance in Branding
Color plays a huge role in branding. The color of your website, logo, campground, and anything that represents you is essential. Colors evoke a feeling, and you could inadvertently be driving potential clients away. So, if you are looking to understand colors and branding, we direct you to this amazing article by Matt Ellis, where he covers this exact topic.
Our campground owners opted to go with green, grey, and brown for their branding revamp. These colors allowed the owners to paint the perfect picture. Green is a color synonymous with nature and growth, while grey stands for maturity. As their campground was also a place for retirees to head to, relax, and get away, this went perfectly with their design request. And finally, brown evokes an earthy, rugged feel that sits well with the majority of campgrounds. Brown is a color many campground owners can use to better connect with their target audience when building their webpages.
Notice the colors you have used to create your brand. Do they flow well together, are they just randomly placed, or do they have a purpose? Ask yourself these tough questions and find out the exact message the colors you are using give off. Make sure the colors perfectly align with the image your brand is trying to portray. Colors are one of the main reasons why branding is important. Since you cannot change human psychology, use the colors to your advantage. Subconsciously evoke the feelings you want to in your target audience.
Why Branding is Important: Copy
Copy is often a second thought when it comes to branding. Let’s face it; no one really likes to sit all day at their desk writing amazing content for their website in hopes that someone will stroll by and deem their article worthy of a read. It’s time-consuming, challenging, and you will often have other aspects of your business that you could be focusing on. The problem with this mentality is that copy does something no piece of imagery can effectively convey. And that is tone.
Tone is the driver of a successful salesman, a successful conversion process on a website, and what will allow you to take your branding to the next level. Your tone delivers a powerful statement about who you are and gives a complete view of your company. Keeping aligned with what your campground stands for, use tone to showcase who you truly are.
Back to our Campground example. Our client wanted us to make his campground seem laid-back, stress-free, and a spot where an older community could gather and have a good time. And just like that, good content was born. Often, our clients know what to say; they don’t know where to place their content. Having sections dedicated to why your campground is stress-free, laid back, and retiree-friendly is exactly how you make good content. While rvResortScout does not create content for our clients, we optimize their existing content and craft statements that exemplify what they are all about.
Now take a moment and visit your website or even physical pamphlets that you may have of your website. Is your copy engaging, does it have the right tone, and are you staying focused by speaking directly to your target audience? If your answer was no to any of these questions, it could be time to head back and create some more well-written content.
Images in Telling a Story
A picture is worth a thousand words. While a picture does not always get the exact point across, it does provide immense value. The mistake many website owners make is using generic “stock” photos that can be found anywhere on the web. For example, many tax accountants use a goldfish in a bowl when talking about tax returns. Many campgrounds use the same trees in their photos. The issue is it is inauthentic, and your customer will see right through it.
Be you and use the images to tell a story. We solved this issue for our client in a simple and fun way. We encouraged them to hire a professional photographer for half a day and snap some pictures of their campground and staff. Of course, this can be done with some camera equipment of your own and the ability to capture some good pictures.
We asked them to take a total of three pictures, so they could display them on their website. The first was a group photo where everyone could show their personality or professionalism depending on the owner’s preference. The second was of the nature surrounding the campground. And finally, the third was of just the owners themselves. We then used these pictures to help our owners create a complete picture of their brand. These images brightened up the website and have it that authentic feel any business should have.
It’s now your turn to check out your website and make sure you aren’t using any “stock” photos. And if you are, it might be time you removed them and opted to take some original pictures of your campground.
You are Your Brand
You are the face of your campground. As the owner, your personality should shine through. You have the ability to tell a story using all of these methods. When tied together, you get a complete view of your brand and just what it could do for you. I hope this article sheds some light on why branding is important and how you can use it to gain a competitive advantage over your competitors. If you are looking for an analysis of your website and how we can help you improve your branding, schedule an appointment with one of our marketing experts, and they will gladly tell you where we think you can make improvements.
If you’re not ready for an appointment feel free to explore our article on Using Story Telling to Take Your Marketing to New Heights.
