The role that branding plays in the success of your business cannot be overstated. In many cases, branding makes the difference between success and failure of your enterprise. Understanding the role that printed labels play in your brand matrix is an important first step in getting your branding right. In this article, we share some suggestions that will help your brand get the most out of your printed labels.
Knowing Your Brand
Understanding what your brand is and what it promises your customers is the foundation of all your branding activities including what you will do with your printed labels. At its core, your brand creates certain expectations in your customers (these can be positive or negative). Your role will be to understand what these expectations are and reinforce them if positive or change them if negative.
Translating this concept of branding into your printed labels will have implications on the images and typeface you use (playful, serious, relaxed etc) as well as the quality of the labels that you use. If your brand is positioned in the minds of your clients as a high-class brand, using cheap, low quality labels creates a mismatch that could harm your brand and eventually your business. Generally, regardless of your brand, always opt for high quality printed labels for your products or for price tags and barcodes on the products.
What Sets You Apart?
Part of knowing your brand is understanding how you differ from your competitors. In other words, what sets it apart? This differentiator is key and must be conveyed in your printed labels as well as in all other branding materials that your business puts out there. This differentiator could be price (your business could be offering the most competitive price in the market) or could be the quality of the product you offer. Some businesses even use their customer service as the differentiator by striving to offer the best customer experience in the market.
Reinforce Your Brand
Branding is about consistency. Once you understand what your brand is and what sets it apart, the next thing that you must do is to ensure that it remains consistent across any communication that you put out there. Consistency allows your brand to stick in the minds of your customers and for them to become familiar with it. Also, in the myriad of information that a typical customer is exposed to, it takes a while before your brand sticks in their mind and they can instantly recognize your logo.
Being consistent with your brand message makes this process quicker and easier. What this means for example, is that if you are labeling your products, there must be a consistency in colors, images, messages and label positioning in the products that you turn out. Most businesses often produce a branding guideline that helps employees and suppliers understand what colors, images and typeface to use across their printed labels and other branding messages that are out there. You can also consider custom printing labels straight from your supplier in order to ensure consistency of your printed labels.
As you can see, being aware of your brand will help you when you are creating your printed labels. By understanding what your brand is, you can use printed labels and other branding items to ensure that your brand is not only recognizable to customers but that it sets positive expectations in their minds.
