Entering a new market requires careful planning, especially for first-time business owners. It's akin to scaling unfamiliar territory where you won't know exactly what needs to be done. One simple rule to remember is this: your brand's first impression won't be made with words, but with visuals. And so, if you're debuting in a new market, you need effective visual branding . Here's what you need to know and do:
Know Your Market Before Building Your Brand But before going to the drawing board with designing your visuals, you need to know your market first. Using amazing visuals will be useless if they do not resonate with your target audience. Thus, you need to understand who they are, what their pain points are, and what their cultural norms are, and many other nuances.
Know which colors feel premium, which layouts feel familiar, and which styles will pique their interest. Doing this allows you to craft design assets that they will relate to. Aside from this, you also need to look at what your competitors have. Find visual angles that they haven't claimed yet to help you craft a visual identity that's uniquely yours.
Design Your Visual Identity to Fit Your Market Photo by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels Your business's design assets should feel familiar to your new market. Thus, you need to craft your visual identity with this in mind, but without losing your distinction. Use color palettes, typography, and imagery that match your audience's preferences while reflecting your core values.
Your visuals become your brand's storytelling tools. Use them to communicate your unique selling proposition, your message, and your purpose. In short, you need visuals that reflect what's important to the consumers you are trying to reach.
Design Assets You'll Need to Enter the Market Once done with researching your target audience, it's time to build your creative assets. The list below will give you a good idea of what your brand needs:
Logo: You need to design the icon that will be the face of your brand. For this, you'll need several variations and a localized version if your business is reaching global consumers. You need a black-and-white version and a horizontal and a vertical layout.Brand guidelines: A clear and easy-to-follow guide to help your design team, whether internal or external, create designs that are coherent and consistent. This should also include how to use your logo, color codes, tone of voice, and a few dos and don'ts.Product visuals: Your product needs to look its very best, whether you're selling physical or digital goods. This can include packaging designs, demo visuals, or UI screens.Marketing paraphernalia: Your social media platforms, website, landing pages, email campaigns, and other marketing collaterals need to be consistent. This is also true for all your flyers, business cards, posters, and outdoor advertising, if you have them.Using Data for Your Visual Strategy Deciding on your brand's visual assets should come from thoughtful planning, not guesswork. You'll find valuable data from real customer insights. In this regard, market research is crucial. These data will tell you which design elements will feel familiar to them, which will be aspirational, and which will be trustworthy to them.
So, to help you do this, you can start by gathering feedback. You can conduct surveys, interviews, or collect behavioral data to understand how your audience reacts to your designs. You can test different versions of your logo, layouts, color schemes, and others. Lastly, keep an eye on the visuals' performance. See if they are helping you build brand recognition, boost social shares, or reduce bounce rates, among other benchmarks. This way, you can make smarter creative choices.
A Few Mistakes to Avoid When Entering New Markets Even with the best of planning, missteps happen. Here are a few mistakes to watch out for when launching a brand into a new market:
Over-customizing brand identity: Overly tweaking your visuals can result in them no longer feeling like you. Do not try too hard to fit in. Doing so ups your risk of confusing your audience and diluting your brand equity. Using designs that aren't reflective of local preferences: A design in one region may feel irrelevant in another. Do not ignore colors, symbols, and layout styles that carry meaning in certain cultures.Inconsistent visuals: Your brand should have a unified look across all your platforms. Your ad in a billboard should have the same look and feel as your online ad. This allows for recognition, trust, and credibility.Ignoring accessibility and usability: Design shouldn't just look good, it should also serve a purpose. Your visuals should be easy to navigate and accessible to all users.There could be more, but you'll learn them over time. But being prepared can save you from pitfalls. This plays a massive part in strategic execution. Your aim should be to show up in a way that is authentic and relevant.
Working with Professional Design Services Photo by Helena Lopes on Pexels Entering a new market means preparing for the unexpected. If you find the above information overwhelming, it always pays to work with a reliable design partner. Professional design services abound, and choosing the right fit can be intimidating.
However, these creative professionals will know how to customize your visuals for different audiences. They do this without losing sight of your brand's core identity. And this speaks volumes when compared to getting designs from online templates.
In addition, design experts will understand how to navigate cultural nuances, avoid the missteps mentioned above, and build you visual assets that resonate. The right design team will also craft branding visuals that are consistent and cohesive. This alignment will build trust and recognition over time.
Conclusion An effective visual branding goes beyond aesthetics. You should be able to use it to strategize for building trust, differentiation, and scaling with confidence. So, if you're entering a new market or expanding an existing business, the right visuals can do wonders. Working with a professional design service offers a wide array of benefits you never knew you needed.
Photo by Polina Tankilevitch on Pexels
