Can Brand Design save your business?
By Article Expert on Sep. 6, 2009.
The current recession is causing a definite shift in consumer behaviour. During the boom years of the past decade, we saw a huge number of small startup businesses trying to compete with the big boys. Many of these websites have gone local to global in a very short space of time, thanks to their prices. Before the recession web users searched out the best price for the products they wanted, now they look for the best brands that will still be there when they need them if something goes wrong. But business are loosing the battle against the recession every day, many of them most likely leaving customer orders unfulfilled, thus consumer confidence is at an all time low. What does this mean? well it means that all of those bargain hunters are returning to the big brands that they recognise, even if that means spending more money, because they don’t want to take the risk.
With the recession causing people to loose their jobs, some have looked to the internet as a portal for their salvation, but starting their own business. But even in the recession, web business is booming, Barclays showed that even in the credit crunch 98,000 new business popped up over only a three month period. It is by no means the easy option. When you take into account that around 80,000 new businesses failed during the same time period, kind of puts it into perspective doesn’t it!
For me, without a doubt many startups fail because they underestimate the importance of branding. You brand and logo are the first things that your future customers see. It’s crucial to what people use to judge whether you are trustworthy or not. But it’s so often the case that startup owners put off paying professional logo design in the initial stages. All to often its “Lets see how many customers we can get before we think about branding”.Then they design one themselves in photoshop and thinking that looks fine, load it up to the site. Many go for free clipart template business cards and stationery design from somewhere like vista print.
This is a big no-no. You need to look like a professional organisation that’s in it for the long haul. In these anxious times the image of stability and reliability is more crucial than ever. You also want to avoid looking like a very small business, even if you are one. So, these days online customers are looking back to the bigger brands or at least who they deem to be the big brands. So basically, these days users care more about who a brand is and less about what they are, a good brand is much more likely to be recommended to friends than one that consumers are less sure about.
The fact of he matter is. About 50% of all new start-ups are forced into bankruptcy within only a few years. Many experts say that one of the top causes of business failure online is bad marketing. A custom logo design helps you create the right image for this marketing to succeed. So do yourself a favour - start looking at some sample logos in your industry and see what the successful ones have in common. Then get yourself a proper graphic designer to plan and create a great corporate identity that will help you not only stay afloat but truly stand out and succeed.
Category: Branding