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By Zachary Rischitelli

The majority of people will first learn about your new business either because they exchanged business cards with you or came across you on the web. Since the bar for entry for a business to enter the marketplace has been lowered in the digital age, it is more important than ever to stand out from your competition by clearly sharing who you are, what you do, and what you stand for.

Fortunately much of your competition will undervalue their brand and cut corners. I’ll share a story to illustrate What Every New Business Should Know About Brand Identity.

At a networking event a while back there was a prize drawing. I was close enough that I could see the business cards as they were pulled from the fishbowl.

One card stood out and I looked around for an acquaintance whose “brand” I recognized. An unfamiliar gentleman claimed the prize and shared his name and company. I then realized he was a direct competitor of the man I expected to see.

They were in the same industry and had chosen the same business card design from an online template service. Now imagine you see the same business card on two separate occasions; what do you recognize the second time? The name of the person or the company’s logo?
Humans are visual and images stick far more than the name printed on a piece of paper.

Brand may include a logo, business cards, letterhead, your web site, etc. In the end, a brand is a promise.

When you go into a store and buy a product with a specific logo, you know what to expect when you open the package. Your brand should do the same.

A clear and effectively differentiated brand becomes a way for people to quickly discern who you are and what you do.

Don’t forget that the brand has to communicate with your target market, so it’s more important that the logo speaks to the client than that you personally find it clever. The same goes for your website.

It once was that a fancy office told your prospect that you were a qualified professional. Now your client will see your website long before they visit your office, if they ever visit at all. So why put a sub-par website out for the world to see? A clean, custom website doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg; it just has to inspire confidence and trust.

Ultimately iconography means nothing unless you back it up with your company’s value and vision, but the imagery you choose should be distinctive, representative, and polished. Don’t let your hard-earned goodwill be credited to another company because you used the same template design for your website, logo, or business card.