One of my favorite conversations to have with prospective clients is the way in which strategic branding can help them achieve their business goals. When I first started my business, I would watch in awe as other design studios shared proof and data that rebranding gave their clients the opportunity to raise their pricing to a profitable level or attract more of the type of clients they desire to work with. I always knew that branding was capable of these types of shifts, but it wasn’t until I started seeing it happen to our clients that it fully resonated.

Now, you may be asking yourself, how much of a difference can a nicer-looking logo and a new color palette really make? If approached the right way, branding will likely be one of the largest investments in your first 3-5 years of business. It has the power to help your business in unexpected ways.

Over the last 4 years, we’ve been able to gather specific data that proves that branding plays a significant role in the growth of several areas of our client’s businesses, so let’s get into it…

Branding Provides the Foundation for the Strategy

Rebranding is so much more than hiring a designer to create a new logo and the other visual elements that accompany it: it’s an opportunity to reassess the entirety of your brand strategy, messaging and marketing strategy.

During the onboarding process with our clients, we set aside intentional time to work with them on taking a deeper dive into their goals, realigning their messaging and doing an extensive amount of research on their target audience, customers and clients to begin developing our direction. Though this process takes several hours and focused time to complete, it sets the stage for success throughout the rest of the project.

I’ll share an example…

Before rebranding Conscious Revolution, their visual aesthetic and messaging felt very unaligned with their mission, values and vision for their future goals. Their branding appeared to be very corporate-leadership focused and didn’t reflect their purposeful and authentic approach to helping their clients build an inclusive culture.

We spent about two hours during their initial Project Kickoff Meeting diving deep into their messaging strategy and developing a clear understanding of the types of clients that they are looking to serve. After flushing out all of the details, this allowed us to move in a direction with the visual strategy and the messaging that called in those clients— from the photography to the color palette to the overall design of their website.

They shared with us that their favorite part was “seeing our concepts and aesthetic evolve into branding that is exciting. Now, we love directing people to the website. Everything feels so much more cohesive and aligned.”

Since launching their website, they’ve seen a significant increase in traffic to their website and continue to book clients without relying on social media.

Branding is a Reflection of the Prices You are Charging

Pricing appropriately was one of the greatest challenges that I faced in the early days of running Minty Made and I find that this is also true for most of our clients.

Starting in early 2022, we worked with Keeper’s Collective on a full rebrand, complete with a new visual brand identity, custom Shopify website all new packaging and a marketing strategy to be implemented leading up to and after the launch. Their owner, Jillian, is a beekeeper and makes small batch skincare out of their byproducts, like her whipped body butter.

Jillian hired our team to help with brand strategy, copywriting, product and branding photography and SEO. Before investing in the rebrand, her margins were low and she knew that she had to start making a profit to keep the business afloat. She was also sacrificing days and weekends with her family to sell at local farmer’s markets all over the Seattle area, just to break even. She came to us with the expectation that something had to change.

Within 3 months of the launch of her new branding, packaging and website, they not only sold more product at a single market in one day than they ever had previously, but she they also landed their largest wholesale order to date. And guess what? This was all after she had decided to raise her prices by 30%.

When we asked her to share about her experience working with us, she said, “One of the biggest goals I had for this rebrand was to bring cohesiveness from how I was showing up in person (at markets & events) to how my brand was showing up online. I wanted customers/shoppers to find my website and "walk away" with the same sense of knowing us. What we value, why our products are unique and upscale, what our mission is etc. This had been something that I was struggling with in an online sense, but you all helped by taking the bits and pieces I was giving you of my vision and pulled it all together into a beautifully designed website that not only tells my brand’s story, but is stunning to look at and functions how I need it to.”

The result of our work together and how much their business has grown since is one of our greatest success stories to date.

Branding Attracts the People that you want to work with and/or sell to

One of the key focus areas of any rebrand is making sure that we are crystal clear on who we are marketing and selling to. From the typography styles that are chosen to the tone of voice to the hues of the color palette…these all play a role in attracting different types of people.

Though we do start with the basics into consideration first, such as age and gender identity, we take a deeper dive to understand the finer details like:

Where do their ideal clients/customers shop?
What type of homes do they live in?
What’s their social life like?
Who are their role models and why?

All of these specific questions allow our team to identify trends, explore symbolism, develop effective copy and begin to build out a complete visual branding identity that will make their target audience feel as if it is intentionally speaking directly to them.

Jess Sutton, Owner of The Green Creative, shared with us that after rebranding her business, “every single client I have worked with since my rebrand has been a perfect fit, both in terms of personality fit and business values, which definitely was not the case before my rebrand. My brand definitely speaks to the right people now.”

That’s exactly what we like to hear! 😊

Branding Increases Your Sales & Inquiries

The key objective and goal of building an online presence, particularly a website, is to encourage clients and customers to take the next step to either purchase a product or inquire further about a service that you provide. A visually-appealing website can create a lasting impression on a visitor through a combination of intuitive and strategic design, copy and photography.

One of our ongoing e-commerce clients, Made in Washington, saw a 30% increase in their online sales during their slowest season following their rebrand, new custom Shopify website and working with us on an entirely new marketing strategy.

For service-based businesses, another tangible metric that we capture after launching a new brand out into the world is the amount of inquiries that they receive on their website.

Within the first two weeks of launching their new website, another client, Experience Momentum received more new service and membership inquiries leading to sign ups than they had in the several months prior combined.

Branding for the Win! 🎉

It is my hope that these examples provide more of a reason to consider a rebrand beyond the visual aesthetic that it provides. I often feel like a broken record in saying this, but branding is so much more than a logo or what can be seen with the naked eye. A brand is meant to not only be seen, but to be heard, felt and experienced by the five senses and beyond.

If this resonated with you, we’d love to chat about working together on your next project. Head over to our Project Application form.