Brand identity is more than just your logo. It consists of a variety of marketing materials representing your company and its “personality”. For example: business cards, signage, packaging, and, of course, your website. Your brand identity should be designed to communicate your company’s overall message and promote your business goals.
As an artisan, having a strong brand identity can help boost your company’s sense of legitimacy and consistency. Every piece of marketing material should have the same style and design elements to create a cohesive branding package.
In fact, presenting a brand consistently across all platforms can increase revenue by up to 23%. Ultimately, having customers who trust and respect your brand will encourage them to pay closer attention to what you are selling.
Let’s take a look at some examples of consistent and effective brand identity.
Starbucks Brand Identity
Check out Starbucks Creative Expression for more information.
You might be thinking to yourself, “I’m not Starbucks — I’m a small business. Is this even relevant to me?”
Small Business Brand Identity
Small businesses take care with their branding all the time. Case in point — one of the food entrepreneurs who uses Castiron: Leah from Yaya’s Sweet Treats.
As a small food business, you might not have the time to invest in building a brand yourself — or the money to pay an agency or designer to build it for you. It’s still possible to create a beautiful, professional, cohesive brand identity for your online business, though!
One of the first places to start is with your business name. Make sure it’s consistently displayed everywhere that you show up online! This means using the same spelling and formatting for your business’s website URL, your social media handles, your email address, and more. For example, if you’re a New York-based cookie maker whose business name is Emily’s Cookies NYC, you can maintain brand consistency across the internet with a URL of emilyscookiesnyc.com, an Instagram username of emilyscookiesnyc, and an email of emilyscookiesnyc with the email provider of your choice.
Let’s start with the first point on that list: a custom domain.
What is a custom domain?
A custom domain is a branded name that is assigned to websites to identify them. The custom domain is also known as the “URL” which appears along the top of your browser, representing the unique name of the website you are visiting. For example, the custom domain name of this webpage is castiron.me.
The key difference between your Castiron shop’s standard domain and a custom one is ownership. Your Castiron shop’s domain is a subdomain of our castiron.me URL, on which we host your website for you (e.g., shop.castiron.me/your-business-name). A custom domain is owned by you that you (e.g., your-business-name.com).
How can custom domains help my business?
Using a custom domain can benefit your business’s branding, trust, and discoverability.
Branding
By using a custom domain that reflects your brand name, you are promoting brand consistency. Visitors expect your domain name to match or closely resemble your company name, so stay consistent to maintain brand identity! Customers can be assured that the site they’re visiting is your company’s when your brand name is right there at the top of the webpage.
Trust
Nowadays, there are thousands of phishing scams on the internet, making people skeptical of clicking on unknown links. Using a custom domain that is clearly associated with your business can encourage customers to trust your brand and click the link.
Discoverability
Using a custom domain increases your business’s search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines look at the root domain on sites, so, using a custom domain that reflects your brand name is typically more relevant to what a user is searching for than a generic domain. For more SEO tips check out this article!
If you’re interested in setting up a custom domain redirect for your Castiron shop, check out our help article about using a custom domain.
