Brand Identity with Ben Seigel

Brand Identity with Ben Seigel

Brand Identity

SUMMARY:

In this week’s episode of the Sailing to Success Podcast Show, Lyndsay Phillips interviews Ben Seigel. Ben is the owner of Versa Studio, he manages branding projects for his clients and specializes in the Expression Engine CMS. Lyndsay and Ben discuss brand identity, and how branding and web design intersect in business.

MAIN QUESTIONS ASKED:

• What is a CMS?
• What kind of issues do you often see in your client’s projects?
• How do you define brand identity?
• Tell us about responsive web design.
• What are some best practices for building a website with a brand identity?
• When it comes to websites, are there any do’s and don’ts that you think are important?
• What do you do with Junior Achievement?

KEY LESSONS LEARNED:

CMS

• CMS stands for content management system.
• It’s generally better to work with an open-source CMS like WordPress instead of proprietary software.

Planning Your Website

• A failure to plan is the most common problem people have with brand identity.
• You have to know where you are first before you can figure where you want to go. Do an assessment of your business and what you are trying to accomplish.
• You need to know how to speak to your customers before you begin designing a website.
• Your audience may be nothing like you, you should focus your site design on what your audience wants.
• Doing a SWOT analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, can reveal things about your business that you may not realize.
• Start with a needs assessment.
  • What is your size and what are you doing?
  • What is your marketing?
  • How are you measuring ROI?
  • Who are your customers and how do they interact with your company?
  • Who are your competitors? The SWOT analysis.
  • Technical assessment on the website.
• Having an understanding of how the whole project works and what’s required is important to finding success and both parties being happy. A website is not like building a house, most of the construction isn’t visible until it’s mostly finished.

Branding

• Your brand is your business’s expression in every form. It’s also the impression your customers will have of you.
• A branding guide can include your logo, colour palette, font style, voice of your copy, and guidelines on your photography.
• Your brand sets the stage for everything you do.
• Your website should match the branding of your physical location if applicable, consistency is important. Inconsistency can subconsciously influence how your customers perceive you and drive them away.
• You can succeed despite not having a good brand, but that means you can do even better with one.

Responsive Web Design

• More than half of the people surfing the web use a mobile device.
• If your site doesn’t load fast and look good on a mobile device, you are putting up a huge barrier to your audience.
• Most new websites and themes are automatically responsive.

Junior Achievement

• Junior Achievement is a nonprofit that promotes entrepreneurship, job skills readiness, and economics.

Final Tips

• Start building a plan for your website.
• Analyze your branding, is it consistent and does it convey the impression you want associated with your business?
• Do a needs assessment before undertaking a new web project.

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a 5-star rating and review in iTunes!

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED:

versastudio.com/book – Use the coupon code “smooth” to get 30% off!

@versastudiollc on Twitter