Brand identity represents your brand to the world. Who are you? What do you offer? Why do you do what you do? What are your values? From the logo to the latest post on Facebook, every element that comes from the brand contributes to building its identity.
So you can imagine how important brand identity is! To understand it even better, here are 5 great reasons to define your brand identity:
1. To differentiate the brand
With a well-defined brand identity, there is no risk of being confused with your competitors or mistaking your industry or line of business. Your voice is unique and all your content and products are recognizable.
If you define your identity well, it will remain consistent across all channels. All your company’s strategies will inevitably abide by the brand identity. For example, if one of your company’s values is respecting the environment, everything must be executed with this value in mind: from the style guide, to speeches, to every new product that is created. Everything will reflect this value and therefore the identity of your brand.
3. For a positive brand image
In order for the public to have a positive image of your brand, they need to understand your brand and its mission. This way, they can feel an attachment to your brand. With a strong identity, carefully considered and executed, their opinion will be positive!
The more recognizable your content and products are, the more the public will recognize them and become aware of your brand. That’s what we call brand awareness. And the more well-known you are, the better!
5. For more sales
As a direct result of our previous point, you will inevitably make more sales. If more people know about your brand, that means there are more potential buyers out there. These consumers are more likely to become ambassadors and tell others about your brand who will also buy. It’s that simple!
In conclusion…
Defining your brand identity is a great idea. Don’t be afraid to spend a long time on it so that you can be sure that it corresponds to your company and the message that you want to convey to the world.
Digital design is always evolving and in recent years user experience has been a major focus. Also known as UX, user experience involves improving how people interact with digital products and services. And it’s become a key investment for modern businesses. That’s because a great user experience can encourage visitors to spend more time on your website, help them view your brand positively and even increase sales.
Luckily for our publishers, Calaméo offers an exceptionally user-friendly HTML5 reader that allows their documents to shine on every device. But there are a few simple steps you can take to create an even better experience for your online audience! Learn about four essential UX principles and how to apply them to your digital publications.
Use consistent visuals
A top rule for ensuring great user experience is committing to one, coherent graphic design. Whichever fonts, colors and layouts you have chosen for your documents, they should match the visual identity of your business. Otherwise, too many different graphic elements risk overwhelming your online audience and can negatively impact UX.
So how do you create a seamless visual transition between your brand and your digital publications? To start, you can customize the appearance of the viewer. For example:
Choose a background for the viewer to harmonize with your website.
Build a custom theme and fine-tune the viewer right down to the font.
Reduce friction
For UX designers, “friction” is anything that gets between users and their goals. For digital publishers, this often means not ensuring optimal readability for their online documents. When publishing on Calaméo, take a moment to select the best options for your publication in its properties. Easy ways to reduce friction include:
Thanks to decades of digital culture, certain features of user experience are already understood and expected by just about everybody. For instance, Internet users expect that clicking a logo in the top left-hand corner of a web page or window will return them to the home page.
The publication above from County of Brant shows a great example of this strong UX element. With Calaméo, it’s simple to place your logo directly in the viewer and add a link. Take advantage of it in your digital publications to increase traffic to your site!
Encourage action
Do you wish you could:
Let your readers follow your business’s social media accounts in just one click?
Modify a button in the viewer to include a call to action, such as “Download now”?
Create a smart contact button in the viewer to help generate leads?
Then you need to explore Calaméo’s custom themes feature. Because of its unique flexibility, you can adapt the user experience of your digital publications to best serve your business’s goals. Check out this example from Office de Tourisme de Bordeaux Métropole:
We’ve put together an illustrated tutorial to show you how to get started customizing your theme. But to discover the full range of possibilities, take a look around our Developer resources.
From one-click options to made-to-measure themes, Calaméo gives you powerful tools to create the best possible user experience for your digital publications.
Our PLATINUM plan includes all the must-have features to boost your digital publications’ UX. Request your free, two-week demo and try them out today!
As long as people have been selling things, they’ve been finding ways to attract customers. In other words, marketing goes a long, long way back. But did you know that some of the most important innovations in the history of marketing came from France?
Since we’re originally from Paris ourselves here at Calaméo, we took a look at five modern marketing innovations Made in France. Read on to learn more (and grab our très chic infographic to share)!
Free shipping (1852)
Before we dig in to the first innovation on our list, try to remember a time without free shipping. Does it seem like we were still paying those painful “shipping and handling” fees only a few years ago? Although free shipping feels like a 21st century necessity, customers of the French department store Le Bon Marché were already enjoying it in 1852. Any purchase over 25 Francs would be delivered to your home—at no extra charge.
And that’s not all. Le Bon Marché was the birthplace of a shopping revolution, thanks to new techniques such as newspaper advertising, in-store lounges and hands-on product displays. One last very modern feature to mention? A generous returns and exchanges policy.
Michelin Guide (1900)
Another of today’s marketing trends with a surprisingly long history is content marketing. Many trace its origin to France in 1900, when a tire company called Michelin published its first guide to the restaurants of France. With its free Guide, Michelin was hoping to encourage more French people to get behind the wheel and go grab dinner somewhere new. More hungry drivers traveling meant more tires to sell and marketing history was made.
Over the years, the Michelin Guide has evolved and grown into a powerful standalone brand. The coveted three-star rating still indicates that a restaurant is “worth a special journey” to visit. And content marketers everywhere are still trying to repeat its success.
Eiffel Tower ad (1925)
By the early 20th century, outdoor advertising was booming. Posters covered city walls, shops put up signs and billboards were appearing all over. More importantly, lots of these signs began making use of electricity to catch people’s attention in the 1920s. But something totally new was French automaker Citroën’s renting out the Eiffel Tower to use as a giant, electric ad. In 1925, the brand lit up the landmark with more than 250,000 bulbs spelling out CITROEN down the iconic structure.
This innovation capitalized on a famous monument, Paris’s century-old “City of Lights” nickname and new technology to make Citroën a part of the skyline. Plus, it created a true event: the ad illuminated the Eiffel Tower every year until 1934.
Online news (1984)
The history of marketing in France took a big step forward in 1984, when media companies first started publishing news and other types of content online. However, it wasn’t quite the “online” that we know today as the internet. Although the world wide web was born in the 1960s, another kind of network was developed in France: the Minitel. Accessed via telephone, Minitel terminals let users connect to an entire ecosystem of online information and services.
Almost as soon as Minitel became available to French consumers, media companies like the newspaper Libération published content to the service. While the Minitel network was closed in 2012, French marketers proved that they were ready to experiment with new channels, monetization and technology.
Beauty AR (2017)
In the same vein, the last French marketing innovation on our list has to do with using technology to connect with customers. Released in 2017, the “Virtual Artist” feature on French beauty company Sephora’s app takes advantage of shoppers’ mobile phones to help solve a difficult problem: how to try out new makeup outside of the store. Using the app’s augmented reality tech, beauty fans can virtually apply different products and shades—then shop what they love.
Because the Pokémon Go phenomenon had already gotten quite a few users acquainted with augmented reality on their phones, Sephora’s Virtual Artist came along at a great time. And the beauty AR trend is still going strong today.
That concludes our quick look at milestones in the history of marketing from France. What’s next for marketing innovations: virtual reality, the 5G network or voice? Only time will tell what the next entry on our list will be. Until then, click here to download our infographic to save and share.
Need to get innovative with your own marketing strategy? Sign up today for your free Calaméo account and kickstart your business’s digital publishing.
