Brand identity is a very important component of your brand. Learn why with our new infographic on the topic:
This infographic allows us to open up the topics of brand identity, brand image, graphic design, and more here on our blog. See you soon for more articles on these topics!
Follow us on social media to stay up to date with news in digital publishing:
Have you tried content marketing as a way to attract new customers for your business? If so, you’re in good company. Since this strategy is more popular than ever, finding fresh ideas is key to standing out. Today we’re rounding up the best ideas to improve your B2B content marketing plans.
First things first: a main rule of content marketing suggests tailoring the message to your ideal audience. In other words, you should design your content around the needs and expectations of the people you want to discover it. In practice, this means choosing subjects, formats and keywords that will appeal to your target audience.
But are you focusing B2B content around the actual decision-makers who approve purchasing your product? To start addressing this essential audience, use B2B buyer personas to find out what information decision-makers want. Or keep things simple and ask your sales team for insight on decision-makers.
On the other hand, you may also want to consider making a wider range of content! Studies show that for B2B products and services, the decision to buy involves 6-10 people on average. All of them will do their own research throughout the buying process. And chances are, not all of them will be in the specific decision-maker roles you’ve identified.
As a result, it makes sense to create content that reaches more people and boosts your business’s profile. For example, some resources should be relevant to people in your industry, while others could speak to IT professionals in particular. When several stakeholders engage with your B2B content marketing, it can improve the path to purchase.
For too long, B2B content had a reputation as old-fashioned. Compared to the B2C world, the audiences were smaller, more specialized and less interested in change. However, both business audiences and business content have shifted toward big trends in recent years. One huge trend in this space that’s easy to join is the B2B audio boom.
Audio has strong advantages for content marketers looking to shake things up. Most importantly, it’s a surefire way to add a personal touch to your communications. Next, there are lots of ways to use audio to connect with your audience. From Clubhouse to podcasts, jumping on the audio trend is a low-cost option for creating enriched media.
Not sure how to grow your B2B content marketing audience beyond current followers? The best place to start is by checking out your own analytics. Especially if you tend to focus on target personas, content analytics often reveal global reach that may be underserved. Without re-working your entire sales and marketing plan, multilanguage content can help activate new audiences.
Because making multilanguage content is complex, try starting small. Choose a language that’s already represented in your audience and translate a popular publication. Or do some keyword research to support a brand-new article in another language. Either way, be sure to adjust your content’s SEO to reflect the needs of multilanguage buyers.
B2B content doesn’t have to be 100% centered on the benefits of your business. In fact, a very simple way to maximize your reach is to share the spotlight with another company. Teaming up to create collaborative content brings new audiences along to discover your brand: your followers, plus your partner creator’s followers.
Although independent influencers are powerful in B2B social media, you don’t need to dive into the world of influencer marketing to find collaborators. For instance, you can turn toward your own customers to find content opportunities! Highlight their use of your solutions in a case study or work together on producing an industry-specific resource.
Sometimes even the best B2B content marketing gets stuck in a routine. In particular, paying close attention to what works can lead to a kind of content “comfort zone.” Or to put it another way, your audience responds so well to white papers that you build a whole strategy around your library of white papers.
But even the most successful content plans can be improved with a fresh twist. Why not take some of your existing content and re-use it in a new format? You could make a poll about one of your white paper topics, make a GIF from a tutorial or even start your own magazine. Mix it up with different formats to catch your followers’ attention and perhaps reach new ones.
Last but not least, consider shifting your perspective for better B2B content marketing. Similarly to changes seen elsewhere, B2B buyers are showing continued interest in the values and purpose of their partner companies. In addition to product and industry content, business audiences want to know more about what brands stand for and why they do what they do.
Of course, the answers to these questions are unique to every business. And while they don’t have to become a main feature of your content, it can be worth introducing your company values when relevant and appropriate. As long as you keep things authentic, highlighting your purpose and principles helps attract audiences ready to engage beyond the bottom line.
Have you ever seen an advertisement and immediately known which company it belonged to, even if you didn’t glimpse the name? Chances are you recognized certain facets of that company: special fonts, taglines, logos, and color combinations that belong unmistakably to a brand. These elements, and more, make up a brand’s identity. All visual and editorial aspects of a brand’s identity are determined by the brand’s style guide.
On the Calaméo blog we have talked about logos, brand identity and brand image. Next up? Brand style guides, sometimes called graphic charters or brand guidelines. In this article we will discuss the ins and outs of this important document, so let’s dive in!
First thing’s first: what is a brand style guide? A brand style guide is a document that governs all the visual (and sometimes editorial) elements of a company that make it recognizable and unique. It also explains when and how to use these elements. Simply put, a style guide is the key to all communications!
These guides ensure that there is no confusion when it comes to what the brand’s content should look and sound like. Using the guide as a reference, all company communications are consistent across channels and mediums. The style guide can be as detailed as you like; typically, larger companies have more comprehensive style guides because they are more likely to use a wider range of communication channels, and they appear in more places (television, print, online, etc.).
The creation of brand style guides is best left to professionals. However, it’s a collaborative process: graphic designers or design firms will work with you to create a style guide that suits your company and fits your brand identity. You must decide who you are, your values, and the image you’d like to portray to the world.
A brand style guide is essential for your company’s brand identity. In order to maintain clear and cohesive communications across all channels, a style guide is the ultimate reference. Internal documents such as slide decks and employee newsletters, external communications such as advertisements or social media posts, plus everything in between: all of this content must look similar and adhere to your brand identity. To achieve this consistency, companies must have a brand style guide. Otherwise, logos may appear in the wrong colors and dimensions, there won’t be a uniform look to your communications, and your tone will be all over the place. Any communication that comes from the company, both internally and externally, should use the style guide as a reference.
Length and details may vary depending on the company, but a brand style guide is usually made up of the following visual and editorial elements:
Logos are a crucial part of a brand’s identity, its most visible identifier. Logos are images, texts, or shapes (or a combination of the three) in the company’s color palette that represent the company. A blue bird invokes Twitter, three stripes on a sneaker will certainly mean that they are Adidas, and a swoosh (both the shape and the word) is emblematic of Nike.
A company’s logo cannot be used haphazardly. The brand style guide should explicitly outline the exact colors and dimensions of the logo. Even the background on which the logo appears is specified in the style guide.
Take Calaméo’s logo, for example. The spacing and colors are exact: the dimensions around the lettering are determined by the height of the green accent, and the colors are specific to our brand.
There are other elements to consider. Do you have a slogan or motto with words as part of your logo? If so, you must clearly state where the slogan goes, how big it can be, the color(s) to use, and when to employ this version of the logo. There are many rules you must define in your brand style guide, especially when it comes to your logo.
Companies have specific brand colors, usually two to three, that they use in logos and branding. The style guide will include complementary colors as well. These colors all together are known as the company’s color palette.
Great thought and care go into a company’s color palette. There are even psychological tricks behind choosing certain colors that the company wants associated with the brand or product. They may want to demonstrate trust, youth, sophistication, or other descriptors.
The brand style guide should outline all the ways to find these colors: a visual representation of the color, HEX and RGB formats, and other formats if necessary. Rather than just “blue” or “red”, companies choose very specific shades of these colors that go well together and set them apart from other brands. These exact shades need to be used every time.
Another important element of the brand style guide is typeface. Typeface is the kind of lettering used in communications, which includes fonts. Does your company use only lowercase letters? All capitals? You must include the size, spacing, and color of your typeface in your style guide so employees know exactly how the typeface should look.
Work with a graphic designer to choose the best typeface for your company. Some brands even create their own fonts! Keep in mind that your typeface also reflects your tone– is it silly, serious, elevated? Your typeface must work well with the other elements of your style guide.
Some brand style guidelines include rules about styles of images or photographs to use. These images must fit into the brand’s identity and remain consistent; you should not use a bright and airy photograph one day and then a dark and moody photograph the next. The rules could include using colors from the company’s color palette or desired emotions that the images should evoke (energetic, powerful, soothing). Images are available to download on sites like Getty Images, Shutterstock, or Unsplash, if your company does not have access to a photographer or photography studio to create your own images. However, make sure to check that you have the right to use the images.
Brand style guides may also include illustrations or icons. Consider the icons you see on a company’s website: a shopping cart to click on when you are ready to purchase or an envelope icon if you want to communicate with the company via email. These icons must be coherent across all platforms. Icons will, much like the rest of the elements of the style guide, reflect the brand identity. Whimsical, rigid, colorful, playful…your icons can express a lot about your brand!
Your tone and voice give your brand a personality via the written word. Once you decide who you are, it should be easy to find your company’s tone The brand style guide may include different instructions depending on the channel– perhaps your social media tone will be slightly less formal than that of your advertisements, for example. The guide should include written examples so employees can see how to employ the tone in different situations. Think of the image you want to project, and stay consistent.
So now that you know all about style guides, it’s time to apply this knowledge to your digital publications! Because digital publishing is a visual medium, consistent brand visuals make all the difference between an amateur-looking document and a professional-grade publication.
With Calaméo, you can personalize your viewer Theme, add your logo, and enrich your content yourself so that your digital publications match your brand identity. With our White Label feature for PLATINUM members, your publications appear in your name and image, without the Calaméo logo. Start your free trial today!
