Today, more and more consumers are shopping online. It has therefore become crucial for brands to offer a pleasant online shopping experience. A digital catalog is an excellent way of presenting your products effectively and attracting the attention of potential customers. In this article, we’ll reveal 3 reasons why you should create an online catalog for your brand.
Increase your brand’s visibility
An online catalog is an excellent way to increase your brand’s visibility. By publishing a digital catalog, you can reach a much wider audience than you would with a paper catalog. Consumers can easily find your catalog by doing a Google search or visiting your website. What’s more, a digital catalog is easy to share on social media, which can help increase your brand’s reach.
Offer a convenient & personalized shopping experience
An online catalog offers consumers a convenient and personalized shopping experience. Customers can easily browse your catalog at their own pace, and search for specific products using search filters. What’s more, digital catalogs can be customized. For example, you can decide to recommend your products directly in your publications, thanks to Shopping links.
Reduce production costs
Creating a paper catalog can be costly in terms of time and money. Design, printing and shipping costs can add up quickly. By contrast, creating an online catalog is much more cost-effective. Design costs are generally lower, and it’s easy to update the digital catalog without having to reprint copies.
Conclusion
In conclusion, creating an online catalog for your brand offers many advantages. It can increase your brand’s visibility, offer consumers a convenient and personalized shopping experience, and reduce production costs. If you don’t yet have an online catalog for your brand, now is the time to start creating one.
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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.).
Who creates the style guide?
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.
Why and how should you use a style guide?
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.
What is included in a style guide?
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:
Logo
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.
Colors
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.
Examples of Calaméo’s color palette using the HEX values
Typeface
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.
Images
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.
Icons
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!
A few of Calaméo’s icons
Tone
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.
Applying your style guide to digital publications
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!
By now, the advantages of digital communications are obvious to almost everyone. Thanks to tools like email, online publishing and social media, it’s fast and easy to get your message out there. In fact, the explosive growth of digital channels is overtaking traditional ways of doing things. From meetings to marketing, online options are on top.
However, there are also some disadvantages to common forms of digital communication. For example, they often rely heavily on text. And while text-heavy formats like email are efficient, they aren’t as good at creating trust and engagement in their audience. According to media richness theory, contextual elements enhance those features and improve the quality of communication.
In other words, considering when to use enriched media can have big benefits for your digital communication. But how exactly can you create richer documents to engage your readers? Our guide has three great ideas to get you started.
Step 1: Interactivity
To take advantage of rich media in your communications, interactivity is the most important value. Don’t be fooled by its sometimes gimmicky history! Today, interactive features encourage distracted Internet users to go beyond skimming. Instead of passive scrolling, digital publications require readers to stop, think and click through for active browsing.
Even the pageflip effect helps to enrich your communications, via the concept of skeuomorphic design. Unlike the flat design style, skeuomorphism incorporates shapes and textures from real objects in digital interfaces. Because they’re more detailed than flat buttons and grids, skeuomorphic elements catch your eye. The interactive interface of an online publication can make your message stand out—and engage your audience’s attention.
Of course, you can add many other interactive features to your digital publications. For instance, external links let your readers follow up on CTAs in one click. But to get the most out of enriched media, you’ll need to consider including audio and video alongside images and text.
Step 2: Audio
Compared to written communication, it’s not hard to understand why audio is a “richer” format. Think of all the things that a phone call has versus an email: the speaker’s pauses, hesitations, laughs and above all, the tone of voice. These signals let the person listening to interpret and process the message better than with just the words.
Luckily, digital tools have made audio content extremely easy to produce and integrate into your communications. To record a voice clip or podcast, all you need is a microphone and simple editing software. Once you’re happy with the sound, upload the file to a hosting platform like SoundCloud. Then, add it to your online publication for readers to click and play.
If you’re wondering what kind of audio content to include, don’t be afraid to get creative. You can boost the impact of any message by providing an audio version. For example, try having your company president record her message to shareholders inside your annual report. Or explore the conversational side of audio and integrate a podcast into your digital publication. Since users can’t get enough audio, the possibilities are endless!
Step 3: Video
Although audio is booming, there’s one great reason to choose video to enrich your communications. That’s because in media richness theory, video is the top option. In addition to audio signals, video gives your audience visual information like movement and body language. In digital terms, video communication comes as close as possible to the engagement of a real-life experience.
Unfortunately, the infamous “pivot to video” convinced many businesses that video was too expensive an investment. And indeed, high-quality video content does take time and resources to produce. But that doesn’t mean your online communications strategy should write off video. Instead, think again about the kinds of video you can prioritize.
Three simple but extremely effective ideas include product demonstrations, tutorials and calls to action. All of these make the most out of video’s strongest features to enrich your digital publications: visual action and human presence. When your audience watches another person ask them to sign up, or show them how to, they can connect more deeply with the message.
To sum it up, media richness theory has a lot to tell us about how to communicate with audiences online. Used wisely, enriched media like digital publications can be a powerful tool for creating memorable content and developing audience relationships.
And if you want to see for yourself, why not request your two-week demo of our PLATINUM plan? You’ll enjoy access to all the professional enrichment features of Calaméo’s digital publishing solution—absolutely free.
