Branding Services: Extended Overview
The importance of branding services for a business in our demanding epoch is not a whim but a need that can’t be neglected since they help establish a trustworthy reputation and form a distinctive image. In our brief we’ll give a special thought to diverse offerings provided to companies as well as their meaning and costs in the United Kingdom.
Preparing our material, we explored how long it takes for a branding agency to complete a strategic revamp, compared and explained different types and categories of deliverables, delved in the meaning of key elements that help set the seal on positive results and left advice on how to select suitable solutions.
Get the point of what a branding service is and find out how top-notch experts in the UK are able to set your business on the right track, enhancing recognition, advancing performance and forming public perception.
What are branding services?
Most people think that brand is about logo and naming, but in reality it covers more than that. Nowadays, innovative agencies provide a wide range of services that are called to empower brands with a clear tone of voice that is in line with the entire concept of the brand, help them build a cohesive communication strategy that embraces the most effective channels to promote your brand further.
Branding agency services are divided into a few different types – strategy, creative branding and messaging, all of them have their own subcategories. For example, strategy is usually done with considering people’s behaviour and examination of motivations which make them approach some companies again. Visual identity — is a combination of a suitable logo with distinctive elements and colour schemes that can be recognised even without looking at the name.
If a company wants to assure clients in their ability to make products that have the best qualities and matchless characteristics, their brand must look sustainable, possess a distinctive tone of voice, be supplied with decent communication strategy and have identities that work together, significantly strengthening them.
Types of services of branding
The list of innovative deliverables for businesses of different sizes is individual, depending on every concrete case since small businesses might not have as many changes as big corporations do, aiming to cover broader audiences. Yet, no matter how small a business is, the implementation of different types of individualised offerings will be highly beneficial at every stage of its existence – whether it’s a company that was established yesterday or a hundred years ago.
Every type of service has its own big role in a business development, from increasing engagement with customers to rising credibility of potential partners. We have mentioned above a small portion of the potential services, but let’s dive into a more comprehensive explanation of the types that exist:
Brand Strategy Development
Opting for professional branding services, it’s very important not to neglect comprehensive market investigation that secures obtaining information, for example main competitors, potential audiences and their demands. Brand design experts prepare exhaustive surveys, do observations of behaviour and analyse thoroughly different statistical sources.
With all necessary knowledge, it’s time to evaluate trends, uncover the purposes, missions and values of the brand and make sure that it causes exactly those emotions that will be the most beneficial for your particular situation.
Brand Identity Design
Being the most recognisable part of branding and marketing services, a logo and other components of imagery are called to stick to customers’ memory and be associated with a brand. There can be plenty of variations of logo style – playing with typography, painting signs or abbreviations.
Other than logos, it is important to incorporate special visual elements. To this list are included: special figures, illustrations and photographs accounting for the factors like matching visuals with business goals and longevity.
Brand Positioning
Through the positioning, a branding company comes up with the plan of what position should your brand hold in the minds of your audience, defines the way you would like them to perceive your business and create a statement.
Identified positioning consolidates much more effort than just the beauty of packaging and logo, applying to your business certain particularities like exclusivity of your brand approach to a problem, features inherent only to your proposition and the values provided only by you.
Brand Messaging and Voice
All verbal identity offerings have a significant influence on how people will remember your company so only the best branding services should be selected. Choosing a name, vendors note what impression their clients want to leave on their customers.
Especially vital requesting for verbal identity, take particular notice of the story that stands behind your business since storytelling draws attention. The aspects which are typically covered by a brand story are: engaging origin outline that resonates with people, mission of the company.
Brand Guidelines
The characterising process it’s only a primary step of your brand development. For it to be successful, it’s important to ensure that you and your partners use your assets properly. This style book includes rules of brand elements’ usage and is a valuable part of branding services.
There can be examples of rules about using colours, logos, placement of them. In such a manner, brands can be assured that their assets are displayed in the most harmonious and aesthetically pleasing way.
Brand Experience
Revamping the brand isn’t restricted to what your audience thinks about your brand and the emotions it evokes. There are 4 dimensions of experience, such as sensory, emotional, cognitive and behavioural.
The goal of this service of branding is to establish the overall positive tangible and intangible perception through the means of live events such as exhibitions and installations, questions answering as well as workshops and different games. It also can be a digital – website with interactive elements and engaging storytelling.
Brand Management
Innovative services, related to management, is an assistance that can be needed for any kind of business at the time of growth – whether it’s personal brand or corporate, it’s crucial to ascertain the following standards and have control on what should be improved.
As everything else, the effectiveness also needs to be monitored to be sure that your brand is consistent. The actions that must be done within the framework of this initiative are: audit with questioning employees and clients, analytics of efficiency.
Rebranding
If you want to reinvent your business image, it’s always an option to request for company branding services. Usually, it’s needed when your assets become too tight for your business scale or when you think that your current assets don’t uncover your business potential.
You select services based upon the mission of the rebrand. It can be a minor adjustment with changing a colour or simplifying the logo a bit or on the contrary, conducting branding with involvement of all possible services.
Comparing the top 3 branding services
To make the influence of the brand innovating workflow even clearer, let’s parallel 3 services in the context of their meaning, advantages and disadvantages:
Visual Identity Design
Main characteristic: The visual identity of a brand consists of components like colour palette, design of a logo, distinctive elements and fonts, and showcases the essence of the brand and its personality.
- Helps a brand be recognisable;
- Ensures differentiation.
- Requires excellent creative skills.
Brand Strategy Formation
Main characteristic: The main elements of a brand strategy executed by a branding services company are market research, target audience definition, pinpointing competitors, positioning and differentiation.
- Secures brand’s standing out of the crowd;
- Ensures data-driven decisions;
- Facilitate cumulative effect;
- Ascertain corresponding to long-lasting objectives.
- Demands possessing comprehensive knowledge of the processes in the market.
Brand Experience
Main characteristic: The variety of events and workshops that can be held by a brand is wide, accessible for newly founded ventures and grand for enterprises.
- Uplifting of emotional ties between a brand and customers;
- Real insight in the preferences of your audience.
- It might be costly.
How much do branding services in the UK cost?
The price of carrying out a brand revamp comes from the scale of your expectations. There is a tendency of increasing the expenses on branding and marketing. Only Unilever’s investments was around €700 million. Of course, for a company with significant global reach it’s necessary, but small and middle businesses can improve their performance much cheaper.
We collected the approximate prices of innovative services and explained the difference between them, so let’s proceed to costs:
| Type of service | Cost | Price dependence |
| Audit | £2,500 – £30,000 | As the audit is composed of a few parts, including or excluding some of them will be displayed on the price. For example, if you want just your current assets to be reviewed or get evaluation of performances, it will be one cost. At the same time, the entire package can rise significantly due to complexity. |
| Strategy | £3,000 – £35,000 | The lowest price brand consulting will let you clarify one or maybe two strategically important types of information – studying your audience, defining your competitors or outlining the brand promise. On the contrary, the highest price is a key to an all-encompassing strategy with ensuring consistency forming the core of the brand. |
| Visual identity | £1,000 – £15,000 | Imagery services for branding are also wide and they can include a package of pictures to present the brand visually. Also, it’s possible to apply for a logo only, maybe with colour palette and fonts if you wish so. |
| Messaging | £1,000 – £14,000 | As with images, you can request the most vital part – selecting an appropriate naming. However, the full package opens wider possibilities – formulating an interesting story and coming up with core messages as well as defining the style of communication. |
| Positioning | £3,500 – £20,000 | Positioning is a complex process that requires great analytic and market skills so after some scrolling we can say that it’s possible to find affordable services, yet always pay attention to the quality. Amongst all marketing and branding services, positioning takes a very important place. |
| Guidelines | £2,000 – £10,000 | The price of guidelines depends on the agency’s vision about how much it costs – you can find different options that go above and beyond stated numbers. Additionally, the complexity might also affect the overall cost. |
| Experience | £10,000 – £500,000 | So a wide range is explained by the diversity of actions that can be done. While some experiential offerings can be simple, in the form of a stand with a person who makes sure that everything goes like it should, others can blow your mind with its scale. For example, IKEA once offered people to spend the night in one of their stores that sounded cool and improved people’s mood and wasn’t very difficult to prepare. |
| Management | £5,000 – £15,000 (a year) | If you want your brand to be monitored with some slight changes, it won’t be too expensive. However, there can be more branding solutions with maintenance. |
Additionally, the price forming is usually influenced by factors related to location – in some countries and cities you can find more affordable costs due to the difference of life level and economies; the scale of a branding firm – bigger vendors sometimes charge lower prices.
It’s important to evaluate all opportunities you have and decide on those which will be the most profitable in your case since in such creative matters there are no identical patterns.
How long does it take for a company to complete my branding project?
Completion of a project that will boost your firm’s recognition and spotlights the singular qualities of your proposition isn’t a deal of one day, that’s why if you have already decided to request branding services in the UK, we recommend that you don’t postpone these activities.
Let’s explore the time needed to fulfil such a project:
Discovery Workshop
Duration: 1 day-1 week
Determinants: The beginning of every project is a meeting during which two sides agree on the scale of the work that must be done, decide on the time period, clarify all the uncertainties and dive deeply in the goals and expectations. In some cases an hour call is enough to determine all the fundamentals. However, if an assignment consists of a long list of deliverables, there can be a few meetings.
Brand Strategy Development
Duration: 2-4 weeks
Determinants: Refining a brand strategy that will differentiate your brand touches many and various points. The factors that slow down the process of defining a brand’s key features are the scope of the project, the availability of specialists – if there is only one who performs all the work, it takes longer.
Brand Identity Design
Duration: 2-4 weeks
Determinants: With well-clarified objectives finalisation of a visual identity for a small business will require about 2-3 weeks. However, if the identities require approval from multiple stakeholders and a long list of visual components to be crafted, the duration of a branding services agency completing a task can be extended for a few more weeks.
Brand Messaging
Duration: 2-4 weeks
Determinants: When positioning is well-done, it usually doesn’t take too long to form a verbal identity, because the main statements and the direction of activities is determined. Inclusion to the process of storytelling and writing articles swing the pendulum to a longer carrying out.
Digital Identity Development
Duration: 1 month – 4 months
Determinants: The time period of accomplishment of this stage depends on the features you want to be embedded in your website, the quantity of pages and potential customised decisions you might apply for. Factors like testing, polishing the functionality off means a lot for a high-quality website creation.
What are the elements of effective service of branding?
Regarding influential elements, we can mention the components like strategy, visual identity and messaging that have been already explained in our brief. Yet, apart from them, the significance resides in more intangible fundamentals as:
- Reaching uniqueness – an applicable business origination isn’t only in logo design and messaging creation. Other than their availability, they also should be exclusive, don’t repeat any other’s ideas and be authentic. A brand that resembles another one a lot won’t be as competent as if it was true to itself and will always have a trail of controversy that interfere with the company’s brand development;
- Balancing simplicity – evaluating successful examples of a brand formation, even when it comes to businesses that impress with their extraordinary solutions, their visual and verbal identities aren’t usually overcomplicated, staying within the bounds of simplicity. Edelweiss – is a great example of a company which products don’t stick to the basics, but the overall brand image is elegant and offers freedom to imagine;
- Timelessness – an identity innovation can’t be called successful if its effectiveness is very time limited, taking into account that the true result of implementing a branding service is seen in the long run and has cumulative effects. The examples of IKEA, Chanel prove that well-designed attributes help a business get through fast-changing market trends, rapidly advancing technology and new generations’ diverse demands;
- Sentimental connection – there are numerous feelings a company’s conception is able to cause in customers – joy, belonging, pride, satisfaction and gratitude as well as trust and excitement. A well-defined brand usually evokes a kind of emotion that is achieved through the selection of suitable colour palettes, fonts, words, shapes and forms of visual elements that are glued together by a distinguishing strategy;
- Involving your employees into the process – your workers are an essential part of your brand and how they interact with the customers, employ new ideas, make possible reaching new horizons hugely impact on how your audience perceives your brand. Their engagement in the formulating of the concept, brainstorming, auditing and promoting your company through ambassador programs will help reach realness and integrity.
Possible difficulties during the branding creation process
Even requesting your company image revamp to branding companies, the possibility of leaving out something vital exists. That’s why we offer you to dive into some potential difficulties and the roadmaps of how to approach them that we clarified in our synopsis:
Disagreement of visions
There are many people involved in the brand creation activities and every of them has their thoughts of how the project should be developed and there’s no one whose opinion can be neglected.
How to deal with: If you find that the completion of your brand designing doesn’t satisfy you, invest your time in communicating with the branding services company for them to explain their choices. It’s not necessary that the deliverables are badly done, it might turn out that the audience you’re trying to appeal to expects these decisions and they must be made.
Pinpointing the right audience
It seems easy at first to say who you sell your products to – children, adults, elderly people. Are there any more? In reality, the number of characteristics is long. Yet, one of the most often difficulties that can affect branding is the decision to cover the needs of all people at once, losing important connections with customers.
How to deal with: There are still people in the world who don’t like Coca-Cola or McDonalds, so it’s impossible to satisfy everyone. Let your innovative assistants categorise your buyers and focus on those for whom it’s important.
Creativity that goes beyond usability
In an attempt to craft a bespoke and matchless design, it’s a very thin border between a masterpiece and bad taste or impracticality. With the years even luxury designs remain simple and don’t have any waste elements that can spoil customers’ impressions about the products.
How to deal with: Before making a final choice, assess whether the offered branding services in the UK, especially it’s related to packaging, are suitable for daily usage and don’t create any difficulties for customers. Apart from being beautiful, the innovative adjustments should be workable.
Cultural disconnection
Entering a new market or trying to engage with new audiences is a challenge that not every business is able to overcome when overlooking the cultural nuances. What is good in Europe, might be hated in Asia and vice versa. The same is about ages – teens won’t be captivated by things valued by adults. Cultural insensitivity can cost too high to pay.
How to deal with: Looking for providers of originative services, evaluate their experience in dealing with foreign clients and the outcomes of cooperation. Possessing knowledge of cultural sensitivity, they’ll be able to expand your market presence more effectively.
Selecting the best branding services
It might appear that you don’t need the entire package of services (for example, your business has already had a touching story or you want to apply for product branding). On the other hand, maybe entire revamp with website development, breaking the ground positioning and strategy that shed light on the future of your brand is what you would better do. So, bear in mind that scope of work is determined by:
Far-reaching plans
Setting a goal for your business growth – increasing loyalty, involvement of customers, launching of products or breaking new ground, wide expansion, capturing new markets, globalisation and establishing yourself as a leader in the industry. For the first category it’s possible to close all the issues with designs and main messaging creation when for the second one, the scale of work will be all-encompassing with all branding services included.
Scale of adjustments
Seeking assistance you have probably come up with some ideas about how much your brand should be changed. Whether refreshing the logo is to your liking or forming a brand from scratch, it demands different sets of services. It’s recommended, if you do something major, pay attention not only to the verbal and visual assets but also the master plan, as it’s that power making them work together on its full.
If you want something simple, it could be 2-3 services for branding with the possibility of including market analysis and style guidebook. On the contrary, forging a new path will definitely require a comprehensive set of services to scrutinise every detail.
Industry specification
Business sectors are different and require unique approaches. Namely, if your company provides digital services, then such things like packaging design might not be necessary for you, while the imagery must be oriented on your web platforms. Individualisation of a business that has a physical place visited by customers demands wider design requirements to merchandise in the form of clothes, stationary, posters and even experiential elements.
Budget limitations
Not every firm possesses great wealth, especially when they are only at the beginning of their journeys. However, it’s crucial not to miss the moment and form the core of a brand that is sustainable. Having limited budget opportunities, you have two options: ask for fewer offerings or find a firm that suits your financial capabilities. On our website you can find listings of companies for every possible call.
Choosing a branding service from the mentioned, you can evaluate the advantages of every one of them and opt for those you think contribute to your business the most. Maybe you need only a logo as the naming of your company is memorable enough. Or your identities – verbal and visual are good, but you want more insights into your target audience.
Agency’s potential
Some originative teams have solutions on various topics and can level up a brand visibility, online presence, facilitate attracting new customers – all at once, possessing all-inclusive knowledge of identity shaping process, while others provide a short list of deliverables, so opportunities in this case are restricted to what a vendor whose work you like can offer.
Benefits of working with a branding services agency
Addressing your concerns to professionals who have a knack for innovating companies and possess a good grasp of the market tendencies serves as a practical solution to deal with advanced demands.
Why don’t we give a closer look to perks of such cooperation:
- Solutions, sustained by market insights – even if you have a talent to match words together well or paint amazing pictures, it doesn’t meet the requirements of an impactful brand formation if you haven’t obtained vital statistics and don’t know your target market, that’s agencies’ first priority;
- Attained brand uniformity – achieving authentic look requires meticulous attention and an outstanding branding solution, especially if you want your brand to have several personas – visual, digital, sonic and office. When the order’s tall, gathering all pieces together in an unified picture becomes a tough quest. By contrast, experts with trained eyes notice any disharmony in no time;
- Taking use of professional tools – innovative managers typically have access to varied programs and technologies that people, not involved in the industry, don’t. And, of course, not only availability matters but the diverse skills and the comprehension of how to match everything together. You’ll get all needed files in necessary formats without spending hours on it and trying to come up with something people study for years;
- Crossdisciplinary knowledge – it’s a common feature of a plethora of providers being well-versed in additional spheres that stretch the boundaries of classic services. Other than forming an image with verbal and visual identities, they develop websites and software, write articles and launch marketing campaigns.
Looking for a branding agency?
Selecting the right branding company that will entirely dedicate themselves to your project, invest their time and expertise into your business development and will do their best to know for sure that there’s nothing to improve – is a major contributor to success. Knowing how complicated it can be, we prepared the lists of agencies with interdisciplinary knowledge, great experience and real data-driven results.
On our website you can receive a free quote based on your needs, time of fulfilling the project and budget using our calculator. According to the information you input, we will count an approximate budget in order to ease your burden of guessing.
