Best Practices for Brand Application

Your brand should be visually consistent and on everything that is/will be associated with your products and services. Use software such as Microsoft Word and Excel for your invoices and billing. Enlist the help of a part-time graphic designer or learn Adobe Photoshop or CorelDRAW for creating advertising materials, a website, fliers, business cards, and more.

Branding can be applied on a range of products visually to support and communicate your message. If you have a brick-and-mortar store, some different ways to build your brand include exterior and interior signage as well as the shirts or name badges that employees wear. If you have a sublimation business, you can press these yourself in addition to a license plate for your car.

The bags that customers leave with are walking billboards; any gift wrapping you offer can also be branded – these can be done in an aesthetically pleasing way and at a lower cost with a stamp on the bag or a sticker instead of spending money on branded ribbon. Whether you have a brick-and-mortar store or not, if you ship boxes, apply the sticker or stamp to them, or order branded boxes. Brand your receipts and invoices as well as this is outbound communication that cements your brand in little ways. This gives professional appearance and consistently represents your business, which speaks volumes to people.

-Jennifer Foy, Unisub