Whether business owners realize it or not, they’re making a first impression with new customers every single day. A great logo has the power to make that first impression a positive one with new customers while shoring up brand loyalty among existing customers.
The fact that humans come to such quick judgments is beyond dispute these days. We, as a people, do often disobey the conventional wisdom that’s bandied about and judge a book by its cover. The cover for your business is your logo, so why not take your design seriously?
Elements of Outstanding Logos
A great logo is the confluence of a few different design elements: a catchy graphic, vibrant colors, readable font, and high contrast against a background. Many logos that big companies use can be recognized by customers simply at a glance thanks to the vibrancy of the colors used and the high contrast of the background – e.g., the purple-and-orange FedEx logo or the red-and-white Coca-Cola logo.
The reason all of this matters is that you’ll remain relevant in customers’ minds when it comes time to checkout if you have a memorable logo. What’s more, a logo that sticks in folks’ minds will increase your brand awareness, or the extent to which consumers can recognize a particular brand over a rival brand.
The benefits to being one step ahead of the competition are legion, but you should simply consider a customer waltzing around a supermarket in need of a particular product. For the sake of this example, let’s say that a customer is on the lookout for a tasty carbonated beverage. What is s/he going to choose, an unknown knockoff brand or the real deal with the white-and-red logo? The answer is self-evident.
Brand Consistency
One other way that you can supercharge your logo and create an amazing first impression that sticks in customers’ minds is by achieving brand consistency across real-world and online platforms. In other words, you need to design a logo that works and stick with it so that time-strapped customers will instantly know what they’re looking at.
SEO reputation management can incorporate brand consistency into your outreach for richer results.
Brand consistency actually increases the power of your brand and increases sales because it makes the customer’s job easier: Customers don’t have to scroll through a mental rolodex to come up with your company. Your logo serves as a mental shortcut and makes sticking around in customers’ psychological lives much easier.
Emma Sturgis is a freelance writer currently living in Boston, MA. She writes most often on education and business. For help moving commodities, Emma suggests Bekins Van Lines Inc. To see more from Emma, say hi on Twitter @EmmaSturgis2.
Logo design stock photo by Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock
