B2B branding + web design agency

Your visual brand comprises your logo, B2B website design, business cards, signage, trade show booths, presentations and any collateral you develop to market your company. It’s critical these materials have a consistent look – they should be using the same fonts, colors, imagery style, design elements, logos.

A B2B brand guide is a critical tool to share internally and with any outside vendors that help develop branding assets. You know a visual brand is well-executed when you can look at something and know it’s from a particular company before you even read it.

Read more: 3 Pillars of a Successful B2B Brand.

Your brand messaging includes things like your company tagline, B2B website copy, elevator pitch, blog posts, advertisements, presentations and videos. It’s critical your message has consistent themes woven throughout and should use the same style of writing, punctuation and terminology to explain your products and/or services.

Your brand message and visuals can often be developed in tandem with the help of a B2B marketing and branding agency. As part of any rebranding project, the agency should supply you with a brand guide at the end that covers the critical pillars of both the brand message and visuals. Again, this guide should be shared internally and with vendors that help develop any marketing materials.

Read more: How to Refine Your Brand Story.

The experience people have with your company – whether they are clients or employees – is the most essential, but often overlooked, part of your brand. Your brand messaging and visuals should convey and set expectations for how their experience with your company will be.

For example, many of our clients tout their customer service as a core pillar of their brand message. Now, if I’m a customer of this company and I don’t receive excellent service, the brand experience is inconsistent.

If your B2B company sells Leadership Training, but you don’t offer leadership training to your employees, it undermines your brand. Your employees can be incredible brand ambassadors as long as what you say and how you act is consistent. The same goes for clients – if the branding that sold them on your company aligns with the experience they had working with your company and products, then you’ve done your job is creating a cohesive brand.

Managing the brand experience comes down to creating products and services that do what they say and providing your employees with the resources and training to help deliver these products and services.

Your logo is your signature. Having several core variations of your logo is great and certainly helps with versatility. In fact, logo designers often provide several versions of your logo, including horizontal, stacked, black, white, with a tagline and in some instances logotype-only or icon-only options.

Part of the B2B brand consistency challenge is to select one primary logo variation that will then be prioritized whenever possible across marketing collateral. The other versions should be saved for special use cases when the primary logo would not work due to size or format constraints. Clarifying appropriate logo usage will help your brand signature be more consistent and in turn more widely recognized.

Selecting a set B2B brand color palette is a core part of brand development. Although having a defined set of color codes is important, the application of the colors themselves across different marketing materials is critical. Yes, your color palette should be versatile enough to allow designers to expand on your brand when creating eye-catching digital ads and brochures, yet not overly flexible to dilute your brand look and feel.

Look at your core marketing pieces and pay attention to how the colors are applied. Identify which colors are primary versus secondary and how they are being used in relation to each other as well as balanced with white space. If you were to take all your marketing pieces and look at them, does the color application on each fit so that the materials look to be part of a cohesive brand family?

Following through consistently with a limited, intentional set of brand-appropriate fonts will set you up for success. Additionally, pay attention to your brand’s font weights and hierarchy. Does your website use Bold Uppercase Headlines but your collateral has thin sentence case headlines? Even if the font is the same, the overall look will feel very different.

How is your B2B marketing copy?

Is it written professionally and using a consistent brand voice? Brand voice can be an essential communication tool with your audience and sets the stage for how they will expect interactions with your team to go.

Is your team very direct and professional, or are they more personable, casual, or friendly?

Try to minimize any disconnect so that your Brand voice matches customer’s expectations and actual experience with your company.

A B2B brand identity should include direction for photography, icon styling, and any background textures, illustrations, or infographics. Having a set style for each of these core brand visual approaches will help your company look more consistent and it turn more polished.

For icons, keep your selection to one style if possible. If you are using a variety of styles throughout your collateral, the different line weights, colors and levels of detail will clash and contribute to your overall brand feeling disjointed and unprofessional.

Delivering on the Expectations You Set
A brand goes beyond the visual…it is your company’s reputation. If you communicate an expectation in your B2B marketing materials, make it a priority to follow through. Let’s say you state that you will respond to form fills within 24 hours – that is a specific promise you should be able to deliver on.

For B2B marketing success, consistency is an integral consideration. Remember, inconsistencies in visual styling, writing tone, or expectations can create a negative impression of your business that is difficult to bounce back from.

Careful design management can be tough job, but it is worth it to prevent your B2B brand from looking chaotic or diluted. Build brand recognition and trust through consistency.