Why branding is important in marketing

Identify the gaps

Imagine being in the shoes of a potential volunteer, donor, or client to get to the core of what’s not working. Where do they discover you for the first time? What’s that experience like? Can they find what they need quickly?

Here’s an example:

They find you on Google and they click to open your website. They can find what they need but have a desire to know more about you before they move forward, so they find your social media links and click one. Upon landing on your profile, they get confused. Your website doesn’t look or sound the same as your socials and now they worry they’re in the wrong place. That breaks the trust you’ve built and they’re likely to click away.

Thinking about your user journey helps you understand where the gaps are, so you can align your marketing and branding efforts more intentionally.

If you’re finding that you have no consistency throughout your touchpoints or that you don’t have clarity on how your business needs to show up to connect with the right people, that’s a branding problem and you need to go back to your foundations.

5 steps to help you improve your brand today

Now that you’ve considered your user journey, you know what’s not working. Before jumping in to fix the inconsistencies in your marketing, you’ll want to review your brand foundations.

Whether you’re working with an agency, freelancer, or doing it yourself. There are a few key factors of your brand that make a huge difference in your marketing. Here are five steps to help you improve your brand today:

1. Return to your brand roots.
2. Refine your positioning and core messaging.
3. Establish a color scheme.
4. Select your fonts.
5. Build a logo family.

You might be tempted to work ahead and get to the visuals first, but I always encourage people to focus on strategy first by inspecting your brand roots. I begin every branding project in the same way because I know how that your brand roots keep you grounded as you grow. Just like a plant’s roots, if they aren’t healthy, everything else wilts too.

I have another post about “How strategic branding supports sustainable growth” that’s good to review if you haven’t defined these before. Assuming you’ve done some brand strategy work in the past, you’ve got something to review.

It’s natural for businesses and organizations to evolve, so it’s important to return to your brand roots from time to time to ensure they still reflect the direction you’re growing in. If you’re feeling like they aren’t quite right, it might be time to refresh them. This can happen during times of transition and restructuring because your mission might evolve with new leadership.

Once your brand roots feel aligned again, you can move on to the next step.

Your positioning and core messaging work alongside your roots to support the rest of your marketing efforts. Positioning helps you identify your place in the world. It identifies where you need to show up to connect with your target audience, while messaging tells you how to speak to them. They work hand in hand to ensure you have the opportunity to meet the right people and make the right impression.



If this is where you’re feeling shaky, it’s time to review. Pull in outside support when your internal team can’t settle on a direction or if you aren’t sure where to start. Marketing strategists and copywriters can help you out.

Let’s say you already have a color scheme. Look through your website, social assets, and marketing materials. Do they feel like the same brand? Is there consistency in how your brand colors are utilized? Are new colors being thrown into the mix? It might be time to realign your team or share your brand guidelines document, so everyone internally knows exactly how your brand shows up. This is also a good resource to share with freelancers and print partners.

If you’ve never creating a color scheme before, choose no more than five colors when you’re DIY’ing your visuals. This helps keep it simple for you and more memorable for your audience. You’ll also want to use a combination of lights and darks to make sure everything you create is legible and accessible.

Pro Tip: Check for accessibility by using a color contrast checker. There are lots of free versions of this tool online.

Again legibility is key here. If someone can’t read your flyer, poster, social graphic, etc. it’s not serving you well. Take some time to review your materials again to check for consistency. Are you using the same fonts? Can your audience read headlines, subheadings, and body copy with ease? If you answered no, it’s time to revisit your type system.



When choosing these yourself, keep it simple. Three typefaces will provide plenty of flexibility for your visual identity, especially when they have bold and italicized styles. You can also try all caps if you need more options or emphasis.

Every brand should have at least two versions of their logo: a primary logo and a logo mark (simplified logo that can be used in small spaces). It’s good to have more than one variation, so your logo can scale up and down without becoming illegible. If a horizontal space doesn’t leave room for your primary logo, another logo variation can fill the gap and prevent frustration.

If you’re feeling restricted by your logo, it might be time to hire a brand designer or agency partner to expand your brand assets.

Pro Tip: Don’t forget to create one-color versions of your logo for use on apparel to save on printing costs. Black and white versions can also be helpful when you sponsor or partner with other organizations for events.

Looking for more? Learn “Everything you need to know about logo families”.

Establish a style guide. This includes details of your color scheme, type system, icons, logo usage, and more. Consider this your visual guide that outlines how your brand shows up in the world. Creating this document will help your team and partners utilize your brand assets in a cohesive way, which improves memorability and builds trust with your audience.

Pro Tip: Set up your brand kit in Canva if you’re using that tool to streamline creation for internal documents and promotional materials.

Another Pro Tip: Create a one-page, condensed style guide that includes your fonts and colors to share with design and print partners. This is also useful for quick referencing when creating internally.

Quick Recap:

• Identify the gaps in your user journey. Where is trust being broken?
• Keep it simple when you’re doing it yourself. You have enough to keep track of in your day-to-day life, make this easy.
• Your branding is the foundation of your marketing, so it’s important to make sure you’re on solid ground.
• Unify your branding and marketing efforts by refining your positioning and core messaging before making any decisions about your visuals.
• Establish a style guide to use your fonts and colors consistently and improve brand recognition.

If you’re still not sure and want extra support, check out my services page or find upcoming workshops on the resources page.