Branding is a key factor when you want to create instant recognition with your audience. Cultivating a sense of familiarity gives your audience a feeling of connectedness that will inspire them to seek your business out among your competitors.
This is also true—and possibly even more so—for your digital communications. Without a brick-and-mortar to sell the experience of interacting with your business, you need your branding to resonate through your online presence as well.
One way to do this is to connect your audience’s physical experiences to the digital experience through branding.
Using colors, fonts, and logos strategically creates a seamless transition from physical experience to digital—or vice versa. If you sell products or services, your packaging should contain the same elements of branding as your storefront.
Similarly, your emails—from your transactional emails to your newsletters—should also contain your branded elements.
Branding your email program
If you haven’t branded your emails—including your transactional emails, which will have huge open rates during the holiday season—you have missed a chance to reiterate and confirm your brand identity in the minds of your biggest fans.
A good experience via email will imbue your branding with positive associations, leaving your readers with strong, positive feelings for your company.
How can you brand your emails?
Emails, even transactional ones, should always contain your creative elements, such as your logos, your brand colors, and fonts. Our customers have told us that uploading these elements is one of the hardest parts about getting their email program up and running.
Our new branded templates feature aims to fix that. Now you can get started and get sending in a few minutes. Simply enter your website URL and Campaign Monitor will automatically upload your creative elements into one of our branded templates. You can then tweak whatever you need, add your own copy and content, and get sending.
With our branded holiday templates, you can start taking advantage of the increased digital traffic this holiday season with minimal up-front effort and time.
Your emails should always use the same fonts and colors as your brick-and-mortar stores, your ads, and even your website. The more places you can utilize your branding elements, the more repetition will solidify your brand reputation in your audience’s mind.
You can even use the same colors and images on your social feeds to create a seamless, cohesive feel.
Branding with consistency: How to brand your emails, website, and beyond
Your emails aren’t the only place you should utilize branding. Instead, you should carry these elements throughout your digital presence. Consistent branding is a great way to make it seem like you have a dedicated marketing team behind you, even if your entire company only consists of one or two people.
For example, here is a 2019 holiday email from Alo Yoga. But that fact is obvious at a glance, even without the explanation. Not only is their brand named multiple times throughout the email, the design and aesthetic are also similar throughout. Here’s an example of a branded email:
Your website, social platforms, and even direct mail should all follow the same design and tone guidelines so it’s clear at a glance that they’re all from you.
Building strong brand recognition will strengthen your relationship with consumers and have them coming back to your organization even when your competitors might be easier or more convenient for them.
Similarly, if you look at the Alo website, you can see they’ve got the same 70 and 30% off sales, similar graphics near the bottom, and the same inter-galactic design throughout. All readers who click through to the website will find themselves in familiar territory.
If you look at your emails side by side, is it obvious they’re from you? It’s an easy tweak that will improve your email results in the long-term. What about your website? When you follow your links, do you end up someplace that looks familiar?
You might find a few tweaks lead to more conversions and an even higher ROI from your email program.
Wrap up
Consistent branding helps you create seamless, memorable experiences that lead customers to return to your business time and time again. This holiday season will be unlike any other and, while that can be intimidating, it also means there are enormous opportunities for you to connect with your audience.
Consumers want to do business with brands they care about, with brands they feel a personal connection with. Branding across your platforms and in your physical locations can help you do just that. With Campaign Monitor’s branded templates, creating unique, branded emails is even more simple and effective than ever before. You can send your first email on day one after signing up.
Sign up today and get started with branded templates to send your first email right away.