What is Total branding and how it helps your business?

It covers everything from naming of your products, services or company to the way stationery materials look like. It includes the very essentials any brand has - its promise, values, strategy, unique selling points and ultimately, its goals. For without a clear roadmap from the get-go and without a philosophy behind, hardly any brand can achieve greatness.

It could come to your mind, especially as a start-up business, that developing things like brand story or voice/image guidelines might be too much of an investment early on. Some brands that you have never heard of skip the "non-essentials" entirely. The previous sentence contains a hint how successful these brands eventually become. Branding promotes recognition - if it is consistent and easy to associate, that helps raising customer base, a thing of utmost importance especially for start-ups.

The Cambridge definition: "Branding is the act of connecting a product or business with a particular name, symbol, or features and ideas to make it recognizable" more or less sums it up. The best brands are built around a strong idea, maintained by the management, followed by the employees, recognized by the market and loved by the customers. It really does not make much difference if the brand is about a product or a service, even whether if it is about physical or digital merchandise, as long as the "how to get there" is comprehensively outlined, understood and pursued.

Here comes the Total branding service as the "how to get there" part. We at Mariya Design concentrate our best efforts to tailor fit a structure around your product, service or even idea. Your business has to become more than a range of products and services. A strategy should be followed as customer experience is a huge factor towards long term success. Total branding is a dedicated and thoroughly considered approach, helping your brand reach its desired goals easier and faster.

If your brand feels unique to the target audience and presumably offers a solution to its needs/desires, this will set you apart from the competition, thus you can expect more exposure and bigger market share. lrrelevant of the product/service your brand represents, it has to be perceived as something worth owning and creating emotional connections with customers. This promotes brand loyalty and keeps the customer base running high - for each returning person you will probably get one new. Total branding gives your business a personality. It is far easier for the target audience to attach to a personality rather than to just words and items.

Total branding is not purely about design - it goes a lot deeper by establishing the philosophy and core values of the brand. Its products/services are perceived as an emanation of brand's mission, vision, promise, not vise versa. The reasons for which the brand exists are explained by its story and goals, then illustrated in visual form via logos, taglines and colours. Total branding makes your brand feel trustworthy and solid. It gives an incentive to customers to deliberately choose your business over another.

Last but not least, Total branding shapes a straightforward company culture to follow, respect and participate into. Employees are vital part for any company, even for start-ups. It is a lot easier to attract the best talent for the job and maintain their satisfaction if your business has roadmap and clear guidelines from the get-go. An employee who understands and shares your brand's values will be happy to work there. Having a supportive staff will strengthen your company, will maintain a positive brand image and will undoubtedly increase the sales, thus your success. Brand loyalty does not concern only the customers, but also your potential workforce. For a fact, employees often intentionally choose to work for their favorite brand, even if the payment there is less than what the competition offers for a similar position.

Total branding makes all of the above, if not more, possible. Is it really necessary? Yes, it is! We at Mariya Design believe that in order to emerge from obscurity and achieve prominence, any brand should invest in comprehensively developing itself. This will ensure its business stands on a strong foundation and not just thin air. Is Total branding a guarantee for success? Stated on its own, maybe no. But it is a cornerstone for getting to the top and more importantly, staying there.