Brand Development: How to Build a Winning Brand With Leadpages’ Creative Tools

If you run a business or work in marketing, you’ve likely heard about brand development and how your business “needs a strong brand.” But what exactly is a brand and how do you create one that your audience will love?

Lucky for you, Leadpages has recently released several new creative tools that make brand building even easier. Keep reading to learn more about brand development and how you can use Leadpages to apply your brand to your website and landing pages.

What is brand development?

Brand development is the process of defining your company’s unique identity and then applying that persona and visual language to your website, landing pages, ads, social media, and other marketing assets. Developing a brand is about more than just designing a logo. Your brand is made up of a number of different elements, including your color palette, visual style, and marketing messaging.

Why is brand development important?

When you have a strong brand that resonates with your audience, your business starts to market itself. You don’t need to say who your products or services are for because the right people will be drawn to you. If your customers identify with your brand and what you stand for they’ll also be more likely to stick with you longer and even promote your business to their friends and family.

Building a strong brand doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time and a little trial and error. But when you do it right you’ll set yourself up for success for years to come.

5 steps to successful brand development

Okay, so now you have a solid understanding of what brand development is and why you should care about it. Here’s how to actually do the work and build the perfect brand for your business.

Identify your ideal customer

Before you build a brand that fits your audience, you need to figure out who that audience is. Once you nail down your ideal customer you can construct your brand around their wants and needs.

You might have a particular group of people you’d like to target, but be careful—the customers who are actually buying your products and services might be different from the ones you were initially targeting. The best strategy is to find out who you’re already doing business with and then aim your brand at them.

Here are some tips for determining your ideal customer:

• Access any customer data you have to narrow down the demographics of your audience. Social media platforms might also be able to give you some insights into your followers.
• Read as many customer reviews and testimonials as possible. What are they using your products and services for? What do they like and dislike? How are they talking about your business?
• Have your customers fill out a survey to learn more about them (you might need to include an incentive to get them to participate). You can even use this opportunity to ask them what they’d like to see from your brand moving forward.

Use all this information to create a customer persona that you tailor your brand towards.

Understand your business

It’s not enough to know your ideal customer—brand development is also about knowing your business and what you want to stand for. Because if you’re not passionate about your own brand how can you expect to make others fall in love with it?

Before moving on, you’ll need to ask yourself some questions to get to the heart of what your business is really all about.

• What problem are you solving?
• What makes you different from your competitors?
• What does your business do well?
• What areas of your business do you want to improve?
• How do you want your business to be perceived?

Use these and other questions to create a mission statement for your business, and refer back to that statement when developing your brand to ensure you stay true to your vision.

Create your visual style

Now that you have a strong understanding of both your audience and your business, it’s finally time to start developing your brand. First up: the visuals. This includes your logo, color palette, and the types of images and graphics you use.

Here’s some advice to help you build a visual style that’s uniquely you:

• Survey brands with similar audiences to draw inspiration.
• Workshop different logos and website layouts with your team and people you trust to find the right look.
• Choose a color palette that reflects your audience and mission statement. Remember, different colors evoke different emotions and feelings.
• Establish your brand visuals, including typography, illustrations, and photography. You might even want to schedule a photo shoot to ensure you have the exact type of imagery you need.

Once you settle on a look you love it’s time to move on to the last piece of the puzzle.

Develop your brand voice

Remember, your brand isn’t just visual—your tone and voice are also very important when it comes to how your audience perceives you.

This is where knowing your ideal customer really pays off. You want to speak their language. Are you targeting a younger audience? Then a more casual and informal tone is probably best. Are you speaking to business professionals? Then drop the slang and keep things more formal.

Most importantly, be authentic. People can tell when you’re trying to be something you’re not. Make sure your voice fits your business while still appealing to your audience.

Release your brand and track your results

After completing the first four steps the only thing left to do is release your brand into the wild and see how it performs.

Here are a few ways to keep tabs on how your brand is performing:

• Organic search traffic
• Paid ad performance
• Social media engagement
• Email open rates

Most importantly, listen to your audience and what they’re saying. If they like your new brand they’ll likely tell you.

And remember, no brand is permanent. You can always make adjustments if you’re not getting the results you’re looking for or if the nature of your business changes down the road.

How to apply your brand development strategy to your website and landing pages

So, you have this awesome new brand that you’re ready to share with the world. But how do you take that brand and translate it onto a website or landing page? Sure, you can plunk your logo, colors, and copy onto the page—but there’s so much more you can do to make your page unique to your business.

Leadpages’ new creative tools make it super easy to customize your look. Here are a few tips.

Be consistent with your brand

Once you’ve developed your brand elements it’s time to implement them across all your marketing channels. You need to be consistent—just one page that’s off-brand can ruin all your hard work. In Leadpages, you can start by establishing your brand colors to ensure all your assets use the right color palette. Next import any custom fonts you’re using, then set your global styles so you're consistent on every page.

Create your voice and tone

Deciding what you’d like your voice and tone to be is one thing, but actually writing the words can be difficult. Luckily, Leadpages makes it easy. All templates start with real, professional, optimized copy—much of which might already work for your brand. You can also use Leadpages’ Writing Assistant to edit and expand your text, or create new copy from scratch. Simply tell the AI what tone and voice you’d like to use, then generate multiple variations to find the right fit.

Add visual interest with design elements

Small details like background images, what colors you choose for certain sections, and even how to transition from one section to another can have a big impact on the look of your page. For example, Leadpages’ new Section Shape Dividers give you a few more options when transitioning from one section to another. Break up your page with angles, shapes, waves, and more to bring your brand to life.

Have some fun with motion

Motion is a powerful design element that grabs users’ attention. Videos are an obvious way to incorporate motion, and Leadpages makes it easy to embed them onto any page. Elements like Countdown Timers are another way to use movement (and add a sense of urgency). Finally, page animations can really liven up your page. Leadpages lets you animate text, buttons, and entire sections to really make visitors take notice.

Support your copy with the right media

Adding images, graphics, and videos to your page really gives you the chance to show off your personality. Leadpages makes it easy to embed videos and supports all kinds of image files, including JPG, PNG, ICO, and GIF. Most recently, we’ve also added support for SVG files—scalable vector graphics—which are perfect for logos, icons, and vector-based illustrations. Best of all, they’re infinitely scalable, so they’re guaranteed to look crisp on every display.

Jumpstart your brand development with pre-made templates

We get it, creating a branded website or landing page from scratch isn’t easy. That’s why you might want to consider starting with a template. These designs are created by marketing experts and already have all the elements needed for the perfect branded page. Best of all, they’re completely customizable so you can make them your own.

Here are a few new landing page templates that show off some of Leadpages’ new creative tools.

FintasTech

This clean look keeps things professional, while the pops of color and fun graphics also show that the brand isn’t afraid to have a little fun. The curved section dividers are also a nice touch that sets this page apart from typical designs.

Consultant Community

The muted colors give a calming feel to this landing page, but the fun graphics and transitions still keep things casual. This is a great example of how you don’t need bright colors to create a memorable design.

Not Your Average Ad Agency

This bold design is perfect for brands that aren’t afraid to take risks. The colors really make you sit up and take notice, and the animated text allows you to really make a statement with your copy.

Sustain•ability

This template uses a bento box design, which is a fun way to organize content and create an original look for the page. Subtle text fade-ins are also used to draw attention to headlines and important content.

MarTech

This cool and slick design screams “intelligence” and “cutting edge,” making it ideal for brands that want to be known as an authority in their industry. The animated buttons also do an excellent job of drawing attention to the call to action and encouraging clicks.

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