Want to know what a branding agency does? We explain.
Are you a startup without in-house branding expertise and are waiting to hire a specialist until after you’ve run your business for a while? Or perhaps a small business owner who has done a lot of marketing work by yourself, but your customer growth is still below average? If yes, then hiring a branding agency or professional can get you off on the right foot.
A good branding agency will help you build a strong brand from the ground up with all necessary elements, from mission statements and logos to naming conventions and other marketing materials. Above all, a branding expert will make sure each element forms a part of a strategy that sends out a consistent message and image across all media platforms and attracts the right customers.
To help you understand the role of branding agencies and what they do, we referred to Gartner research[1] and interviewed small business leaders about their experiences of working with brand consultancies. Let’s dig in.
What are branding agencies?
Branding agencies help businesses create a unique brand image to position their products and services. They help you define who you are and your story, values, and ideal consumers.
Their role is to express the brand visually (via logo, color schema, packaging, and social media templates, among other branding elements), verbally (via company name and brand promise), and experientially (via tone and feelings).
Brand consulting is a huge and diverse space. Many branding service providers specialize in consumer insights and research. Others have expertise in working on product prelaunch or prototype innovation.
At a minimum, most branding agencies have creative departments to develop a visual brand identity, which includes elements such as a color palette and logo. Gartner shows some even go deeper into the brand identity to create voice and tone guides and experiential identities.
Narrow your search for a branding agency with our list of companies in the following areas:
What do branding agencies do? (Featuring industry examples)
Branding agencies’ core focus areas and specialization can differ from one agency to another. Still, some branding services are particularly more popular. Here’s a list.
1. Brand (re)naming
The first thing customers notice about you is your brand name. If you have a name, but it’s not attracting the right audience, or if you’re thinking of a viable name for a new product or service, then hiring a branding agency can help you.
Think Nike. Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, worked under the name Blue Ribbon Sports for 14 years before renaming the company after the Greek goddess of victory, Nike, to target athletes.
/ How do branding agencies help?
Branding consultancies usually put together their research, consumer insights, and inputs from business stakeholders to develop a brand name that sets you apart.
A branding agency will ensure that your name conveys your unique selling points (USP), is catchy, resonates with customers, is legally sound to be trademarked, and is consistent with your naming conventions. For instance, the use of the letter “G” in Google’s products, such as Gmail and Gboard.
If you’re a new business, employing brand naming services will help you make this creative decision strategically.
2. Logo (re)designing
You live your brand name through a logo. If your logo isn’t recognizable, or it looks old and amateurish, it’s time to invest in a new logo with expert help.
Apple, for instance, changed its brand logo to make it more clean, elegant, and easy to use when it shifted from rainbow stripes to a monochromatic logo design.
/ How do branding agencies help?
Branding agencies, with their team of professional brand experts and designers, will make your company’s or product’s logo stick in the minds of consumers while also passing a sense of your identity to them.
From offline signages to email signatures, they’ll help you make sure it accurately represents your brand and appeals to the audience.
3. Brand strategy development
All your designs, visuals, and marketing/advertising copies should create and communicate the right image and reinforce your core values.
If you’ve multiple creative elements, such as tagline, product packaging, and logo, but they don’t tie back to the main brand strategy, then it’s important to course-correct.
Think Harley Davidson. Each of its brand elements, from slogans and taglines to logo, leads to its macho and freedom-seeking brand personality.
/ How do branding agencies help?
Branding agencies will help you craft a well-thought-out brand strategy. It’ll make everything simpler—from defining your brand personality to the colors you should be using for your marketing or advertising templates—and tie it all together.
An agency will also suggest the best brand architecture for your company under which to market your products and services.
According to Gartner, a brand strategy development service should help you define the target audience, competitors, benefits, and reasons to believe in your brand[1]. A few fundamental questions that the agency will help you answer through your brand strategy include, who you serve, what you represent, what values you offer, and what makes you different.
4. Brand messaging
If you’re establishing a small shop or home-based business, it’s not necessary to craft a complete brand strategy right in the beginning. To start with, have certain important brand messages in place to use in your communication.
Happyherbivore.com CEO Lindsay S. Nixon worked with just her brand mission for the first few years. But a strong mission statement ensured she had a solid pillar to fall back on and guide her through the tough decisions. “Whenever I’m faced with an opportunity, I ask whether it furthers my mission,” says Lindsay[2].
/ How do branding agencies help?
Branding agencies will help you work on key brand messages, including the phrases or words that you frequently use in your advertising and marketing campaigns to describe your brand.
The four sets of key messages you can initially work on with the help of branding experts are:
Brand positioning statement to highlight what sets your brand apart and your core values. It’s created for internal use only to keep employees aligned. Here’s an example of a brand positioning statement from Nike: “For athletes in need of high-quality, fashionable athletic wear, Nike provides customers with top-performing sports apparel and shoes made of the highest-quality materials.”
Brand mission and vision to describe the reason for your existence. The brand mission is about what you aspire to do daily, and the vision reflects your ideal preferred future. Examples: “To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.” (Starbucks mission), and “To be the premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world.” (Starbucks vision)
Brand tagline to convey what your brand is all about in a very succinct way. It should be short, punchy, and memorable. Seek inspiration for your tagline from your brand positioning statement.
Brand descriptors to use in ads, “about” pages on company websites, and other marketing and sales collateral. Focus your descriptors on who you are, the benefits you provide, and the audience you serve.
5. Brand style guide
In our interviews, most entrepreneurs said brand style guide creation is an extremely vital branding service businesses should employ.
If you don’t know what you want your brand colors to be or aren’t sure if using vector illustrations is a better choice than using photos, then you need a brand style guide.
Check out an example from Starbucks’ brand style guide[3]. It mentions wordmark guidelines for mentioning Starbucks’ name and also how to use it with different backgrounds.
/ How do branding agencies help?
Branding agencies will use customer insights and market research to answer the dos and don’ts for the usage of colors, logos, and visuals and put it all clearly and concisely in a four-to-five-page brand style guide.
A brand style guide will essentially be the rule book for your company’s design and brand specifications. The team of branding experts will use their experience, along with your market share, industry, and target audience’s taste, to create the right guidelines for you.
This will help you bring consistency and authenticity to your content, designs, and other marketing and sales communications.
6. Market research and discovery
If you’re not sure who your ideal customers are or are unable to determine their pain points and other values they care about, consider market research services provided by branding agencies.
Use market research and discovery to understand your USPs, figure out your ideal customer persona, craft key brand messaging in an informed manner, and audit your brand’s performance.
/ How do branding agencies help?
A few branding agencies specialize in market research. They have a rich repository of their own research base to offer initial consultancy to your business around what you may or may not be doing right. Beyond this, you can ask them to conduct fresh research on your behalf, through interviews or focus group discussions, to inform different aspects of your brand.
They have access to surveys with which they can conduct customer research to identify what potential clients think about your product or service. Customer surveys provide insight that can inform you on how to tweak and refine your messaging.
7. Brand launch
If you’re just launching your company or business or introducing a new product to your audience, or are going through a transition, say, a merger, hiring an experienced branding agency can set you up for success.
Launching your brand right is particularly important to ensure your business gets the chance to capture customers’ attention in a crowded marketplace.
/ How do branding agencies help?
Branding agencies offer brand launch capabilities to fuel the acceptance of your brand. It involves disseminating your brand among the target audience with the use of creative marketing and advertising solutions, such as social media ads and press releases.
Want to learn more? Check out Capterra’s list of branding agencies for the different types of services they offer and read case studies.
Should you hire a branding agency? Business leaders speak
We reached out to leaders who hired a branding firm or consultant for their small businesses. Here’s what they have to say.
Brand yourself with professionals in the first launch, and then again later
Alexis Taub[4] is the founder of a small business, Alexis Jae Jewelry, based in New York, United States. She recommends enlisting an agency’s support when launching a new brand and then, a few months later, to revisit your strategy once you’ve had initial reactions from customers as well as internal stakeholders. She also urges SMB owners to understand branding goals prior to bringing in outside help.
We hired a branding service when we first launched and then a few months later, once we better understood our target audience and the items we wanted to address. We wanted our branding to quickly show our value propositions—direct to consumer, customizable, and donation to breast cancer research. Our secondary goals were to tell our story of being a third-generation jewelry business that is family-owned and female-founded.
Alexis Taub
Founder at Alexis Jae Jewelry
“I would have a clear understanding of my brand’s main hurdles and target audience so as to clearly articulate the goals to a branding agency. Feedback groups are always helpful. I’d also be wary of enlisting too many opinions because they will conflict with each other.”
Consult with agencies that share your values
Dr. Staci Holweger[5], co-founder of LifePatches.co, a small business based in Utah, United States, emphasizes the importance of hiring branding experts in times of crisis, also noting that it’s vital that consultants align with your business values.
Our business was in trouble. We had been flooded with bad press, terrible reviews, and a very high number of returns. It was time to bring in big guns; we needed help. We hired a branding agency to create a new image and a new name. We needed to show customers that we were different and that the company they had once known had changed. We now have a large social media following, and our company's sales have increased by more than 20% since taking the branding services.
Dr. Staci Holweger
Co-founder, Lifepatches.co
“I would say that the most important thing is to make sure you find a designer or branding agency that resonates with your company and views the world in a similar way. You need to be able to trust that they will represent you with integrity.”
If you’re still thinking about whether branding is essential for your small business, check out this video on its pros and cons.
Are you ready to brand yourself?
The branding services we covered above will help you better understand what exactly branding agencies, consultants, and specialists do. There’s no wrong answer to whether you should hire a branding agency. If you’re growing and in need of a dedicated expert to help you with your brand creation, you’ll benefit from the process.