B2B E-commerce Part II: Building Your Visual Brand Identity

“Branding is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” — Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon.com.

A brand identity includes what your brand says, what its values are, how you communicate its concepts, and which emotions you want your customers to feel when they interact with your business. As we’ve said before, your brand is what makes your company relatable: it’s your opinions, your thoughts, your choice of style, and the risk you have to take to win your customers over. It’s what gets you seen from across the room, and it’s that magical ingredient that keeps the conversation going late into the night. This is equally true and important for B2B E-commerce sites.

Now that you’ve set your tone, it’s time to move on to the visual aspect of building a brand identity.

Creating a Visual Brand Identity on your B2B E-commerce site

You know by now who your clients are in the B2B E-commerce space, and what you can offer them. But do they know? How will you be able to communicate who you are to your audience?

In an online world, many brands face the challenge of expressing personality without actually interacting face to face. Whereas before your sales team or customer service would put a human face on your brand, online has created a barrier.  And, you guessed it, this is where visuals come in. Your logo, your colors, your images…these all comprise your visual identity on your E-commerce site.

Personality Vs. Identity: Both Matter for B2B

Both rely on one another, but the personality is a part of the whole. To help craft your visual image, it’s important that you know what your brand personality is/is going to be in the same way that you needed to know your brand voice.

CodeMyViews offers a set of brand comparison questions you can ask yourself, even as a B2B company. Do you want to be seen as/shape everything around being:

• Formal or funny?
• Big or small?
• Boring or surprising?
• Reserved or outspoken?
• Stylish or classic?
• Premium or inexpensive?
• Masculine or feminine?
• Rigid or flexible?
• Young or mature?
• Charming or chummy?

Color in B2B E-commerce

Now that you have this established, it’s time to pick your colors. We have strong reactions to colors. Blue is often chosen by companies who want to inspire trust. Green is usually chosen by companies with a sustainable/eco angle who want to communicate caring about Earth. Check out Entrepreneur’s infographic on “What the Color of Your Logo Says About Your Brand” to choose what feeling you want to evoke in your B2B customers.

Andy Brattle says:  The choice of colour can create an instantaneous recognition of a brand, faster than any other form of visual identification. It is the visual quality that both registers first and stays longest in the memory, more so than shape, symbol or text.

Visual Identity Through Typography

After settling on the right color for you, now you must consider the typography. Font, spacing between letters and shape also tell your brand story in that instant when a first impression is formed. Do you want to be seen as bold (uppercase), or informal (lowercase)? Check out CodeMyViews for their guidelines on choosing your style.

Identity in Emotion

You want to make an impression, don’t you? Create a memory?  Vertical Response agrees: Good branding engages emotions, not just reason, and builds on that connection to create a memorable identity. Branding succeeds when it sparks a positive emotional resonance within consumers. So, ask yourself (and your colleagues): Are you telling your story in a way that will move customers?

Now you’re ready to design your logo. And, well, that’s another post entirely. Stay tuned…