Sitting down to define their roofing company’s brand is something that very few of Summa Media’s roofing clients took the time to do before partnering with us. When asked why we typically received questions about the confusion about why it is necessary or the school of thought that being a roofing business was branding enough. Having a strong brand identity may not seem important, but it is crucial in differentiating you from other roofers in your region and creating brand loyalty.
In this post, we’ll explore why having a clearly defined brand is important and how you can create one for your roofing business.
What is a brand?
A brand, roofing or otherwise, is messaging that sets client expectations and perceptions about a business via its unique personality. A company’s brand includes a number of tangible factors that create a brand identity. Factors include things such as color palette, font, logo, speech, language, etc.
What is brand identity?
Brand identity is a combination of the visual elements of branding that are used to separate your roofing brand from your competitors. Using cohesive colors, fonts, patterns, etc. are all crucial in establishing your brand identity. When someone sees your logo, they should know exactly who your business is.
Why does your roofing business need a brand identity?
A brand identity is the visual sum of the personality, values, ideals, and goals of your roofing business. It sets the tone for everything else and tells the world who you are and what your business is all about.
Having a brand identity ensures consistency across all of your messaging and marketing materials. Without brand identity, we often find that roofer’s website looks different from their printed materials which again, looks different than all of their social media channels.
Consistent branding helps to create a brand identity which then imprints your roofing business in a prospect’s mind. When a prospect repeatedly sees branding, they’ll come to recognize that branding as yours, which means you are top of mind when they need your services.
What elements create a strong brand identity?
Strong brand identity should be memorable, different, adaptable, and consistent.
Memorable – A memorable brand has elements that stick with a prospect. Color, font, logo, or even mascot can all play a part in making your brand memorable to viewers.
Different – Your branding should not look the same as your competitors. You must use different elements and styles to ensure that you don’t just fade into the background.
Adaptable – Your brand can and should adapt to stay with the times. Take McDonald’s for example. McDonald’s has been around for years and while their brand identity including their logo, colors, and mascot, has stayed fairly consistent over time, they have made tweaks to keep the brand identity current and fresh in a viewer’s mind.
Consistent – As mentioned above, consistency across all channels and marketing materials needs to align to your brand’s identity. If not, it creates confusion in the prospect’s mind.
How to Create a Strong Brand Identity as a Roofer
A roofing company with a strong brand identity is typically a company that has nailed the visual elements of its branding while using a tone that speaks to the prospect. In order to strike the perfect branding balance for your roofing business you will need to focus on the following factors:
Your Target Audience
Before you do anything else you must define your target audience because if you don’t know who you are selling to, how are you supposed to know what visual styles and messaging appeal to them. Define your audience to build a brand identity that appeals specifically to them.
A Killer Logo
Your logo is the most important visual piece of your brand identity. It will be used everywhere and if used correctly should be highly recognizable. Your logo should communicate who you are and what you value, it should be unique, simple, timeless, yet adaptable.
Font and Typography
Like it or not, different fonts are associated with different things. Comic Sans, for instance, is often associated with children’s lemonade stands. Cute, but not what you want your roofing company to remind people of! Choose fonts for your website and marketing materials that feel cohesive, are readable, and professional.
Color
Did you know that different colors actually elicit an emotional response from people? Choose your colors carefully to ensure that your brand promotes positive feelings when viewed.
Your Competition
No, no, you don’t want to copy your competitor’s brand identity! You want to do the exact opposite. Be sure to keep your color palette, logos, typography, etc. distinct from your competitors to avoid creating confusion between prospects.
Brand Reputation
You can design the perfect visual branding, but if you have a negative reputation in the community, new visuals aren’t going to change that! First and foremost, focus your efforts on providing quality, friendly, professional service to all of your prospects and clients in order to build and maintain a positive reputation in the community.
When building your brand identity it is important to take the time to build a brand identity that is true and authentic for you because if it isn’t authentic, it won’t last! Use your brand identity to tell the real story of you and your roofing business to stand out from your competitors. If you aren’t quite sure where to start, the Summa Media team is here for you. Give our team a call to learn more about how we can help transform your brand strategy today!
