Plumbing contractors work with businesses or homeowners all the time, and such property owners won’t just invite anyone to install, repair, or replace a pipe on their premises. The strongest plumbing brands have an identity and a story. Defining a brand is an exercise that is mostly overlooked by new plumbing contractors, and a strong brand identity helps to create customer loyalty. Whether you are just starting your plumbing business or owning a large plumbing company, this post will help you define your brand and differentiate your plumbing business from the competition.
What is a Plumbing Brand?
Your plumbing brand is a message that drives client expectations and perceptions via its distinctive personality. It is a combination of tangible elements that create an auditory and visual brand identity. This includes your color palette, letterhead, marketing materials, company message, signage, logo, etc.
What is a Brand Identity?
Brand identity is the visible elements of a plumbing brand such as design, color, and logo, distinguishing and identifying your brand in the clients’ minds. Simply put, it is the outward expression of a plumbing brand. It is what you create before you can create a plumbing brand, which is normally overlooked when establishing a brand. Many plumbing companies never launched a brand identity because many plumbers don’t take the time to create one. The good news is that it is never too late to launch your plumbing brand identity campaigns. Thus, “putting on a face to your plumbing company” is a continuous process.
Ultimately, a plumbing brand identity is a way to communicate with your clients, differentiate your business from the competition, and create a brand experience that encourages prospects to engage with your business. Creating a strong plumbing brand identity is necessary to be a successful and competitive plumbing company.
What is a Brand strategy?
Your plumbing brand strategy is a comprehensive plan that outlines precisely what you want to achieve and how you intend to attain it. It comprises your plumbing company vision, mission, values (Brand’s heart), and Brand messaging (which includes your brand personality, voice, value proposition, and tagline).
What is the difference between a brand and a brand identity?
A brand is intangible; it is what property owners feel when they think about your plumbing business. Thus your brand is an experience. Brand identity (otherwise known as brand design) is tangible; it is like your plumbing business’s face, so it is your plumbing business’s visual side.
Why is Brand Identity Crucial for Your Plumbing Business?
Personality
A brand identity is the visual representation of the personality and values of your plumbing brand. It sets the tone of your plumbing brand and evokes feelings in your audience. Your plumbing brand identity promotes your business goals and conveys your plumbing company message.
Consistency
Brand identity helps plumbers create a consistent message across all their marketing materials. Each piece comprises the same essential design elements and style, thus creating a cohesive branding package.
Differentiation
Brand identity positions your business appropriately and sets your plumbing business apart from the competition. Developing a creative, professional identity design can help your plumbing company stand out to potential clients.
Awareness
Creating brand identity makes your business popular among the target audience, thus improving your brand awareness. The more places your plumbing brand is featured, the more contacts it will make with your customers.
Loyalty
A solid brand identity can help build client trust and loyalty to a brand because it allows customers to connect the service and plumbing company.
What are the Keys to a Solid Brand Identity?
A strong brand identity needs to work for everyone from your internal team to the people who will interact with it (clients). As you start the design process, make sure that your plumbing brand identity is:
- Memorable: It creates a visual appeal.
- Distinct: It should set your plumbing business apart from the competition.
- Flexible and Scalable: It can evolve and grow with your plumbing brand.
- Cohesive: Every marketing material should complement your plumbing brand identity.
- Easy to Apply: It is clear and intuitive for graphic designers to use.
How Do You Create a Powerful Brand Identity as a Plumbing Contractor?
Creating a brand identity is an important first step in marketing your plumbing business. A strong brand identity is unique, clear, consistent, memorable, and resonates with your potential or existing clients. Many things go into building a brand identity for your plumbing business, but generally, it boils down to the words plus the look. Here are the ten steps to building a solid brand identity for your plumbing business:
1. Nail that Clear Positioning and Purpose
This is the most crucial step in creating a brand identity that will promote growth, particularly when it comes to social media. Every detail about your plumbing brand’s values, purpose, audience, and purpose should be crystal-clear. This process can be challenging and long, but it is the only effective way of successfully branding your plumbing business.
Every branding decision should be made with your prospects in mind. For instance, a logo geared towards young property owners will differ from a senior citizen’s logo.
2. Define Your Target Audience
Before you start creating a brand identity for your plumbing business, you must first figure out the kind of clients you want to serve. This refers to the demographics of people who are likely to book jobs with your plumbing company. After identifying your potential clients, then you should create a brand identity around your target audience. Because after all, it is for them.
3. Design a Great Plumbing Company Logo
The logo is the primary visual element of your plumbing brand identity. It is used on your plumbing website, social media, and staff uniforms everywhere. That’s why you must design a logo that meets the following criteria:
- Communicates who you are and what you value as a brand.
- It is visually appealing: simple, uncluttered, and clean goes a long way.
- Memorable: a logo that makes a lasting impression on your audience
- Versatile: It should be in line with the plumbing industry standards
- Timeless: It should withstand the test of time and remain relevant in the current plumbing market.
If you need a unique plumbing company logo, our talented graphic designers can help your business differentiate itself from the competition.
4. Select the Right Typography
Typography might appear like a simple component of your brand identity, but finding the right font for your plumbing brand and conveying your message can be an uphill task.
Every font comes with its personality; even an ordinary person can tell it. When choosing the right font for your business, here are some things that you need to consider:
- Ensure that your font is readable: This will help offer the best experience to your web visitors
- Choose two or three fonts to maintain a cohesive look across multiple platforms.
- Avoid the gimmicky fonts: Gimmicky fonts are inappropriate when creating a brand identity.
Remember, when it comes to creating a brand identity for your plumbing business, consistent and well-chosen typography is a major part of cohesive communication across multiple channels- that’s a huge part of nailing your plumbing brand recognition.
5. Develop a High-quality and Responsive Plumbing Website
Your plumbing website is a representative aspect of your brand identity. Property owners will look at your plumbing website before they decide to work with you, and your plumbing website is the only place where your brand identity should be portrayed explicitly.
Your plumbing website is essential because it offers critical information about your business; it is the root of your brand identity. It gives you a chance to showcase your portfolio, services, and unique selling points to your potential clients.
The tone of your plumbing website should be authentic. If you want to hire external content creators, make sure you have trained them on your market positioning and value proposition basics. This is because clients will always tell when the published content is not true to your brand identity. Blackstorm Plumbing Marketing has hired experienced website designers to help you market your plumbing business online if you need a responsive and high-quality plumbing website.
6. Select Your Color Palette
Visual elements are crucial in conveying emotion and meaning. And of course, color plays a huge role in this. Green is a fresh, natural color representing the environment or growth while red portrays passion, excitement, and urgency. The colors you select for branding should portray the intent and purpose of your plumbing brand.
7. Identify Your Competition
Creating a brand identity is all about setting your plumbing business apart from the competition by making your brand relevant, memorable, and unique. However, building a successful plumbing company is difficult without a clear understanding of your competitors. Therefore, it is crucial to understand who your rivals are and how your business compares, both in presentation and perception.
8. Create a Brand Style Guide
Creating a brand style guide is a crucial part of creating and implementing your plumbing brand identity. It explains your plumbing brand values, voice, and tone. Once you have achieved your design assets, you want to make sure that they are used effectively, which is why you must create your plumbing brand style guide.
Consistency is important when creating a brand identity. You don’t want your brand to appear differently on social media than on your plumbing website. That would confuse clients and make your plumbing business appear less professional and trustworthy. It is best to stick to your brand style guide because it covers various elements of your brand identity.
9. Create Your Slogan
Your slogan acts like an extension of your plumbing logo design. Normally, a slogan tackles a particular client’s pain point or describes a philosophy. Slogans should work together with your logo, and that is why they are created after your brand identity has been developed.
10. Promote Your Brand through Reputation
Trust is everything. You wouldn’t do business with property owners unless you trusted them. Based on this ideological foundation, you hire plumbing technicians and trust that they will be honest and take your business to the next level. It is crucial to know that most property owners don’t have a grasp of the plumbing industry. They look up to you to offer the expertise, professional reliability, and guidance when they trust you to take care of their business or home. As a plumber your online reputation matters to potential clients.
Your brand identity differentiates your plumbing business from the competition and tells your clients who you are and what they can expect when partnering with you. You need to work with a reputable plumbing brand identity agency like Blackstorm Plumbing Marketing to set your business apart from a sea of competitors.
Take a Bold Step: Find the Right Brand Identity Agency for Your Plumbing Business
Much of this brand identity exercise culminates in creating a unique value proposition. Creating a unique brand identity is an important asset for growing client loyalty in an era filled with constant mobile interruptions. If your customers fail to connect with your plumbing brand identity (values, voice, and visuals), they won’t be loyal when booking jobs.
Building a brand identity that is both versatile enough and goal-driven is not an easy task. Most plumbers look for a plumbing design agency to create an effective brand identity and define their visual strategy. If your brand identity survey results are below your expectation, you should partner with Blackstorm Plumbing Marketing to address your brand identity crisis.
If you are ready to create a superior brand identity for your plumbing business, kindly schedule a free strategy session with our growth experts and outshine your competitors today.