Branding your practice on a budget
Affordable visual branding solutions for dentists
First impressions count – although our parents always advised that you should not judge a book by its cover, that principle cannot be applied to businesses. Making a professional and memorable statement about your business via your visual branding is a critical first step to engaging with potential new patients and selling your services. So it pays to take time and invest wisely when setting out to create a visual brand which will convey your message in an appealing way. This principle is equally applicable to dental practices as to any other small business.
To ensure you are taken seriously, you need a professional web presence complemented with high quality stationery, all built on a coordinated and consistent brand identity.
For dental practices, the key thing to appreciate is that developing a professional brand identity need not cost the earth. Basic elements such as a logo and stationery can be developed for hundreds, not thousands of pounds.
Developing the basics of your visual brand – the dental logo
Many dentists who approach us to build their new website and develop stationery actually have very little to build on, perhaps a DIY letter-head or an old-fashioned logo first developed 15 or more years ago. We still see lots of permutations of the “cartoon tooth and toothbrush” logos that were in vogue back in the 90’s but clearly aren’t suitable these days.
Our logo development process is interactive and starts with a design questionnaire which we issue to clients. The questions we ask range from basic colour preferences through to more searching elements which seek to understand what the client is trying to convey, along with any unique selling points or identifiers which will help to differentiate their services. We also ask for examples of other logos and artwork which they like to help us identify their personal preferences. Using this information as the baseline and following detailed discussion, we progress to the concept design stage. Thereafter it’s an iterative process until we get to a final design which the client loves and which we know will work.
The logo really is the cornerstone of the brand visual identity and forms the basis for the development of other key components such as practice signage and stationery.
Keeping it simple
Simple is often best and this is usually the case with brand design too. Clean elegant lines and unique illustrations which stand out, typically tend to work better than complex creations that look fussy and are difficult to interpret.
Make sure you understand how your branding will appear in several different formats – at Dental Media we present our concept designs with mock-ups to show the logo in place on various types of stationery e.g. notepaper and business cards. Internal and external sign mock-ups are also available on request.
Keep an eye on your competitors
It is useful to check out how the local competition present their brand. What do they do well that you feel you need to meet or exceed? How can you take their ideas to the next level whilst remaining unique and not copying?
Avoiding trends
It is easy to get sucked into latest design trends when developing brand identities but this is something we try to steer clear of. We are looking to develop visuals that will be relevant for many years and not become dated. Brand “refreshes” do become necessary but it’s certainly not a process that you want go through every few years.
Maintaining consistency
Branding needs to be kept consistent – from your business stationery, website and signage right through to staff uniforms. Having invested time and money to get the basics right, it pays to maintain it professionally. We recommend developing a simple set of brand guidelines which document how and where your logo, chosen fonts, strap-lines, colour pallettes etc can be used and that you stick to it. Too often we see brands diluted by clients who decide that they’ll try a slightly different colour, font or strap-line and the whole thing starts to fall apart.
Summary
A strong and memorable visual brand is a key reflection of your business. Invest appropriately to make sure that this fundamental cornerstone is developed professionally and in such a way that it will serve your business well for many years. Remember that visual brand development for dentists need not cost the earth – the essential elements can be provided for much less than you may think. Please call the our design team on 01332 672548 for information.