More Visibility for Your Coffee Brand (Part 1). Brand Identity

What does your coffee brand stand for? What is your café, coffee shop or roasting business all about?

If you can’t answer these questions with clarity and certainty within one or two minutes, you probably got some work to do! This new article series is about creating a strong brand for your coffee business and how to make it more visible online as well as offline.

Part 1 of the series is all about your coffee brand identity. It is about being recognizable for your customers. It is about consistency and clarity when it comes to your branding.

What is a strong coffee brand now? It’s a lot about your visual branding, too!

Visual brand

At first, we have to have a look at your over all visual branding. Meaning, everything your customer comes in touch with, when either searching for you online or passing by your coffee business on the street. It’s about your ‘packaging’. And, no, I’m not talking about your coffee packaging – at least not in the first place. What I mean here is, how your coffee business/your coffee brand looks like seeing from the customer perspective.

Your visual branding is the first impression your (potential) customers see and feel, when making the way to your website or your online shop, your Social Media accounts or stepping inside of your café or coffee shop. Step outside of your own shoes real quick and inside of the shoes of your customer. What do you see?

Photos & images

Have a closer look at all the photos and images, you’re using. The ones from yourself and your staff. The shots you take from your interior and your products.

Do all of them have the same quality and style?

When creating head-shots of yourself and your staff, please don’t do Selfies, will you? Please…!?!

Also, make sure, these photos are updated! Especially when your barista turnaround is rather high… Imagine the confusion of your customers that might have first came across your website and then checked out your coffee shop afterwards!

If you can afford it, always invest in a professional photo shooting. If not, see, if you either have photographers among your friends and family. Or, maybe there’s a program going on at the local university or other schools that do photographing and you have the chance to be part of a project with your head-shots and get them cheaper by being part of the program.

Are you using the same photos for your website as well as your Facebook page?

Have a closer look at the header image on your website and your Facebook page, because that’s the first thing, your customer and your online coffee community sees, when entering your site/your page.

Fonts and messaging

I’m sure, you already have a logo and I know, most of you use this logo for e.g. your printed menus, the profile pictures of your Facebook or Instagram pages, etc. But, what about all the other fonts you’re using? Again, on your printed menus, your Marketing material, your newsletter or even your blog?

I come across many places and pages and often can see coffee business owners using different fonts all over the web and in their shops. Are you still in the shoes of your customer? Great! Can you see how confusing and inconsistent all that looks? It basically tells everyone: “I just got started… I don’t really know what my coffee business is all about…”

In order for creating a strong coffee brand, you have to be clear and consistent about your visual branding using the same images, the same fonts and the same messaging throughout your online and your offline presence!

A clear visual brand is the starting point for building a professional, authentic and unique coffee brand that instantly is more recognizable for your customers. And, that’s what you want, right? To be seen and to be remembered!

Coffee branding kit

If you’re not quite sure whether your coffee brand is consistent, yet. Or maybe you’re just about to start with your coffee business, it might be an option to invest in a branding kit. 

A graphics designer can not only create a striking logo for your coffee brand, he or she can also help you with creating the right designs and work out the essence of your coffee brand according to your values. For many of you this might not be affordable in the beginning, I know that. I can’t stretch that visual part of your branding enough, though. Don’t let your visual brand be something that can be done later or just ‘so so…’ Remember, you want to be recognized out there!

Can’t invest thousands of dollars in a custom designed logo and branding just, yet? Well, there are a couple off-the-shelf brand kit packages out there, e.g. from Etsy.com. With the visual assets you get there, you can create your own personalized designs for less than $200.

A strong brand identity doesn’t only make you more visible and recognizable for your customers, but also differentiates you from all the other coffee businesses out there. Focusing on a clear and consistent visual branding helps you build the first step for increasing your visibility and accessibility for your (potential) customers offline and for your coffee community online.