How your audience perceives your brand hugely impacts your ability to attract, convert, and retain customers. In fact, research shows that branding plays a majorly important role in enabling business success.

• The 2019 Trust Report from Edelman discovered that 81% of consumers need to trust a brand to consider buying from it.
• The 2020 Zeno Strength of Purpose Study revealed that consumers who think a brand has a strong purpose are 4 to 6 times more likely to purchase and champion the company (even in the event of a misstep).
• And it’s worth noting that even when researching solutions for their pain points online, 82% of people will click on a Google SERP result by a brand they’re already familiar with.

Now, the one thing you need to understand about brand perception is that it’s greatly influenced by web design. 

Scientific research data shows that how your site looks doesn’t just impact your audience’s perceived quality of information and user experience. It also affects their overall shopping experience and their intention to buy again from you – whether you’re selling professional services or a tangible product. 

This means that you can effectively use your website visuals to shape audience perception and grow your brand.

The Elements of Your Brand’s Visual Identity

There are several effective methods you can use to develop a visual brand strategythat will encourage your audience to fall in love with, shop from, and champion your business. But before you start implementing those, you need to understand what the elements of your brand’s visual identity are in the first place.

On the whole, there are five elements you need to consider when using web visuals to shape audience perception. These include:

1. Your company logo. As the most recognizable brand visual identifier, your logo has to be well-designed. More importantly, you need to use it across all your distribution channels to ensure your audience is well-acquainted with the visual symbol representing your organization.
2. Your brand’s colour palette. Research shows that colour improves brand recognition by as much as 80%. Developing and sticking to a colour palette makes it significantly easier to build brand awareness.
3. Typography. Using a predetermined set of fonts in all your communications with your audience demonstrates professionalism (unless, of course, Comic Sans is your font of choice). But even more, how the text in your visuals appeals to your target audience hugely impacts UX and can affect conversion rates.
4. Images, illustrations, and other visuals. People process images 60,000 times more quickly than they do words. So, if you want to encourage your audience to perceive your business in a specific manner, the best way to do it is to expose them to visuals that align with your brand’s mission, vision, and values.
5. Page layout. Visual branding is not only about what elements you use – it’s just as much about how you organize those elements. For instance, knowing that your site’s header plays a crucial role in forming web visitors’ impressions of your brand, it’s clear that you need to optimize this area of your site to communicate the right message about your organization.

How to Use Website Visuals to Shape Brand Perception

Once you’ve determined how you want prospects to see your brand and have all the elements in place to shape their perception, it’s time to start implementing visual branding strategies to reach your goals.

1. Practice Consistency With Colours and Typography

One of the most commonly overlooked reasons for staying true to your brand’s visual identity is that most people don’t invest in products the moment they discover them. On the contrary, research shows it takes an average of eight touches for consumers to go from awareness to conversion. The B2B buyer’s journey can be even longer.

If you want your audience to notice and remember your business from the moment of the first encounter until the time they’re ready to convert, you need to develop a recognizable visual identity for your brand and use it consistently across all platforms.

The easiest way to do this is with colours and typography. The right palette and font can instantly become synonymous with your organization. Not convinced? Just think about Coca-Cola’s cursive logo on a bright red background, or the golden McDonald’s arches.

For this visual branding strategy to work in your favour, you don’t have to be an international company or design one of the world’s most recognized logos. You just need to decide on a visual theme for your business and stick to it to profit from brand familiarity.

For instance, if you check out the homepage of digestive wellness brand Digestive Warrior, you’ll notice that the business employs a unique shade of magenta for its logo, specific site elements, and CTA buttons, making it the brand’s calling card. If you look across the supplements industry, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a business that uses a similar colour palette, which is a brilliant move as it ensures a standout appearance in a market that’s saturated with green, white, and blue logos trying to evoke dependability or nature.