The Essential Guide to Marketing Assets

There’s a lot to think about when it comes to creating a successful brand. You need to consider your target market, your messaging, how you want your brand to resonate with customers, as well as designing a complete brand package that will help you stand out from the competition. In this essential guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about marketing assets and digital design. We’ll discuss what makes a brand “digital,” and offer tips for designing for campaigns and product marketing. Plus, we’ll provide advice on working with an experienced digital designer who can help take your branding efforts to the next level!

Explore the Guide

1. What is a marketing asset?
2. Defining your audience
3. Building your brand
4. Logo Essentials
5. Putting your style guide to use
6. What successful branding looks like
7. Web Design and Development 101
8. An experienced designer matters
9. Support for your marketing team

What is a marketing asset?

A marketing asset is anything that helps you communicate your brand message to your target audience. This can include physical assets like print collaterals and signage, as well as digital assets like website design, Apps, social media accounts, and email templates. Marketing assets should be designed to reflect your brand identity and appeal to your target customer base.

Marketing assets are always “on”

Even when you lock up at night, your brand is always working for you – promoting your business and driving awareness, consideration and ultimately bringing in sales and revenue to help your business grow.

Marketing assets communicate your message

Your marketing efforts are enhanced by creating marketing assets that communicate your message in a clear, concise, and consistent manner. By having a well-designed and cohesive brand identity across all your marketing channels, you’ll be able to effectively reach your target audience and achieve your business goals.

Different types of Marketing Assets

There are lots of different types of assets and marketing collateral out there.
Here are some of the most common:

• Websites, blogs, and email campaigns
• Social media posts
• eBooks, white papers, infographics, and reports
• Case studies and testimonials
• Pay-per-click advertising and sponsored posts
• Banners and online advertising
• Business stationery such as letterheads and business cards
• Signage and posters
• Billboards and outdoor advertising
• Print and magazine ads
• Clothing, uniforms, and merchandise
• Menus and point-of-sale
• Product marketing
• Exhibition spaces

Not all of these will be suitable for your business, it’s important to choose the ones that will effectively reach and engage your target audience.

To do this, you need to have a clear understanding of who your target market is, what they’re interested in, and what kind of tone and style will resonate with them. Once you know this, you can start to create and curate content that is visually appealing and speaks to them.

The importance of understanding your target market

Before you can create an effective marketing asset, it’s essential that you take the time to understand your target market. Who are they? What are their needs and wants? What motivates them? Once you have a good understanding of your target market, you’ll be able to create marketing materials that resonates with them on a personal level – and it’s this emotional connection that strengthens the relationship between your brand and your consumers.

Designing branding that resonates with your target audience

Your brand is more than just your logo or name; it’s the overall look and feel of your business. When designing your branding, it’s important to consider how you talk to your customers.

Who are your typical clients?

What types of media do they consume?

What do they read, like and share?

What do they find engaging?

What problem can you solve for them?

Your answers to these questions will help you to create a brand that resonates with your audience and drives business results, leading to, which can lead to more sales and long-term loyalty.

Creating user personas

User personas are fictional characters that represent your ideal customer. When creating user personas, be sure to consider their demographics, interests, and motivations. Understand all the characteristics of your customers, and once you have that, progress your market research to then understand how to reach that market.

Being where your customers are

To reach your target market, you need to be where they are. If you’re selling products or services online, then you need to have a strong presence on the major search engines, with a well-designed website. If you’re targeting a specific demographic, then you need to be active on the social media platforms that they use most. And if you’re selling products in brick-and-mortar stores, then you need to make sure that your products are well-represented with point-of-sale messaging, attractive labelling, and merchandising. By being where your customers are, you’ll be able to reach them more effectively with your marketing efforts.

Your competition

It’s important to understand what your competition is doing in terms of their marketing efforts. This will help you to create assets that are unique and differentiated from what they are offering. It’s also important to keep an eye on industry trends, so that you can be sure that your marketing materials are up-to-date and relevant. By staying ahead of the curve, you’ll be able to reach more customers and achieve better results.

Simplicity in your communications

In today’s cluttered and noisy world, it’s more important than ever to keep your communications simple and straightforward. When we create a marketing asset, we use clear and concise language that is easy for our target audience to understand. We also make sure that our visuals are clean and uncluttered, so that customers can easily see what we’re trying to communicate. By keeping our communications simple, we’re able to reach more people with our message and achieve better results.

Your brand is your reputation

A positive brand reputation is critical in today’s crowded markets. Start-ups and small businesses need to create a strong brand identity from the beginning to compete with larger, more established companies. Branding can help you to differentiate your business, build trust with potential customers, and establish yourself as an authority in your industry.

Your brand is one of your most valuable assets

It’s important to invest time and resources into creating a strong, positive brand identity. It can help you to attract new customers, drive sales, and achieve your business goals. Marketing assets that accurately represent your brand will help you to build a strong reputation and connect with your target audience on a deeper level.

Designing a complete brand package

When we create marketing assets for our clients, we make sure that all the elements are cohesive and work together to create a complete brand package. This includes everything from the logo and name to the overall look and feel of the business. We also make sure that the branding is consistent across all marketing channels, so your customers can easily recognise your business no matter where they see it. By having a complete, professionally designed brand package, you’ll be able to reach more customers and achieve better results.

What’s in a complete brand package?

In our typical marketing asset library, you will find an array of brand assets such as:

• A primary and secondary logo in various formats (PNG, JPG, EPS)
• A colour palette with Hex, Pantone, CMYK, RGB codes
• Typography specifications and guidelines
• Marketing collateral templates (business cards, letterheads, and compliment slips)
• Social media template guidelines (profile pictures, cover photos, post images)
• Advertising template guidelines (banner ads, Google Ads, Facebook Ads)

Everything starts with the logo

The logo is the cornerstone of your brand identity, and it should be used on all your marketing materials. It’s important to have a high-quality, vector-based logo that can be easily scaled and edited. Once we design your logo, we develop the other elements of your brand identity.

“A brand encompasses your personality, style, and appeal to the wider world – it’s how you are perceived. A marketing campaign supports your brand with an organised effort to reach, engage and drive sales from your target market. Top brands focus on their customers and their campaigns.”

Use of Colour

The colours you choose for your brand should be based on the psychological effects they have on people. For example, red is often used to convey excitement or urgency, while blue is associated with trust and stability.

A colour palette with visual appeal

Your colour palette should be carefully chosen to reflect your brand personality. It’s important to have a consistent colour scheme across all your marketing materials. We prepare several colour palettes for each commission, with a range of primary and secondary tones suited for different applications and usage. The primary colours are used for most of your branding, while the secondary colours are used as accents.

Use of Form and Structure

The form and structure of your brand identity should be based on the type of business you have. For example, a more traditional business will often have a conservative logo with serif fonts, while a more modern business might have a sleek and minimal logo with sans-serif fonts. We make sure that the form and structure of your brand identity is appropriate for your business and will appeal to your target audience. We believe in minimal and clean design, so that your customers can clearly see what you’re trying to communicate.

Your typography should be legible and easy to read

Typography is an important element of your brand identity. The fonts you use should be legible and easy to read. We typically develop a primary and secondary typeface pairing for the brands we design.

It’s important for the fonts you use to have style guidelines around bold, italics, size and spacing. This provides control over how your brand is presented and ensures a consistent look and feel across all your business communications.

“We typically recommend using a single font family for brand consistency and introducing a secondary font for quotes or to highlight information outside the flow of the main design.”

Creating a brand style guide

Once we have all the brand assets created, we then put them together in a style guide. This document serves as a reference point for our clients, so that they can easily see how to use all the assets in a variety of different applications. The style guide also includes guidelines on how to maintain the brand consistency across all channels. By having a style guide, you’ll be able to reach more customers and achieve better results. Anyone within the business should be able to look at the brand guidelines and understand how they should be applied.

Consistency is essential where remote working is the norm

With so many businesses now working remotely, it’s more important than ever to have a consistent brand identity. A style guide ensures that everyone in the company is using the same branding assets, and that the brand identity is being communicated consistently across all channels.

“You can devalue your brand if anyone within the organisation can use or change the assets. Over time you could end up inadvertently changing the look and feel of your brand by implementing assets inconsistently. This will devalue your brand if usage is not controlled.”

Marketing assets are important to communicate your brand identity

Marketing assets are an essential part of any business, but especially for small businesses and start-ups. By ensuring that all these elements are consistent, you can create a professional and recognisable brand that will help you stand out from the competition.

Marketing assets: Stationery

Your marketing collateral is one of the most important ways to communicate your brand to customers. It’s important to have high-quality, professionally designed business cards, letterheads, compliment slips and envelopes that show off your brand identity.

Marketing assets: social media

It’s important to have high-quality, professionally designed profile pictures and cover photos that reflect your brand identity. We can help you with social media templates and creative elements that support your brand and marketing strategy.

Marketing assets: Advertising

It is essential to have high-quality, professionally designed digital adverts for display networks, and Google and Facebook Ads that communicate your brand’s personality and core values.

Your email signature is a marketing asset

Often overlooked, your email signature is a powerful marketing asset. It’s important to have a consistent email signature that includes your name, title, company name, logo, website URL, and social media links. We design and develop email signatures that look great on any screen, at any size and integrate these within your email platform.

Marketing Assets create a “Core Brand”

Above all, your brand must be consistent, whether you view it online, whether it’s something that comes to you in your letterbox, or you see on a billboard. A well designed and professionally executed brand works well and should be recognisable – even if you don’t see the logo.

If you have a consistent and effective brand, you should expect to look at any marketing asset or advertising collateral and say, “I know what that brand is.

About CX Customer Experience

Customer experience (CX) is the overall experience your customers have with your brand, from start to finish. This includes their interactions with your website, customer service, and every touchpoint in between. Creating a positive CX is essential for building long-term relationships with your customers.

To create positive CX, you need to consider all the different touchpoints that make up the customer journey. This includes everything from discovery and research to purchase and post-purchase follow-up. Each of these touchpoints needs to be positive and provide value to the customer.

What makes a brand successful online?

There are many factors that contribute to a strong online brand. Some of the most important factors include:

• The brand has a strong online and social media presence
• The brand uses modern design trends in their designs and works well on different device sizes
• The brand has a clear and consistent message across all channels
• The brand website is easy to use and navigate
• The brand has a recognisable logo and branding
• The brand has high-quality photography and visuals

To ensure your brand has a strong online presence, consider using modern design trends, consider different device sizes and screen resolutions and communicate a clear, consistent, and concise message.

When should I consider rebranding?

Rebranding is a big decision and should not be taken lightly. There are many factors to consider before embarking on a rebrand, such as:

• Your brand no longer resonates with your target audience
• Your brand does not reflect your company’s values
• Your brand is outdated or stale
• You are merging with or acquiring another company
• You are entering a new market
• Your industry has changed and you to be more disruptive

If you are considering a rebrand, make sure you have a clear understanding of your goals and objectives, as well as the resources and budget required to successfully execute.

Digital Marketing Asset Essentials: Your website

Your website is the first place your customers will go to learn about your products and services, so it is important to make sure your website is up-to-date and reflects your brand. Websites are a flexible marketing asset, and you can implement them strategically with targeted landing pages, product descriptions, case studies, blog articles, FAQs, and more.

We can help you create a modern website that is easy to navigate and uses effective visuals to communicate your message, company goals, sell products or generate leads.

What is the difference between web design and web development?

Web design refers to the visual aspect of your website, including the layout, colour scheme, and typography. Web development is the coding that makes your website function within the browser. Both web design and development are important in creating a successful website and should work in harmony.

Web Design and Development

Your website is the foundation of your digital marketing assets, so it’s important to make sure it is well-designed and easy to use. Web development involves creating a website that is visually appealing, user-friendly, and is responsive – so it looks great, is easy to interact with and performs well on all devices. We can help you develop a custom website with all the features you need to succeed online.

Common web development features are:

• Well-structured and clear navigation
• Responsive design that looks consistent across different platforms and devices
• Clear, functional calls-to-action
• Well designed and targeted landing pages
• E-commerce integration
• Lead capture forms
• Analytics tracking
• Search engine optimisation (SEO)
• Integrated social media buttons and feeds

Working with an experienced digital designer

Experience gets you where you want to be, faster. When it comes to designing a marketing asset, the most effective digital designers are those with experience.

At Fruition, we have years of knowledge and experience working with lots of different brands across different industries and can advise you on the best route to take for your business. We can help you create a brand that resonates with your target market and design marketing assets that are simple, clear, and deliver results. We understand your business niche and how to craft digital communications that work for you. We also know what’s worked in the past and can cut down on testing time by quickly getting you to your more effective result.

At Fruition, you get the A Team

The difference with Fruition, is that when you come to us as a small-to-medium sized business, we don’t put our junior members of staff on your account. You work directly with our lead designers.

“Clients have told us they were “wowed” by big pitches from other agencies, only to end up with a poor implementation of what they’re expecting. That doesn’t happen here at Fruition – the design team you meet is the design team that will work on your project.”

Providing support to your marketing strategy

Marketing assets can provide support to your marketing strategy in many ways. Whether you are running a social media marketing campaign, or launching a new service, you need to clearly communicate your business and your brand. Having high-quality assets will help you to achieve your desired results.

Providing support to your marketing team

Your marketing teams have years of knowledge and experience on what they’re what they’re trying to achieve, why their doing it, and what hasn’t worked before. Fruition is here to listen and support. We want to hear from you, what works best and why, so we can help you replicate that success, and grow your business with new customers, new markets, and new products and services quickly and effectively.

Fruition understands marketing

Fruition has a team of marketing experts that have worked across a wide range of industries, including B2B, B2C, eCommerce, lead generation, and product launches. We’ve seen it all before, and we know what works. Marketing is ever-changing, but the basics remain the same: know your customer, know your message, and deliver it in a way that resonates.

We’re here to help you every step of the way, from strategy and planning to design and implementation. Marketing is essential to the success of any business, and we take our responsibility seriously.