As you read this article, you may notice the typography which was carefully selected to reflect our brand throughout this text. On the other hand, you may not have, as typography is a more subtle part of branding that does not necessarily grab your immediate attention. However, when used consistently, typography, which is the arrangement of type and encompasses the typeface, font, and font family, reinforces your brand in the mind of the reader.

While typography may not be the first thing that springs to mind when you think about branding, when used effectively it has a positive impact on your audience, this is according to an MIT study that found that unappealing fonts reflect badly on the reader’s emotional response to content. Various print publications such as magazines, newspapers, and books understand the value of typography, each medium uses subtle differences to differentiate from other publications, but all select typography that will hold the reader’s attention and not distract from the content.

When compared to a logo and other visual elements of a brand, such as colour and imagery, typography may seem to be overlooked by the audience, but with the growth in digital transformation, customers are increasingly engaging with brands across various digital platforms and as such, typography needs to be a key component to all print and on-screen communications, from your letterheads to email correspondence.

Typography and your brand

Typography is important to your brand and forms part of its visual identity which is important for brand building and brand recall. This is supported by the picture superiority effect, which identifies that people recall the visual stimuli of your brand more than words. For this reason, when you see a billboard advert for a brand like Nando’s, without reading the text or seeing the logo, you would immediately recognise the brand that the font is associated with. In addition, if you saw the Nando’s font being used by a financial brand such as ABSA or Nedbank, you would question whether the brand was the right fit for you as the typography does not reflect the offering according to your expectations of a financial brand.

As such, typography, is an important component of branding and is believed to serve four purposes: distinction, consistency, coherence, and communication. This is because the right typography aligns with the brand purpose while enhancing the brand personality. When used consistently, customers come to recognise a brand from the font that they use in their advertising and communications.

Although digital platforms previously hampered the ability to use typography, the growth in digital transformation has driven the popularity of digital platforms as a preferred method of communication, as such more options are becoming available for brands to incorporate typography across platforms which means that brands can now use custom typography to distinguish from other brands in all correspondence.

Typography differentiates email correspondence

As email is a popular choice for customer correspondence, this method of communication should incorporate the company brand elements from the logo to the colour and even the typography, which should be standard across the entire organisation.

Standard fonts such as Times New Roman and Arial, have dominated email correspondence for many years thanks to their ability to be easy to read on low-resolution screens. However, as screen resolutions improve, companies are now spoilt for choice with a variety of attractive, standardised fonts that are viewed the same on the sender’s and recipient’s screens. While these fonts are typically best used in the body of an email, companies should use decorative typefaces for their logo[4], and if they have a custom font, it should be used in all email banners and signatures to reinforce the brand across all email correspondence.

Typography provides consistency across platforms

Although colour is highly regarded in branding and companies pay close attention to the Pantone used across branding materials and documents, typography provides consistency across all platforms where colour can fall short. For example, whether looking at typography on a screen or a sheet of paper, it remains consistent. Colour, on the other hand, may appear different on different screens and when printed out using different printers.

With this in mind, typography is more resilient than colour and as it is colour-agnostic, is an easily identified brand element even when used in black and white. As such all company documents and emails should incorporate a brand’s typography to enhance the brand and deliver a consistent experience across all customer communications.

With BrandMail, companies can use custom fonts within email signatures and banners to deliver consistent branding in every customer interaction. Further standardised fonts are managed centrally along with the brand standards to ensure that every email sent using BrandMail is consistently on brand every time.

Click here for more information about BrandMail.

What was the last campaign you found out about in an email banner? When used correctly, email banners can help to build trust with recipients while keeping them informed about particular campaigns and promotions that could be of interest to them.

While email banners aim to be eye-catching to alert the recipients to specific information, banners must adhere to the brand standards to deliver a consistent brand experience.

One of the biggest challenges of email banners is keeping the information current and relevant to particular audiences. Things can change rapidly within organisations, campaigns can be revised or even cancelled and yet as changing the banners often requires third-party assistance, outdated banners can be sent to customers. To ensure that these banners stay relevant they should allow for changes to be made quickly and easily by the marketing department and shared with relevant departments immediately. This could be achieved by having a bank of beautifully designed editable banners on hand.

Another challenge is that while banners aim to add value to recipients by informing them of new campaigns and promotions, often they are irrelevant and annoy recipients. To overcome this, employees should be able to view the banners on their end and even select a relevant banner to send to customers. For example, a relationship banker could personalise the message and the banner to make a greater impact on their customer.

By personalising email banners according to customer needs, companies demonstrate an understanding and awareness of their customer’s needs and further build relationships of trust.

BrandMail is an email solution that helps companies to overcome brand consistency challenges with secure, tamperproof email signatures that are sent out with every single email, to both internal and external recipients. The click-through verification via the BrandMe page provides additional peace of mind for recipients and helps to establish brand trust with customers as they have a clear view of the sender.

With BrandMail, email content can be predeveloped and approved for easy inclusion and the latest company documents can be attached from within the Outlook ribbon. Banners can be changed and managed internally and viewed on the sender’s email to ensure that campaigns are tailored to specific recipients.

If you want to overcome brand consistency challenges with a secure, easy-to-use solution read more about BrandMail here.

When last did you receive an email and want to phone the sender only to find that they did not include their contact number on their email? Or have you received an email where the signature didn't include sender details or a company name but rather had an image of a hand holding a feather quill and a bible verse? Have you ever received an email with a beautifully designed signature but when you tried to click on it, it wasn’t functional?

To build your company’s brand using email, a standard signature should be used across the organisation. This signature should include visual elements such as the logo and the organisation’s primary fonts which will set the email apart from other brands. These signatures should be consistent across the company and meet the requirements of different business units and regions. For example, the signature could include different contact numbers for different departments so that when customers contact the company they can access the correct details from the email signature such as a PA’s contact number or a specific department’s contact numbers that can assist with their particular query.

The email signature should include relevant information about the company and the sender, such as the sender’s name, title, telephone numbers, the company’s website address, physical address and social media details. These details provide necessary information to the recipient and also add a layer of verification.  Additional verification mechanisms could be used to give added peace of mind to the recipient that the email did, in fact, come from the company it says it did. These could include a click-through from the email signature to a page which includes the sender’s picture and relevant experience.

Email signatures should be tamperproof to prevent employees from making changes to any of the details without authorisation, such as the job title. However, it should allow for some flexibility to make changes to signatures as necessary, for example, if an employee is promoted and wants to update their title, this should be easy to implement. While HTML signatures are often used by businesses, they can present a security risk for the company and recipients. Further employees can change their details, which can be a risk for the organisation.

As many people access emails on various devices, such as laptops and mobile phones, email signatures should display consistently across devices and platforms, ensuring the recipient gets the same experience regardless of how they receive and view the email. It is important to note that in instances where someone sends an email on behalf of someone else, that it is disclosed upfront as this also helps to establish trust with recipients.

While it is a great branding tool, an email signature also provides additional value to recipients and should be included at the bottom of every single email for both internal and external audiences on original emails and replies. Including the email signature on every email is the first step to establishing trust with your customers when using email communication.

We uncover the role of the email disclaimer in our next post. In the meantime, if you want to overcome brand consistency challenges with a secure, easy-to-use solution read more about BrandMail here.