Small-time business owners often neglect the idea of having a logo for their startup business. This is because they do not understand how it impacts and what wonders can it do to their business. This is why it’s so important to know and learn what are the key benefits of having a professionally designed logo.
What makes professionally designed logo?
A professionally designed logo is a well-thought, thoroughly processed design. It’s not just a mere symbol or a character that has no underlying meaning. A professional logo is a product of a highly technical process and deep understanding. It brings out the real message and identity of the brand. It speaks volumes, even the colors, and the typography.
There are two types of logo designs: Descriptive and Non-descriptive. And you may ask, what’s good for my business? And how can I maximize it? Let’s discuss it further.
Below are the 5 reasons why the logo is so important for your small business.
5 reasons why logo is so important
1) Catches up great impressions
A well-thought-designed logo doesn’t just look good in everyone’s eye, it creates a strong impression. And in business, strong impressions lead to great deals. This is what all business owners aim for — to gain great deals. Why miss the opportunity?
Did you know that 86% of small business owners who started their own brand do not include logos in their business plan? And most of them fail.
2) Proof of legitimacy and professionalism
With a strong brand impression, people will not get hooked on eye-worthy colors and shapes. People do business with people who have a strong presence of professionalism, and a good logo can do this trick.
The logo is one of the most crucial elements in marketing and this people often forget and misunderstood it. In my previous post, I shared common business mishaps small-time business owners do.
In an article published by Entrepreneurs magazine, businesses that lack authenticity will fail. This is because, with the advent of social media platforms, people are bombarded with a lot of shitty information that impacts their buying behavior.
With that, people want brands that are authentic where they can easily connect themselves with. This is why influencer marketing is such a trend in the digital marketing arena. Now, you would ask, “How does this connect with my logo?”
Let’s go back to #1, a professional logo ‘catches up great impression.’ By that, it means when you have a strong brand online people will follow you and because you have utilized your presence very well, very likely people will get engage with your brand.
4) Builds emotional attachments
A carefully crafted logo attached to all your branding builds a hefty of emotional attachments to your target audience. Think about Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Jollibee. Can you feel that sense of emotion by just merely looking at their brand label or by just reflecting on reading its names? Can you feel that happiness? Can you feel that love? Can you feel that childhood in you? Yes.
5) Makes your brand standout
First and foremost, your logo is the face of your business. No one wants an ugly face, so, is your business. If your logo is that bad, no one wants to deal business with you. That’s really harsh talk there.
In today’s modern marketing, design is a crucial part of all your marketing strategy and that includes a good logo taste. We are in an era where information and design are so easy that many people get it so irrelevant. And because every bit of information is everywhere and is basically free, business owners tend to get hooked on that snares of irrelevant design principles and myths.
Without carefully studying the in-depth process of logo design and how it impacts the core of every business, a logo can be a huge factor in putting your business into the dump.
So, what logo design should I choose? Descriptive or Non-Descriptive
A study of around 600 logos shows which kind is the most effective – descriptive or non-descriptive logo. This study will help us identify which type of design is suitable for the kind of business we’re into. Let’s take it a little deeper.
It’s a design that includes textual or visual design elements or a combination of two that clearly communicate the type of product or service a brand is marketing. In other words, it’s a type of logo design that says what it sells.
A great example is the logo of Burger King. The name “Burger King” is sandwiched with two burger buns. They sell burgers, so they are King on it. And their logo says it all.
What is a non-descriptive logo?
The non-descriptive logo is a type of identity design that doesn’t give any hint of what the company does. The elements on the design usually do not relate to what services it offers, sells, or buys. Some called it abstract logos.
Think about Coca-cola. If this brand isn’t famous, can you see any drinks there? Can you think anything that it’s a soft drink? No.
What’s should I choose
Since you are just starting your business, the most common and highly recommended for startup businesses is descriptive logos.
According to the study, descriptive logos are effective for startups as this type of logos needs no further explanation to the brand message your business wants to convey. Let’s go back to the Burger King identity. It’s obvious that they sell burgers and they want to be King for that. That’s pretty much it.
In my five years creating identity for brands, what I saw as effective for small businesses is descriptive.
While descriptive logos are really obvious, non-descriptive tends to be more abstract in nature and are more popular for famous, established brands. Why? Because this type of logos gives a more unique identity and that exactly relates to the type of business they are doing.
Still undecided and confused about what to take on upscaling your business logo? Do you need help in deciding what proper design type? Or need someone to talk about your business upgrade? What are your plans? Let’s talk.
The Philippines is home to millions of solid cafephiles and milk tea aficionados. Among all of Southeast Asia, the Philippines ranked second of the most number of milk tea drinkers. In 2019, a survey conducted by GrabFood found out that Filipinos consume an average of five cups of milk tea in a month. GrabFood recorded a tremendous 3,000% increasing average growth of milk tea orders in that year.
According to GrabFood, what’s driving this growth is not just die-hard bubble tea fans who can’t go a week without drinking this sweet treat, but a growing bubble tea fan club in Southeast Asia. The number of bubble tea lovers on GrabFood grew by over 12,000% in 2018 – and there’s no sign of stopping!
With increasing consumer demand, how is Southeast Asia’s bubble tea supply catching up? As of December 2018, GrabFood has close to 4,000 bubble tea outlets from a network of over 1,500 brands – a 200% growth in bubble tea outlets in Southeast Asia. This figure is crazy!
Countries
Milk Tea tea growth by percentage in 2018*
Indonesia
>8500% growth from Jan 2018 to Dec 2018
Philippines
>3,500% growth from June 2018 to Dec 2018
Thailand
>3,000% growth from Jan 21018 to Dec 2018
Vietnam
>1,500% growth from May 2018 to Dec 2018
Singapore
>700% growth from May 2018 to Dec 2018
Malaysia
>250% growth from May 2018 to Dec 2018
*Time period: January 2018 to December 2018, or from the time GrabFood was launched. | Source: GrabFood
Not just Philippines, Milk Tea is a global addiction
In a report published by CNN, a recent study shows that the bubble tea industry is expected to grow by almost $2 billion to a whopping $4.3 billion by 2027.
Again, bubble tea or Milk Tea orders in Southeast Asia recorded a 3,000% increase in 2018 alone, while the drink has been popping up in menus outside of Asia for quite some time as well. Some other countries like Germany, for instance, added bubble tea to its McDonald’s menu back in 2012.
How devoted are fans of the drink? Recently in Singapore, when bubble tea shops were ordered to close temporarily to contain the spread of Covid-19, anxious crowds rushed to get their last sweet fix and bid their favorite beverage a temporary farewell. (CNN, reports).
Based on figures we built a brand
On a business side, the data presented is a crazy opportunity to take advantage of. Jiving the hype of the milk tea craze in the urban folks, we believe it’s a great opportunity to bring the madness to the remote provinces – specifically Zamboanga del Norte in the Northern Mindanao.
With a total population of 1.1 million, starting a local business with such demographics is not a bad but rather a great standpoint, plus, Zamboanga del Norte has a thriving economy.
Because there are already milk tea cafes doing good business in the area, we made sure the brand that we’re going to build is something that will scrape out the hyper-provincial mindset of our target market in terms of money spending.
The challenges on building the brand
Starting out the brand, we came up across four major challenges:
The cafe perfect spot. It has to be not far and not inside Dipolog City, one of the densely populated cities in Zamboanga del Norte, where other milk tea businesses thrive. Because of the owners vision to bring the milktea culture to the remote areas on the peninsula, we chose Manukan, the hometown of the owner.
Pricing range that will standout from the competitors. In 2006, a study by National Statistics Coordination Board (NSCB), found Zamboanga del Norte Province to be the Philippines’ poorest province with a poverty incidence rate of 64.6%, an increase from 47% in year 2000 statistical figures. This data is a determining factor that challenged us on pricing Teaste Me products that would suit to the economic standards of the target market.
The cafe theme – the Instagramable feel. Targeting the Gen Zs and the Millennials was a challenge because bringing the milk tea urban culture is quite new to our target market. Or if not new, it’s quite familiar. Meeting their demands can be a heap of a toe – interior design, product designs and packaging. All these can have a tremendous effect on the business of not very well thought at the beginning.
Start-up budget. Our goal was to put-up a milk tea cafe from scratch that is “socialan-but-affordable” with just a limited start-up capital.
Five months ago, we created the brand #TEAsteMe – a local cafe in Mindanao. The mission is to create a local cafe brand that would stand out from the crowd. A not-so-typical “provincial cafe.”
It has to be “makamasa-but-sossy” kind of cafe. Creating the brand was a bit challenging because we don’t know if people would actually bite-in knowing that milk tea culture in the province is yet popular. Given the challenges that we’ve encountered on the first page of the business, we managed to pull the plug off.
TEAste Me is not a fancy cafe. It started with very limited capital. The owner, Maebel D. Bugahod, did not invest much in the interior designs and etc. We invested in creating the story of the brand.
We did not pay for online marketing and media buys. We create our own brand strategy that would catch people’s attention without spending anything. In just a few months, Teaste Me today has already three (3) branches and is one of the most sought-after cafes of all cafephiles in Zamboanga del Norte. And we’re so glad here at Acabo CC seeing how far Teaste Me has come.
A few samples of the social media designs we made for TEAste Me
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
– Thomas Edison
It’s just pandemic, you’ve got business!
Starting a business is really difficult especially in this time of the pandemic. But it does not mean you don’t have to try. Use the circumstances to be the starting ground for something you are really passionate about.
Like TEAste Me, with a combined knowledge of data and passion, we were able to help the owner build something that she really cares more about than just sipping her favorite milk tea.
Speaking about data, it might sound too technical or something very unfamiliar to you but it’s a very crucial factor to always put on the table when planning out to start your own business. Data determine the flow of your business. It guides you on all the deciding factors in laying out your business development plans.
We are in the modern business world. Everything runs on data. On a scale. And it’s really important to understand how it will affect your business especially when you’re just starting out.
Are you starting out a business? Or are you struggling to focus on onboarding your business? You need help. Here at Acabo CC, we exist to help you grow your own business.
We’re more than happy to help you. Don’t hesitate to reach us. We’re just one call away.
