Whether you’re just starting out with your own clinic or you’ve been in business for years and you’re thinking about a rebrand, you might be wondering how important it really is to have a business logo.

Do logos really matter? Isn’t there more to your branding than an attention-grabbing logo? Would your money be better spent elsewhere? Does your old logo really need refreshing?

Business branding

The earliest use of logos and branding was when farmers would mark their livestock with a unique fire-heated symbol to show their ownership. People would look at the livestock within the pens of a crowded market and see at a glance who it belonged to.

A business logo is a simply a modern-day evolution of this concept. It’s how your business is recognised in the marketplace. For this reason, we would argue that very few businesses can afford to be without a logo. If you think about your favourite brands, the chances are that you can visualise their logo straightaway.

In a world where we’re all increasingly time poor, a logo is a quick and recognised way of establishing your identity to help you stand out from the sea of your competitors.

The power of images

Aristotle once said, “The soul cannot think without an image” – this is because images help us to process feelings, create context and build associations.

There’s a great deal of research to support the idea that people recognise, process and relate to images such as logos much faster than text. We found a great infographic over on Hubspot about the neuroscience behind how the brain processes logos, which shows how we process information about the colour, shape, form and meaning of a logo in just 400 milliseconds. One of the most interesting takeaways is that we process our positive responses to well-liked brands and logos in the same part of our brains as we process our human friendships – biologically speaking, there is little to separate a human to human relationship from a human’s relationship with a brand!

This is just one example that shows that, although a logo is far from the sum of your brand, it has the potential to be an incredibly powerful element that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Image is everything

When it comes to business, image is everything, and never more so than for businesses in the beauty and cosmetic medical fields. Potential patients may see your logo before they know anything else about you, so first impressions need to count.

A logo can communicate a staggering amount about your values and approach. Arguably too, the care with which you present your own image communicates a clear message about the care you might give to a patient’s image.

Making your logo meaningful

As we can see, logos aren’t just about looking good – they need to be meaningful too. In today’s multi-platform, multi-media-focused world, your target customers may see a wide range of logos within a few swipes of their Facebook newsfeed, so your logo needs to resonate and speak to who they are as a person about what your business has to offer. If people can immediately connect a positive meaning to an image, they are more likely to remember the image and the business it represents.

Repetition, repetition, repetition

Once you have a logo for your business, its power will come from repetition. If you consistently feature your logo on your signage, website, on social media, on brochures, leaflets, adverts, stationery, and all forms of communication with your existing and potential patients, it will quickly become a form of shorthand that helps people make the link from the logo to your company, and keeps you uppermost in their minds.

Really strong logos – think Marmite, Heinz, Jaguar, Apple, Coke and Nike, for example – have all helped to provide a consistent focal point as each brand has evolved over the years, engendering brand loyalty and familiarity, even during times of change.

When we design logos here at Cosmetic Digital, we’re always thinking about how they will be used to make sure that the designs translate well, no matter where the logo appears. We can also take existing logos and help to bring them up-to-date, while preserving the essence of what they are to appeal to loyal patients.

Our focus is to create logos that are appropriate to the business, memorable, unique, and simple in their form.

Looking for a new logo or want to bring your brand up-to-date? Call us at Cosmetic Digital on 0115 9140 640 for a chat.