10 Successful Brands to Draw Inspiration From When Building Yours

Website builders have made getting your business online more straightforward than ever. Even without writing a line of code, you can have a complete business website up and running within hours. But websites created with a website builder often end up looking like copies of each other. How do you differentiate the products and services you sell from those that your competitors sell? How do you effectively communicate what you stand for and ensure your company is the one a customer chooses to do business with?

A powerful brand identity also distinguishes your company from your competitors, improves brand recall, and drives home the unique selling points of your value proposition. To help you better understand how to build your brand identity, we’ve put together 10 outstanding examples of brands that can help get your creative juices flowing.

1. United Sodas of America

The United Sodas of America website was made with the Wix website builder, which we deemed to be one of the most powerful website builders available today in our Wix review. The company has made the most of this website builder’s versatility, with scrolling banners, unique navigation, and a fun faux screensaver that automatically starts up if you don’t interact with the site for a while.

These design choices work to create a brand that’s exciting, quirky, and different. The black and white lettering used throughout the website helps the bold colors of the soda cans pop, drawing attention to them while hinting at the daring flavors contained within.

2. Got Good Bones

Antique marketplace Got Good Bones is in a more conservative niche than United Sodas of America, and its branding reflects this. Its most distinct styling is its use of the serif font Great Vibes, an ornate option that conjures up thoughts of the incredible antiques you might just find if you join a local Get Good Bones marketplace.

Besides this, Got Good Bones certainly stands out from other antique websites for its memorable and creative title. The text used throughout is very informal and inviting, suggesting to readers that it’s a safe and fun place to discuss and trade antiques.

Got Good Bones was created with the GoDaddy Website Builder from GoDaddy. In our GoDaddy website builder review, we found it to be an excellent website builder even though it’s a little basic.

3. Monday.com

Monday.com differentiates itself from the crowded project management sector by being a Swiss-army knife for project managers. It can be used not just for project management but also as a CRM tool, to manage video production, or as a replacement for everyday task management tools like Excel and email.

This is shown on Monday.com’s website with flowing pages that explain everything the tool can do. Monday.com believes visual tools are powerful in project management, and its website showcases this with bright, clear examples of how it can be used for managing marketing campaigns, sales cycles, and customer data, among other things.

4. Neil Patel

Marketing guru Neil Patel is an example of personal branding done right. In the competitive world of search engine optimization (SEO), Neil has managed to stand out as an expert who simplifies the often complex steps of getting your website to the top of the search engine results pages.

His website, NeilPatel.com, is perfectly calculated to get the ball rolling by simply asking you, “Do you want more traffic?” The short, punchy text avoids going into scary details that could cause an SEO newbie to pause, and the simplicity of the branding suggests the process of driving more traffic to your site will be easy. This way, Neil’s personal branding works well at showing exactly what his services can offer readers.

5. Dollar Shave Club

Dollar Shave Club is a huge branding success story. Who would have thought a new startup selling twin blade razors could instantly compete with international giant Gillette thanks to some intelligent branding and a 1-minute viral video?

Dollar Shave Club sticks to a set of 3 prominent colors in all of its marketing, which improves brand recall. It focuses on the low entry price and simplicity of its service, successfully making it look cheaper than it is in the long run. Heavy use of video marketing and careful YouTube sponsorships have solidified Dollar Shave Club as an innovative new entry into a stagnant sector.

6. Barkbox

Barkbox, a subscription-based treat and toy delivery company for pet owners, is an example of a company using a smart digital branding strategy on social media. Instead of selling its products through social media like so many other companies, Barkbox started out by sharing funny videos and memes of dogs that had the potential to go viral. People began following Barkbox on Instagram just for these videos, and it now has over 1.7 million followers.

Having quickly built a massive social media following, Barkbox now occasionally publishes posts that show products they sell. The Instagram posts use the same fun Pancho font featured across the Barkbox website. When people check out the site, they’re subconsciously reminded of all the fun videos and memes Barkbox has shared with them. The Barkbox brand, therefore, became synonymous with readers’ love for their pets, a fantastic result for a pet toy company.

7. POP Fit

Athletic clothing store POP Fit uses bright purples, yellows, and pinks in its brand, but this is just the beginning of its brand identity. POP Fit states its clothing line is built on the idea that body positivity, inclusivity, and representation are important in fashion. Its product line reflects this, with sizes ranging from XXS to 4XL. POP Fit’s advertising includes women of all ethnicities and body types. Images aren’t touched up, either, respecting the models by portraying them in a realistic way.

POP Fit’s branding works because they solve a pain point many people face in the athletic clothing industry, namely clothing that doesn’t fit their body shape and is uncomfortable or embarrassing to wear. Customers can feel a strong connection to a brand that recognizes and cares about the specific struggles they face.

8. Semicolon Bookstore & Gallery

Semicolon Bookstore & Gallery is a brand that stands out for its dedication to advancing people’s relationship with art and literature in the Chicago community. A welcoming space for all customers, Semicolon enables local students to take home books they want free of charge while showcasing art from local artists.

Generation Z has a strong affinity to brands that further causes they believe in. Brand activism is a legitimate tool for businesses when considering the brand identity they want to portray. And it’s not just about money—activism makes our world a better place, too!

9. Buffer

Buffer is a social media management tool that helps you plan what you publish, analyze comments on your posts, and engage with customers more. Its website is clean and simple with lots of white space.

Buffer’s branding is interesting because it includes company transparency as one of its core tenets. This extends to making the salaries of all employees public, open-sourcing all of its code, and publishing a product roadmap that shows everything that’s being researched and worked on.

This unusual level of transparency for a company working in the tech sector resonates with customers who like to know who they’re dealing with. A company that sells itself as transparent, positive, and reflective is easily differentiated from the ocean of tech companies that only care about their bottom line.

10. Red Bull

Red Bull, essentially just a soft drink company with one main product, has carefully built a brand that aligns its products with athleticism, risk-taking, and living life to the fullest. The Red Bull website is full of videos of daredevils performing exciting feats, healthy individuals having a blast playing sports, and high-octane motorsports. 

The Red Bull logo is everywhere adrenaline is pumping. This has been an incredibly successful strategy for the brand, as customers are subconsciously reminded of these thrills when they make their energy drink choice at a local convenience store.

Conclusion

The best website builders can help you create a professional, great-looking website. To help you get started, we’ve put together a list of the top 10 best website builders for small business based on our extensive testing. But to truly make your website stand out from the crowd, you need to build your website and your company with a brand image in mind.

Branding certainly includes logos, color schemes, and catchy text, but it goes much further than this. A brand image can differentiate you from your competitors by highlighting your company’s core values. We’ve seen examples of brands that stand out for their simplicity, their low prices, or their versatility. We’ve also seen brands that thrive on their transparency, activism, or diversity. Deciding what your company is at its core and demonstrating it through your actions and brand marketing is the key to brand image success.