Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past decade, I’m guessing you’ve heard a thing or two about the importance of branding your biz. Business owners in masses are finally grasping how crucial a good brand strategy is to the long-term sustainability of their business.
Still, it’s downright hard to go at branding alone. Branding can be scary, confusing, and has so many variables and parts at play — you may be tempted to rush through the process (or worse) copy someone else’s brand.
If branding has you in a panic, don’t you worry your pretty little head another minute! Today we’re covering all the basics you need to know to craft a brand that speaks directly to the heart of your ideal audience and draws them in to become raving fans.
Here are the six steps to follow for branding your biz:
Step 1: Create Your Brand File
First things first, you’re going to need to create a hub to store all of your brand info. This file will be an invaluable resource for you as we sift through the various elements that create a brand. As you make decisions regarding your brand elements, store them away in this place for easy access down the road!
Step 2: Cozy Up With Your Audience
Get to know your people. Who are your followers and what do they need to make their lives better?
- Research competitors to discover what is yet to be done in your industry. Don’t aim to copy them, but instead strive to carve out your own little corner of the marketplace that’s distinct and fills a different need.
- Poll your audience to learn more about their current frustrations.
Don’t have an audience yet?
Go back to your competitors and see who their audience is. Follow those consumers on Instagram, join Facebook groups, and then simply LISTEN — listen closely to what they need and want and find a way to address those pain points.
- Niche and then niche down that niche. What makes your brand successful is niching within your niche. Narrowing your focus gives you the opportunity to specialize. (And specializing means higher prices!)
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Step 3: Develop Your Brand Mission
This communicates what’s important to you and what you can accomplish for your clients. It’s a transformational statement explaining how you’re going to change their lives. For example, an interior designer who focuses on kitchen design may have a mission statement that reads:
“I’m a kitchen interior designer who combines flow and function with art and design to transform the kitchens of busy professionals so they can cook and entertain effortlessly.”
The above statement used the template below as a guide to creating a mission that was clear and detailed.
For example, my mission is:
Ivory Mix: Obsessively making it EASY & FUN for biz owners to market and grow in order to make more profit, build audience traffic, and convert more subscribers.
Once your brand mission statement is complete? Plaster that baby everywhere!
Use it in your sales copy, your social media bios, on your website and sales pages, anywhere you show up online.
Here is mine, used on my Instagram bio!
Step 4: Create Your Brand Image
- Colors What feelings do you want people to have when they see your brand in visual form? Is your brand ultra-feminine and fun? Try a splash of pink. Minimalist and pure? Stick with white and lighter colors. Programs such as Colour Lovers help you pair colors together, insert a color you want and watch this program instantly pair other this to other colors. This makes choosing color palettes a lot quicker and easier, whilst providing inspiration for color pairings.
- Also, try creating a color scheme using one of your photos and Canva’s color generator
- Fonts A great font tells people more about your brand style. Just like art or an image, fonts can create a mood around your brand. Different styles can project feelings such as happy, sophisticated or professional. Stick to a couple of fonts per brand to keep your style consistent. This rule of thumb helps people recognize and trust you because it’s familiar.
*Tip. Choose two fonts that pair well together — one that’s very clean and simple for your body (I recommend a font in the San Serif family), and another more interesting and fun font for your headers. Check out this tool from Canva to try out different font pairings for your biz.
Step 5: Find your Brand Voice
You own your own business now! Do you know what that means? You get to have fun infusing your own personality and voice into your brand.
Finding your brand voice means getting comfortable talking like yourself with your audience. As a biz owner, you have permission to BE YOU. People want to know the real you and create that connection with the women behind the laptop. This works wonders for building the know, like and trust factor we all long for.
(So go ahead and use the term awesome sauce in your Facebook lives!)
Related Post: 25 mistakes to avoid in your first year of running an online business
Step 6: Pull it together
You’ve Defined Your Brand. Now What?
As you develop your brand elements, begin creating resources that will make keeping a consistent brand easier.
- Templates These resources can include templates for emails, blog posts, graphics in Canva, and more. These repeatable, reusable templates will save you time and energy, so you aren’t reinventing the wheel every time you sit down to create content. VIP members at the Ivory Mix get access to new 30+ new Instagram and Pinterest templates a month. These are easily customized to your brand colors, whilst taking all the guesswork out of creating templates for your business!
- Mood Board This tool will help you visualize your overall brand. Take all the elements we’ve covered and fix them on a physical or digital mood board. Add your colors, fonts, image inspirations, other visuals and quotes that represent your brand.
- Images: Images for your business can be found in a number of places, and bring your whole brand together. Stock images are a great resource for finding high-quality images you can use across your whole online presence. These images can then be customized to add your brand colors, logo, and text bringing all your brand elements together. If you are confident with your smartphone or DLR some business owners create high-quality images for your brand whilst on the go. Download software such as Lightroom to hence images by removing any unwanted items and to enhance the lighting.
Here are some examples of images which can be found in the Ivory Mix Membership:
In today’s marketplace, branding is non-negotiable. It’s how you shape and design the look and feel of your business, and you’re wise for investing the time and energy into developing that brand.
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Now that we have covered some of the basics of branding and create a brand for your business you may want to check out these other blogs to help you build and create a brand you love which represents your business and attracts ideal clients
