I speak to a lot of business owners who tell me a similar story…
They are ashamed of their brand and they just don’t feel it’s doing its job for their business by attracting the right people. Maybe you fit into one of the below:
- You created your brand yourself right at the beginning of your business
- Your brand was created for you but without any strategy behind it and it doesn’t speak to the right people
- Your brand is a bit all over the shop. It’s not consistent across platforms and is confusing to your audience
- You’d rather take your website down than show it to potential clients or collaborators because it’s so out of date and no longer relevant
- You spend hours going down a Canva rabbit hole creating different graphics for social media because you don’t have a set of brand guidelines to stick to and keep things consistent
Here’s where I step in…
Wherever you’re at with your brand, this is all figure-outable!
And if you’re feeling really lost with it, let’s look some ways you can start to feel proud of your brand…
Start with a strategy
Every long term sustainable brand starts with a strategy, not a logo. It’s a common misconception that you can just create a logo for your business and that’ll do for your branding. But actually, a logo isn’t as important as you might think. Before you even start thinking about the visuals for your brand, it’s so important to think firstly about who your brand is for and how to connect with those people. Even the simplest brand strategy will look at your vision, goals, purpose and identifying your ideal clients and how you can attract them through these. It’s important to dig deep to find the bigger picture and meaning around your brand so that you can captivate and convert the right people. Start by identifying your core values. What’s important to you that’ll also be important to your ideal clients? Start sharing these values in your content and watch how it becomes more magnetic to the right people.
Keep your brand consistent
I’ve done a lot of brand audits with potential clients and one of the biggest issues I see is with brand consistency. I’ll see a business showing up as one thing here and then another thing there. With so many online platforms, it’s important that your brand is instantly recognisable across platforms. I’ve seen some businesses using different names for different platforms and this can create a lot of confusion for your audience. The biggest problem with this is that confused people don’t buy and may run a mile. So, take a look at your brand across all the platforms you use. Is it consistent? Is it easy enough for people to know it’s you? Is the message and the visuals you’re using the same? Or have you gone off and used a different name, colours, fonts, images and look or feel creating confusion for your audience. Be honest with yourself on this. A few small tweaks here can make all the difference!
Follow your brand guidelines- and if you don’t have them, get them in place!
Every powerful brand has guidelines, and even the big boys have rules around what they do and don’t do with their brand to keep things consistent but also so that they don’t go off piste and end up diluting their brand or saying the wrong things. That’s not to say you want to be boring and ‘stick to the rules’. It’s more for you to be recognisable and grow a reputation and be known for something rather than spreading yourself too thin.
This goes for your visual brand, but also for your brand messaging too. You should have brand guidelines for both:
Your visual brand guidelines should include:
- Logo types
- Colour palette
- Typography suite
- Graphics
- Images
And you should have a brand tone of voice and strategy guide that includes:
- Your vision statement
- Your values
- Your mission
- Your ideal client profile
- Their pain points and desires
- Your brand personality
- Brand story
- Unique selling points
- Some set phrases you’ll us in your brand messaging
Having the above will allow you to go forward and create consistent content time and time again and mean your brand will begin to attract all the right people, repel the wrong ones and build a following of people that instantly recognise everything you create as you.
And if you need help beating brand shame and putting together the above to keep you on track to creating a powerful brand, then get in touch to find out how my brand services work to help business owners like you.
So how do you currently feel about your brand?
