A lot of business owners are creative people and would prefer to create their own branding. This is especially common when at the beginning of your business journey when money might be tight and you may have fewer orders or jobs to fulfil so, therefore more time on your hands.
And while I am absolutely not denying that creating your own branding can be a good thing, there are also a ton of things to consider if you do make the decision to do it yourself and start playing around and losing hours on Canva. One of them is thinking the amount of time it can take you to create your own branding or any aspect of your own graphic design. The main reason for this is that if you haven’t done it before, it really can be a huge time suck and can take weeks out of your schedule.
One of the biggest reasons for this is, if you have a lack of experience, things can just take longer, but also you might not have a process to follow to create your designs. Another reason being that you may not be thinking strategically about how you create your branding. But what the hell do I mean by this?
You might hear a ton of designers out there talking about how you need to be strategic in creating your branding, but be totally unsure about what that really means in practice. Launching straight into the fun bit and designing first can be really tempting, but I want to let you know all the reasons why it’s so important to have a strategy first. This will not only help you to create a much stronger and more effective brand that communicates your message and your values better, but it will also save you a ton of time. So how can you start out by taking a more strategic look at what your branding will be? Take a look at the following points to help you create a strategy before you start designing.
Who are you talking to?
Ideally, before you start designing your branding, you’ll know who your target audience is and who you are designing for. Remember that your branding isn’t for you, it’s for them. By identifying your ideal client first you’ll be able to more clearly communicate through your branding and start to build up a picture of your branding.
What are your values?
This can be a tricky one, but don’t be put off. It’s so important to identify what your brand values are and to dig deep on this. When you communicate with your audience, what message do you want to convey? What’s important to you and your brand? Try to identify and create four core values or pillars as they are sometimes called for your brand. Take a look at this post to find ways of identifying your core values.
What’s your brand purpose?
What problem is your product or service solving for your ideal client? What kind of transformation will your product or service provide for your clients and what goals and objectives will it help them meet? Remember that your branding is about so much more than just the visuals, so it’s really important to start thinking about how you will communicate with them in your messaging too. Identifying your brand purpose as part of your strategy will help you communicate with more clarity and therefore help you create a stronger visual brand too.
By creating a really simple brand strategy by answering and identifying the above, you’ll be well on the way to creating a much stronger and strategic brand for your business. Having clarity about the message you are trying to convey to your audience will help you make better decisions while designing your branding and deciding how things should look. Referring back to your strategy will help you along the way and remind you to take a step back and remember who you are designing for and what your messaging is and if you get stuck along the way you can continue to refer back to it.
By identifying a basic brand strategy for your business you’ll end up having built a stronger and more successful brand that will take less time and effort to create but that will also save you a lot of time and help you make design decisions more easily.
And if you have any questions about creating your brand strategy or you’re stuck designing your brand, get in touch and find out more about how I can help you.
