Your brand: One of the facets of a business that seems mystical and overwhelming, but doesn’t have to be! Over the years, I can’t tell you how many questions I have gotten from businesses about what the word “brand” means. Clients who have gotten tied up in definitions around “personal brand” and “business brand.” People who use the term “branding” and “brand” interchangeably, and the definition seems to roll in all of marketing. Let’s simplify what seems like a big topic.
Think about a person. If you were to describe who someone is, part of their description might be their personality. Part of it might be their look – how they dress, for example. Often, those elements are aligned. That person may have their own opinion on what their personality is. As someone looking on, you may not have that information. You come to your own understanding of that person’s personality, who they are, what it is like to interact with them. You come to that conclusion based on everything you have seen from them.
For a business, the same factors are at play. As consumers, we get impressions about what a business is, what it stands for, and how it is to do business with. We use all the information we have about the business to make that decision for ourselves. Consumers form their own impressions of what a business is all about based on the information the business has put out there and any other information about the business that is available.
Consumers form their own impressions of what a business is all about based on the information the business has put out there and any other information about the business that is available. #brand #marketing #business #smallbusiness…
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When you are a business owner, you are ultimately trying to turn the heads of one or more particular audiences. So, what you say – in all the various ways you say it – matters. Ideally, the impressions you are giving those audiences are in alignment with the impressions they would want to see to become interested to work with you or buy something from you. Although you can’t perfectly control what your audience will think, you can make your best effort to say the things you think they need to hear about you.
This is where your brand comes in!
Your brand is what people think about your business. It is also the seeds you plant of what you want them to think about your business.
What is it like to do business with you? What are your values (read here for more on this!)? What is the tone of voice you use to communicate? (Read here for more on this!) How are you going to show up to the audience? Most importantly, how are you going to make their lives better? And what style are you going to do it with?
Your brand is the message you send and the message the audience receives. So, you want it to be clear, consistent, and cohesive.
Your brand is the message you send and the message the audience receives. So, you want it to be clear, consistent, and cohesive. #brand #marketing #smallbusiness #business #smallbiz #biztips #entrepreneur
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Frequently, my clients will assume that their brand is something they have to invent. They feel pressure to create it out of thin air. They think they need to be creative and imaginative and gimmicky. It may ease the pressure to think of your brand as more of a documentation of what you are than an invention of it. However many people there are representing your business, how are you all agreeing to show up to the customers? Defining your brand may be as simple as putting labels to what already is.
Defining your brand may be as simple as putting labels to what already is. #brand #marketing #smallbusiness #business #smallbiz #entrepreneur #biztips
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When I work with clients to create their brand, we start with simple tasks around defining values and tone. We work on defining exactly what they do for their target markets. The message of the brand comes from there, and it can then be used to create copy / language and look.
Only after you have been able to put words to the essence of your brand do you want to create the branding. Branding is the look. Look comes in the form of color palettes, logos, and all the other elements of a visual style.
From the core essence of the brand can also come slogans, campaign themes, approved word choices, and more.
As you make all of these decisions, you can start compiling them into a style guide. For many solopreneurs, creating a style guide may seem like a redundant activity. You may feel that you are the only one who needs this information. However, as you start to involve other employees or contractors to support you, collecting all this information into a style guide allows you to easily communicate everything someone else needs to know about your brand. This allows others to stay consistent with your decisions.
The idea of a brand seems to overwhelm so many business owners. The fear of excluding possible portions of an audience or the fear of committing at all can paralyze the best of us. But, it doesn’t have to. At the end of the day, the customers just want to know who and what your business is. The more they know, the more there is to like.
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