Module #5 Build a Brand

Considering your overall business strategy will help you craft your branding. We have already talked about ways to identify your target market and even your best customers.

Let's talk about developing your brand positioning and where you plan to start marketing it. You need to get real with yourself. If social media is where you are going to start then own it. If you can’t do social media then you're going to need to start on things like shopping ads on Google.

Knowing where you plan to start will help you craft a strategy. This will also help you start planning the messaging you plan to speak. It might also help you to create a tagline or slogan.

I know this is only touching the surface, so I have compiled a list of blogs and places you can look deeper. Don't get lost in the process, only dig into the things you feel like learning.

Why is it so important to have a good branding kit?

Think of companies that you remember. Let’s use Coca-Cola as an example. Can you remember their logo, their color scheme, and even their brand tag lines?

If you want people to recognize you, your brand kit will do that. Without having your logo, color schemes, and fonts, you don't have the tools for your brand to succeed.

Marketing campaigns also use targeted keywords to help you remember a brand. Visual imagery can do the same thing by creating a familiar response in the brain. Putting together a good branding kit can do this for you.

What is a brand kit all about?

It normally covers all of the aspects of your brand color, text, logo design, and even how you’re going to portray your images. If you plan to use social media, it's the most important factor when it comes to selling a product online.

Find Your Look:

Fiverr

Logo:

www.freelogodesign.org/

www.adobe.com/express/create/logo/

Colors:

www.canva.com/learn/choose-right-colors-brand/

Blogs on Colors:
www.wix.com/blog/2020/01/brand-colors/

www.venngage.com/blog/brand-colors/

Fonts:

www.brandcrowd.com

www.dafont.com

Tricks to Planning a Successful Brand

How to create a good Color Scheme?

Watch Kelsey Willaby's video on The 5 Steps of Branding to get a few more ideas. to help you get started https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfqBkgubg18&t=339s

You might need to get some help with this unless you are good at design yourself. There are a few ways to get help online: https://go.fiverr.com/visit/?bta=406561&brand=fiverrlearn and https://www.upwork.com/ can be great resources for you to get started.

If you’ve gotten to this point, I hope you’re really excited about your business.

You’ve probably had thoughts about colors, designs, and ideas for your brand, and possibly even how the packaging will look. Having a few ideas is definitely going to help you. It doesn’t mean you have to have everything planned out ahead of time.

Just having ideas for your designer or the person that’s going to be helping you create your branding kit will be very beneficial. If you’re working with a designer online and you can’t have a person-to-person chat, I recommend taking as many screenshots of things that you like. This will help with the start of a mood board.

That could be patterns from a Pinterest board or other website styles, fonts, and just simply the way something looks. Try to prepare as much information as you can so the designer can get to work right away with your branding.

Over the years, I have tried to attempt this in several different ways. And I will tell you from trial and error, that having a good plan and brand kit before you launch your business will help you tremendously.

In the past, I would say I felt it was not that important to me. Having a logo was always my focus when starting a business, but I soon realized after a few years of doing this that having all the right tools at your disposal is a lot easier than making it up as you go.

Words of Warning

There’s a ton of information out there about how to come up with your color scheme. Color blending websites, advisors, and even color experts will help you match your ideas to the perfect colors!

Don’t overpay for the services; if you don’t have an idea of what you want, then paying for a service might be helpful, but in my experience, some of these services can be very expensive.

I’ve seen these services range from $500-$30,000 depending on your needs for the business. So keep that in mind before moving forward with a contract for any service.

If you’re hiring a graphic designer, make sure you like their work and confirm for yourself that their design style matches what you want your brand to look and feel like.

There’s so much great information out there about how to create colors and design for your brand. I have attached one of my favorite blog posts if you want more information.

https://visme.co/blog/logo-color-schemes/

What should I do about my Logo Design?

Just like the color scheme, you might need to find help to get what you're looking for.

I do have one recommendation for you besides Fiver or Upwork when it comes to your logo. You can have designers compete to give you the best design possible. Logo Tournament is a great way to get excellent designers to build you the perfect logo.

I’m positive that if you’ve paid attention through this whole course so far, you have some ideas about what your logo should look like. Even just a few screenshots or websites that you like will be able to help you build the best logo.

This might make you laugh or even cry! The logo that you’re creating now will probably not be the logo you keep long-term, in fact, most companies change their logo after a year.

In my business, we’ve changed our logos three times in 10 years and the logo that we currently have will probably stay with us or at least the style for the next 10.

In most cases, your logo will grow with you. As your business and culture start to develop, so will your logo. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t do the best you can and come up with an awesome logo.

There’s no perfect way of coming up with a logo. I wish it were as simple as telling you about your profit margin or something that makes sense.

Get creative, I personally think the most creative logos are the most memorable but make sure you consider readability. If you’re going to have text in your logo, it needs to be readable or understandable.

Let me give you a quick example of how things can go wrong. There’s a restaurant in Florida called Catfish Grill, and the way that the font is designed in their logo is all wrong. The C is written like an F, so people call it the Fatfish Grill.

Don’t get me wrong, this has benefited the Fatfish Grill because at least they’re being talked about! Make sure you’re getting feedback from other people you trust before finalizing your logo because it might not work out well for you.

I’ll be honest with you, people that you ask to help may or may not give you great feedback but I always say first impressions are what you’re going for.

How does somebody respond when they see your logo for the first time? How about your color scheme and in the future, even your website.

Understanding Your Branding

Now that you have a better understanding of exactly what you want your business or brand to look like, let’s talk about understanding your brand and how to efficiently use your brand kit. Once your brand kit is ready, it's time to show it to the world!

Put your colors and logo everywhere you can, on your social media accounts, website, marketing materials, and heck even get a bathrobe with your colors on it!

That sounded like a joke, didn’t it, a bathrobe!

I have learned that it’s really important that you make sure that people recognize your brand. Let me give you an example. I owned a landscaping company for several years, and our trucks didn’t match, our staff would wear anything they wanted, and there was no cohesive look or feel to the company.

One day I decided that it was time to uplevel my business and make sure that people knew who we were. I selected a color scheme of burgundy, which I felt stood out from other businesses in my area. In the landscaping industry, green is a color that is used a lot so I decided to go with a color that would stand out. My logo already had a green tree in it so I figured I had the greenery covered.

Some people might say I went a little overboard when it comes to getting my branding noticed.

I purchased shirts for everyone and ordered custom color khaki pants. I ordered hats, tank tops, and water bottles. I even bought my employees bathrobes with the color scheme and logo on them to keep them reminded at home. So might I say I was brainwashing them into supporting the brand?

Within three months, our business was growing, not because of the branding but because more people would talk to my employees and ask them questions.

It seemed like overnight we became a professional and organized company that people wanted to contact. Within one year, we had tripled in size, and all of our trucks now matched the color scheme!

It has been about 10 years and every once in a while, I will run into one of my old employees wearing one of the jackets, sweaters, T-shirts, or even hats from my old landscaping company. Subliminally or otherwise, people will remember you by the way things look.

Your customer service will deliver the same impact. I want to touch on this just a bit to give you some food for thought. Just like every part of this training, I want to get you to think about the possibilities. By thinking about these things and writing them down and even studying more always learning, you’re only going to get better.

Focus on user needs, not features. Pay attention to what customers are saying not what you think there are saying.
Respond to consumer feedback as soon as you can. Don't wait too long to respond to customers this will only upset them and could cause more problems.
Provide a free solution. Let people know how to use your product or service, don't charge them for that right.
Deliver more than you've promised. Always over-deliver and your customers will love you. If it takes 3 days for an order to arrive, say it will take 4 - 5 days so they're happy it came sooner.
Pay attention to the visuals. Let your customer comments and feedback drive your images and even what you post.
Always tell your story.

Get your brand everywhere- This can be easier said than done so keep moving forward. Shout it from the rooftop after your brand kit and story are done. Developing your voice will be the key driving force moving your brand forward.

Consider starting a referral program, a rewards program, and even an affiliate or influencer marketing program.

Doubling down on these things with your marketing will not only help your branding overall, but it will also help you to create other partnerships and build stronger relationships with your customers.

This will be more impactful as you grow your business as it will be a lot easier for you to get your message out there faster.

Be engaging. Whether using social media or email marketing and anything in between I recommend that you focus on how to engage your customers on a regular basis. Even if it’s a few thoughts here and there write them down or when you grow give them to your team to work with.

Just developing good ideas can help build on your strategy and can help your business grow.

Start Module #6 Building Your Website

Module #5 Building Your Brand

Downloads

Tricks to Planning a Successful Brand

Understanding Your Branding

Module #5 Building Your Brand

Downloads

Tricks to Planning a Successful Brand

Understanding Your Branding

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