Branding goes much deeper than a logo, posting pictures on social media or the colours you wear. And creating a business that connects with your audience is more than the product or service you create.
To create a strong brand, you need to know who you are.
I define branding as:
The alignment of your unique personality, your key messages, and your brand promise; and where this meets your customer's expectation.
A brand is what people feel, think and say about your business. Marketing is what you say about your business.
To create a great brand, you have to focus on the emotional experience. You want to build connections which leads to trust which leads to purchases and coming back over and over.
It’s the emotion and connection that inspires people to choose you over someone else.
But the truth is you can’t force people to trust you. But with clarity & confidence and doing foundational branding work, you can guide this perception.
The work isn’t easy or often fast but you will always be happy you created the foundations first. The work is something you can come back to when creating products or services, when marketing, when communicating or undertaking any aspect of your brand. It shows you want to do and most importantly, what not to do.
Many businesses struggle because they don’t do the foundational work. So often there is too much focus on selling and not enough on creating a foundation. There is no alignment or clarity, which leads to confusion. For both the business owner and the audience.
I believe there are four pillars to create your brand:
- Your brand core essence (this is your purpose, vision, mission and values)
- Your brand personality (the core traits that can be used to describe your brand)
- Your brand messaging (your brand promise)
- Implementing the brand (photography, social media, website, marketing...)
Knowing these pillars will give you clarity and confidence and remove the overwhelm.
These pillars help you know what to do and often more importantly, what not to do. When you can remove 90% of the distractions and the wondering about whether something is right to do or not, everything becomes simpler and smoother.
Just like building a house, building the foundations of a business is the essential first step. Not only does it ensure your audience is clear about who you are and what you offer but trust me, it makes everything easier. Start by removing the overwhelm and stepping forward clear and confident.
If you would like some support in defining and clarifying your product, I have a lovely package to help you get started. I meet you where you are at and we take it from there. If this sounds like something that you'd love to invest in this year let's chat or click here for more details.
Lisa x