NOVEMBER: GIVE YOURSELF A BRAND REVIEW!
A juicy one this month, all about being prepared for next year and getting on top of your branding so you can hit the ground running in January.
This month, give yourself a little brand audit - look into the depths of your identity, your ideal client and whether your brand language, visual and presence is attracting and delivering the right message.
1. UNDERSTAND YOUR BRAND
To undertake a successful and USEFUL brand review you need to fully embrace WHAT your brand is, WHO you are delivering too and WHERE you are delivering it. All the W's.
THE WHAT This should be easy. Write down exactly WHAT you offer. Your values, USP (unique selling point), brand mission statement, For me it would be: Delivering bold and brave storytelling branding.... THE WHO Who are your ideal client? What do they associate with, who are their favourite brands, what are their personalities, where do they go for a weekend getaway? What car do they drive? Where do they shop?
For me it is: Entrepreneurs { mainly female } starting a new business or rebranding a fairly small { often creative / skilled } business which they run from home / home office. Just making the leap to this being their full time job or wanting to seriously grab success with two hands and run with it.
TO DO - Create a mood board showing a 'fictional' ideal client lifestyle, their clothes, favourite brands.. build a picture of their life.
THE WHERE Where do you promote your business and where do your clients FIND and ENGAGE with you?
Are you solely online, do you have a physical shop, are you only servicing a local area or are you national / worldwide, is this obvious. Do you share your knowledge or your products, do you re-engage on a regular basis with blogs and newsletters. Do you promote new work.. For me it is:
I showcase my work primarily on my website, I then engage with my ideal clients and existing clients and peers using blogs, newsletters and social media offering them USEFUL and PRACTICAL insights.
When you put these three statements together you should have a great understanding of your business:
"Delivering brave and bold storytelling branding for { female }, solo-preneurs who are starting a new adventure within their business. I grow my network with business clubs and local networking events with likeminded communities and engage with them through social media, engaging blogs and newsletters."
Now its time to see whether the visual language / branding you are putting out in the world truly reflects this statement.....
2. TOUCH POINTS
This is actually a really fun part. Within my branding projects I always create a 'customer journey', a really helpful exercise to fully understand where you engage with your clients/customers. In brief your customer journey is each and every moment where your ideal client comes into contact with your brand.
The Customer Journey.
Make a list of all the ways your customers engage with you and vice versa...
How people find you, how you respond, do they meet you in person, or solely online, do you send a newsletter or exhibit at a tradeshow, do they follow you on social media, do you send a welcome pack or a thank you card... { for more information on this head on over to my previous blog post 'what is a 'what-is-your-brand-customer-journey-why-is-it-important' which will give you more detail }
The Visual Identity.
Create a mood board of your EXISTING brand identity. Be prepared to go on a screen shot spree here... or gather them all into a new folder or Pinterest board. GRAPHIC IDENTITY ~ your logo & business name
~ your website
~ the result in a Google search
~ the colours / fonts /textures / patterns / icons you use
CONTENT ~ the language you use (headers, titles, written guidelines) ~ how you describe yourself / the business
~ your instagram / Pinterest feed
MARKETTING
~ business card ~ packaging
~ example of a newsletter / blogpost
~ invoice / proposal
~ email footer
PHYSICAL
~ your shop front ~ your signage
~ your presence at an event / trade show
~ your branded van
~ your personal presence / how you dress
You may begin to see areas where the branding isn't quite up to scratch or consistent or you may see gaps where there is no brand message at all. Where ever there is a gap in the message is ultimately where you can loose prospective customers, so this audit will help you fill those gaps and get your message on track.
3. TAKE THE FREE COLOUR QUIZ
Why not take my free colour quiz to see which seasonal colour palette best suits your brand values? This can really help understand how your visual language can attract the right client. TAKE THE QUIZ.
4. ARE YOU A GOOD FIT?
Spend a moment reflecting on your ideal client, looking over your mood boards from 1 and 2 and the result from your colour quiz. Get into the mindset of your ideal client. Would you buy from you? Are your visuals telling the right story, oozing goodness and irresistible consumer messaging? Do you want to jump right in and learn more... or does it feel a bit disjointed?
For example, if you are selling a super sleek and sexy product but your colour palette is all bright and fun this may confuse your customers and could undermine the quality of your product - can people truly understand your values through the visual image you are putting out into the world? Look at your peers or brands you love and engage with - see how their visual brand language appeals to their ideal clients.
5. CONSISTENCY
Each business model is different however building a successful brand boils down to being CONSISTENT and SHOWING UP over and over again. Delivering your ideal offer to your ideal client. Making yourself irresistible and EASY to engage with and ultimately book / buy from. If someone is hard to reach, doesn't engage or make you feel special and can't show you examples of work or products then its likely you will go to a competitor. So consistency is KEY.
Is it CLEAR what you do, who you are targeting and where they can buy your services.. theres those W's again.
6. TAKE ACTION
By now you should be well acquainted with your mood boards. One depicting your ideal client and one showcasing your existing brand, and you can probably see clear areas on the customer journey where your brand message or identity aren't as consistent as they could be.
Write down 3 areas which you feel would benefit from improvement and would give you positive and quantitive results. Whether its keeping fonts consistent on all new brand material, creating a new email footer, or filling a gap in your customer journey.
7. TEMPLATES
Make your life easier and ultimately promote better engagement by setting up branded templates in Mailchimp, Canva, Microsoft Word etc.. so its easy to keep your brand message on point and CONSISTENT. Setting these up initially will save you time and stress in the long run and close those gaps where clients can lose interest and fall through the gaps.
8. HAS IT ALL GONE WRONG?
If you are sitting staring at your mood boards feeling like you have completely missed a trick PANIC NOT! You should have a clear idea on where you SHOULD be from your ideal customer mood board so start there and try and implement a couple of things each week moving forwards.
If you feel like you need a complete brand overhaul then there are many brand specialists like myself (hi there!) who would LOVE to help you on this journey, so please do get in touch. Getting your branding right is like finding yourself all over again. There are no words to describe the feeling when everything just comes together and feels RIGHT, you are confident, proud and just want to shout about it so please don't underestimate the power your branding has on both your outlook and your clients opinion of you.
I offer wonderfully curated packages for small businesses and entrepreneurs just like you who are just starting out or indeed rebranding. So take a look at my work and get in touch if you want a chat.
I can even undertake a brand audit FOR YOU if you would like an extra set of eyes? Hit the link below to see how.
LASTLY - GOOD LUCK!!!!!!! I am so excited you are implementing your brand review... please do share via email, socials etc.. your findings and how you are implementing change for the better x
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