WHY DOES YOUR BRAND LOOK THE WAY IT DOES?
How lame is it exactly to write a blog for the sole purpose of CELEBRATING!? Lame or not this bitch of a blog is informative AS FUCK, and if you don’t cruise on out of here on the back of a floating unicorn I owe you an ice cream!
Recently, I gave my most OUTRAGEOUSLY successful and intensive package a huge refresh. It was time to kick things up a notch, and I genuinely wanted to spend more time with my client's helping them through the first three months of a new brand or rebrand launch, instead of giving them their guide and wishing them good luck. The package I’m talking about is POWER BRAND and yes I’m YELLING! I’m feeling kind of super loud and proud lately. It’s no small feat to make an earth shattering package and then make it even better, but here we are! Sometimes reality is even better than my day dreams and I have to pinch myself. Do you have days like that? Do you wish you could have more? I wish that for you too! I am absolutely biased to this process not only because it’s my livelihood, but because I am now more convinced than ever that this is what I am meant to do. My process is like no other. To get specific, that calling is to help more businesses succeed, but in order to make that more of a reality I knew I had to repackage power brand to be something that just can’t be fucked with. That’s right. It’s unfuckwithable. Let’s get to it, shall we?
What I really want to ask you is....
Why does your brand look the way it does?
No, wait, let's back up. What even is a brand?
There’s a lot of different answers to this question, and none of them are really wrong. Some people will tell you that your brand is what people are saying about your business amongst each other. Some people will say your brand is your business name and logo. I say your brand is all of the above but most importantly it is all the ways your business offers an experience and then all the ways it delivers that experience and makes lasting impression for good, for bad, or somewhere in between. Branding isn’t just something to look at. It’s something to feel.
I know that sounds super cheesy, but it’s TRUE. Think about it. What makes people want to even talk about your business positively or negatively to begin with? Their experience or impression! What makes you want to talk about or share other people’s businesses? Your impression or experience, good or bad! What makes people want to chat about OTHER people? It’s not usually all the cool stuff they have, but how that person has touched their life in one way or another. At funerals you don’t hear people talking about Bob with the really nice yacht. You hear people talking about Bob the inspiring football coach, the proud father, the humanitarian. IMPACT!
Back to your brand for a moment….
If you’re worried that your brand was built all wrong, don’t worry it’s not as far out of your reach as you think. You can STILL create the atmosphere that best suits good feelings, and you can build a standard for service that prioritizes satisfaction, but you need a Powerful Brand and that means you need a powerful strategy.
So I’ll ask again; why does your brand look the way that it does?
The experts want to make marketing and branding sound super complicated, but we all really want ONE thing; a happy and loyal customer. And if they’re not a customer yet we want our business to create a lasting impression that make them want to return and bring their friends. We want to make people feel good BEYOND just feeling good about our business, but feeling like our business has made them better. Building connections is valuable to you AND your audience. Those relationships you build are going to help you grow your business, and you get the chance to not just make some money but to make a difference in people’s lives.
HOWEVER, branding hasn’t been done this way very often or for very long, and it has taken quite a long time to see the industry changing. Like any invention the concepts that drive my personal brand strategy methods came from oversight. There were obviously missing pieces in the way small business owners were representing themselves online and I knew that I could help them sort it all out. This was brand strategy as it had been for decades (in the corporate world), but shifting and evolving to what it also needed to be going forward for small businesses. It appeared from the outside that websites were being built with little to no reason or purpose, and it was preventing businesses from gaining any kind of momentum. Let’s actually talk about that. How there are millions of small businesses online, DIY-ing themselves into closing because they just don’t know how to make a marketing graphic look polished and professional. They just don’t know their social media photos are grainy in poor lighting. They just don’t know their logo totally clashes with their website. They don’t realize they’re lacking structure, substance, or context. This is where brand strategy comes in and fixes all these things.
It isn’t twenty people in a room making decisions between cerulean blue and violet. It’s just me and you, but we’re still making those same important decisions for the same important reasons!
But why does any of that matter?
Well, for starters people are spending more time getting to know brands in this digital age than ever before. They’re spending more time online, and more time on social media. Consumers are more calculated and careful about where they spend their money and who they’re spending their money with. Every small business that wants to be taken seriously has a website these days, and there’s more content to consume than ever. Frankly, people are sick of being sold to and they want to know or feel something that isn’t just a cold and impersonal commercial. Consumers aren’t making large impulse buys from brands they don’t know or feel comfortable with. You need to reach out and pull them in! Getting their attention and silencing the noise is only half the battle.
So then why are we not making more calculated decisions when it comes to why our brand looks the way that it does, how it operates, when it operates, why it operates the way it does? Because there’s not many people telling you to do any of it differently. This really isn’t any fault of web designers. They want to build a site and they expect you to come prepared with ideas for how it should look - its not their problem if it helps you accurately represent your business, or if it converts lookers into buyers. That’s not their job. Their job is to make it look professional. PERIOD. Unfortunately that’s not the world we live in anymore. PROFESSIONAL ISN’T ENOUGH! It could look professional AF and still be TOTALLY WRONG. And this is me rolling my eyes at anyone out there telling you that I’m just making you second guess yourself. THAT IS NOT MY INTENTION! My intention is to shake you and say I WANT YOU TO WIN and your website and your entire brand identity could be holding you back. COULD BE. That doesn’t mean it definitely is or it definitely isn’t. I’m literally one click and an email away and I’d happy to give you my honest assessment!
So this power brand thing is a pretty big fucking deal?
YASSS, GIRL. YASSS! Brand strategy was already gaining a ton of momentum (thanks in large part to my non stop commitment and the amazing things it can do) when my OG Power Brand package was released last year. The goal was to bring businesses beyond their logo to the epicenter of their client experience, and reverse engineer their brand to systematically reach out and connect with impact. We’re not just talking color theory and creative direction although that is a huge part, we’re talking about every minor client touchpoint in your business and figuring out how to ENHANCE a memorable experience for them. Memorable experiences that make them feel good will bring you repeat business. It will grow your brand awareness and brand recognition! You will flourish. The only criteria is that you have to be in the business of genuinely wanting to make people’s lives better in some way!
So maybe you don’t know why your brand looks the way that it does, but that’s okay! We can work on it together! Think about how much easier creating your logo, your website, or even your social media content will be once you have every single part of your brand experience outlined for you in a guide you can send to anyone with just a few clicks!
BUT LET'S GET BACK TO DREAMING OUT LOUD, SHALL WE?
The things that keep me up at night are the number of businesses I haven’t yet reached, and how much of a difference I know brand strategy can make for them. Maybe that’s you. I want to see you realize dreams you didn’t even know you had. I want you to share in those pinch me type instances. I want to put in the work and reap the great rewards and I want that for my clients as well. This is why I knew I had to change Power Brand to a 90 day program. Brand strategy is action and then it’s reaction, so I wanted to spend more time with each client editing and adjusting things as results finally started rolling in. I didn’t want them to feel stuck or lost after undergoing such a major shift in their business! I would absolutely LOVE to hear the dreams you have for your business, and I’d love to tell you how we can work towards making them a reality! CHEERS TO YOU, THIS BRAND NEW PROGRAM AND THE ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES!