Welcome to Day 11 of the 30 Days to Develop Your Brand Challenge!
Branding is a way to help your business become more memorable to your audience. If your branding isn’t accomplishing your goals, it is possible that you may need to start over or tweak it to make it more descriptive and memorable. Let’s check up on some areas that can be problematic, so you know how to make it work.
Think About Your Business Name Carefully
The very first thing people hear when you tell them about your business is what your business is called. When they hear or see the name of the business, it automatically conjures images in the customer’s mind.
This happens no matter how they heard of your business name. They do this in person, or if they go to your website online, or if they just see your business name mentioned. When you tell people the name of your business, do they know what you can do for them immediately or do they have to think about it?
If Appropriate, Use Humor
There is nothing wrong with being humorous about your business description, logo, branding, and so forth even if you have a very serious business. For example, Piggy Makes Bank takes private label rights very seriously. It’s a very serious business, but the name is fun because PMB wants it to be fun for you to find and use content to market your business.
Stop Using Jargon
While behind closed doors with your nerdy audience, it’s okay to use jargon, it’s best not to within your business name, description, and branding process. Using jargon in content can sometimes interfere with your brand developing its own voice. If you use too much jargon, it can be off-putting to your audience because you may start blending in with others if you sound like everyone else.
Be Intentional with Your Words
One of the most essential elements of your brand is the brand voice. The best way to ensure that you create the right voice for your brand is to examine your goals and mission. When you plan the words you will use, you can better position your brand right where you want it to be.
Put Your Ideal Customer First
As you look at the branding you already have, if you’re not attracting the right audience, ask yourself whether you’re putting your ideal customer first or not. Sometimes it feels scary to niche down in a way that seems to exclude others, but the truth is, if you don’t put your customer first, someone else will.
Don’t Underestimate the Power of Color
If you chose your colors because that’s what you like, without thinking about what your audience likes, you need to revisit the color paradigm. Learn about how different colors and shades of color evoke different feelings and emotions from your audience. Then go back and choose the colors based on how you want your audience to feel.
Fix Your Mistakes Fast
One thing about branding that really matters is whether there are inconsistencies in behavior or not. For example, if you have high qualifications for other people but not your business, that is a sign of a problem. You might not even be doing it on purpose, which is why you need to examine your own mistakes and fix them fast.
Go Ahead and Get Personal
As a business owner, it might be tempting to try to distance your personal life from your brand, but if you want people to get to know you, learn to like you, and ultimately trust you, it may require that you let down your guard a little to let your audience in. For example, before sharing that awesome sponsored blog post about Planning Your Best Family Vacation to Disney, share a little about how fun it is to surprise your little ones with a trip to Disney.
Use Technology That is User-Friendly
The user experience, especially online, also helps make your brand memorable. If they cannot use your website, read your content how they want to, and more, they will get frustrated and not remember your brand at all.
Reimagine Your Logo
A logo is a lot more than just an image representing your business. It represents the business mission, the values of the business, and should leave the audience or customer who sees the logo with a good feeling about the product, service, or business. If the fonts, colors, or tag line is incongruent in the eyes and mind of the audience, you may need to tweak it a bit.
Reconsider Your Packaging/Product Covers
Look at your covers and packaging and note whether you are being consistent with your branding not just in terms of the packaging and covers but in terms of the offers you are making. Are you solving the problems your mission statement says you are in the way that you promised?
Remember that branding is a way to help you present a consistent picture to the world about what your business stands for and believes in and accomplishes. Everything from your logo to the messages need to be consistent. If you have issues with consistency in the message or how it’s presented, the audience may not even notice it directly, but something in their mind will notice and move on to a brand that is more descriptive and memorable.
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