5 Steps You Can Take to Start Building Your Brand
The Five Points of Your Brand Star
All of us that run our own businesses know that there never seem to be enough hours in the day to accomplish everything on our list. Being a small business owner is no easy feat, and building a brand can be a full-time job in itself!
Between managing inventory, creating new products, handling customer inquiries, and keeping up with content creation and marketing, it can often feel like you’re wearing a dozen different hats at once (because you are). The constant juggling act can leave you overwhelmed and unsure of where to focus your efforts next, especially when you’re ready to take your business to the next level.
One area that often gets overlooked is branding, yet it's one of the most crucial elements for long-term success. In this post, we’ll break down five easy steps you can take to start building your personal brand - these steps are designed to be straightforward and manageable bite sized pieces, helping you create the foundation for a strong brand identity that will set your business apart, build a loyal customer base, and make a lot of these areas of running your business run a whole lot smoother.
Let’s dive in!
As makers, we create our work because it comes from a passion - but you also want (and need) to make money
Step One:
Write down your brand story.
Your work is an extension of you - and your reasons behind your work are what attract people into your world. So what’s the story behind your brand?
This doesn’t have to be a novelization of your whole history - in fact, it shouldn’t be. Try to condense your brand story down to a few paragraphs at the very most, because once you can distill your story down to it’s essential elements, you’ll have some of the keywords that are what you will use to attract your dream customers into your orbit through your messaging.
Who you are, where you came from, and what your dreams are speak volumes to your people. Why are you here, now, building this brand?
Step Two:
Determine the essence of your work.
It’s difficult for creators to condense their work into a box - but if you had to sum up the essence of your work in a few words, what would they be? What is the unifying idea behind what you create?
Think of any recurring motifs, themes, colors or techniques. What’s the string that ties everything together? This will help with your brand visuals and positioning.
Step Three:
Determine your values.
Your values are your most important guiding principals - they are your compass. What are some things you’ll never compromise on, no matter how successful you become?
These could be things like sustainability, kindness, diversity, inclusion, or giving back. Your brand values are a driving component in bringing aligned people into your universe - these types of values are incredibly important to today’s consumer, and are top of mind when deciding to make a purchase.
Step Four:
Set your vision for the future.
You’re the star of your show ✨ As makers, we create things because it comes from a passion - but you also want to make money!
What would success look like to you 5 years from now? How does it relate to where you are now? What are your ideal steps that can get you there? From here we can determine what immediate steps we can take to position our brand where we will have the most success.
Step Five:
Research your ideal people.
Imagine your ideal customer - can you picture what they look like?
What their day-to-day is like? What they wear, where they spend their free time, how they speak? What communities do they belong to? What do they believe in and what do they value in others?
These are the people you want to be speaking to through your brand, and you want to understand and know them! Hopefully this feels natural, because at the end of the day, your people will be attracted to you because they relate to you on some level.
Again, don’t spend too much time filling these out - the goal is to condense some essential keywords, themes and ideas for your brand that will help you align with your ideal customers!
From here, you’ll be able to apply these keywords and themes to all aspects of your branding - from content creation to messaging to tone of voice to product or service offers.
But that’s not all - one of the best investments you can make for your business is hiring a professional to work hand-in-hand with you to create a thoughtful branding strategy, bold visual package and updated website to build your perfect brand universe.
If you’re looking for more help on building your brand, contact us today to set up a chat!
Welcome to Studiomart! I’m Alina ❤️
Handmade shop owner, branding-obsessed founder & designer here to help your product-based business succeed though branding ☁️
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