Branding. That infamous word you know as a business owner is important, but often fails to connect with you. I get it! But, here’s why branding is so important:
Good branding has the potential to connect you with paying clients and, not just any clients, but ideal clients you’d love to work with.
Here are 5 practical steps to get you started in your branding journey:
- Create your ideal client description. You NEED to know who are you trying to sell to in order to create ANY visuals. You can’t market to everyone. This is why having an ideal client in mind and a niche to go with it is SO important. You need to write down characteristics if people you’d like to work with (and not just people who have money). Include traits like age, education, where they live, what kind of car they drive, where they shop, what their personality is like. Many businesses fail because they don’t recognize the importance of narrowing down WHO their client is. For example, I market to 25-40 year old fine art wedding vendors who have been in business at least two years, are driven, very people friendly, are leaders, and see themselves as educators. This is just a snippet of mine.I have an ideal client guide in my shop here.
- Decide on a niche market. This is a term thrown around a lot but it simply means a focused set of people. There are people you target (ideal clients) and then there is the market they shop in. For example, my niche is branding and web design for wedding vendors. I don’t try to branch into other markets like design for restaurants, clothing stores, etc. My focused market is very small.
- Create a brand board. Either you do this yourself or I always suggest hiring a professional or, at the very least, get a premade brand. Notice I said BRAND and not LOGO. A brand is NOT a logo. It includes your colors, fonts, patterns, etc. All of this goes together to create cohesive visuals that get you remembered. Visit my premade brands here.
- Have a PROFESSIONAL website. This one is gold you guys. People CARE about what a website looks like and if you don’t have a quality site that showcases your work, your ideal client will move on. Not only have a professional website, but have a simplified one. Less is more when it comes to info. Have a workflow for when you get inquiries. Get just enough info on your site to pull people in, but get them asking for more info and then have an actionable plan to respond to them. Obviously this depends on your type of business and who you are trying to attract, but, in general, less words = more likely someone will read. See my one of a kind Showit collection to get an affordable, pro website customized by me.
- Study your competitors to create your pricing. This is a biggie too. Pricing can be SO hard, but the simplest way to create prices is to look at competitors who are similar to you in style and experience and price yourself within their range. That way clients will be comparing similar prices and will ultimately decide to choose you for your work and not your price. Don’t undersell yourself. You can be confident in your pricing after doing your research. See my pricing guide in the shop for help.
Leave a Comment