Hustle and Heart: Why Branding is So Much More Than Your Logo

If you build it, they will come. That’s how it should work right?

Unfortunately, when it comes to building a business, that’s far from the truth. In reality, there are millions of companies fighting for customers’ attention every day! To be successful in your business, you have to stand out and be something more to them than just a product or service!

This is where having a rock star brand comes in.

The difference between a business and a brand can be challenging for some business owners, but there’s a simple way to differentiate the two.

YourBusinessis your What. What do you sell or what service do you offer? What’s your pricing? What kind of venture are you?

YourBrandis your Why. Why should someone choose your business? Why do they want to work with you? Why are you special?

It’s the “why” behind your business that helps build a connection with customers. Great branding helps create a bond between you and your audience before you ever even work with them!

So, if you’re ready to make a connection with your ideal customer by building a strong branding strategy, but aren’t sure where to start, here are three categories to focus on.

Your Brand Look

Your brand look is all the visual components that make up your brand. See? That logo does come in somewhere – it’s just a small piece of the much bigger puzzle. We’ve all heard not to judge a book by its cover, but let’s just note that they weren’t talking about brand visuals! If you’re design savvy, you can take the DIY route or hire a professional graphic designer or branding specialist to help you create a full branding package, or just a few of your visual elements to make a big impact. Key things to think about here would be your logo, color palette, font choices, website, packaging, and signage! Everything should look cohesive, so people can easily recognize your business.

Your Brand Voice

How your brand sounds in both written and spoken content is your brand voice. How a brand sounds are important when thinking about the building connection with your customer. Close your eyes and try to remember the last used car dealer ad you heard on the radio. Loud, humorous, bold? Now imagine a family dentist office using that same brand voice in their ad. More than likely it wouldn’t communicate the right tone and feeling needed. You’d want to apply the same thinking to any written material used for your business to make sure you always sound like the same person no matter what format. Your brand voice should carry out into several aspects of your business, such as marketing and advertising, website copy, social media and video content.

Your Brand Feel

The emotional connection made when the brand elements are being experienced together as a whole is your brand feel. Sounds deep, right? All this means is how do you want your brand and business to make people feel when they work with you or purchase something from you? How does it feel when they walk into your store or see your marketing? Even businesses have personality, so take some time to think about yours. A few great ways to check in with your brand to see how that emotional element is going is to make a list of how you want to come across: welcoming, encouraging, calming, exciting, empathetic, etc. Once you have a good idea of how you want to make clients and customers feel, you can dig deeper to see if you think your brand is accomplishing that and reassess if any improvements can be made.

Remember that each piece of the branding puzzle above works together to create that perfect story your business needs to tell, to help lure your ideal customer in and keep them around for the long haul!

 

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