Branding is crucial for your online presence as a business, but knowing where to start is sometimes overwhelming. Don’t fret, I have outlined the Ultimate Branding Checklist to walk you through Branding your Business.
1) Brand Image
The first step to Branding is your BRAND IMAGE or what I refer to as your Brand BTS (behind the scenes). When you decide to start branding, it can be tempting to jump right into the design elements… BUT in order to have a cohesive design that represents WHO your brand is, you need to do some deep diving into your WHO.
Brand Image Elements
a ) Industry, Niche and Target Audience: If you want to succeed in business, the most important question you need to answer is ‘Who do I serve’?. You’ll have a difficult time marketing and targeting clients/customers if you don’t have a clear idea of who they are. The 3 areas you should focus on are INDUSTRY, NICHE, AND TARGET AUDIENCE. Here is a concrete example:
Industry: Beauty
Niche: Sustainable Skin Care
Target Audience: Women in their 30s looking for eco friendly,vegan, anti-aging skin care products -based in North America
**PRO TIP: When it comes to your target audience, the more specific, the better! I recommend creating a Buyer’s Persona so you can have a clear in-depth understanding of who you serve. You can learn how to create a buyer’s persona and download my free template on the blog post linked here.
b) Your Core Values: What does your brand or company stand for? What ideologies and beliefs are important to your company? Is it helping people? The environment? Advancing technology? Creating change?
c) Mission Statement: What is your brand/business’s goal? This is essentially your WHY. Your WHY is the fuel and purpose of your business so it’s important to always refer back to. For example, here is Disney’s mission statement:
“To entertain, inform and inspire people around the globe through the power of unparalleled storytelling, reflecting the iconic brands, creative minds and innovative technologies that make ours the world’s premier entertainment company”
d) Your USP: USP stands for Unique Selling Point. What is it about your business that sets you apart from others in your industry and niche.What does your brand bring to the table. Why should someone choose you or your product over anyone else’s?
e) Your story/history: How did your business come to be? Where did you start? What is the inspiration behind your business? What has your business taught you? What is your background in relation to your business? *This section can often tie into your WHY!
2) Brand Presence
a) Voice: Establishing your brand presence requires marketing and creating visible content. How you present your content says alot about your brand. One element you should be clear on is your tone or voice. Is your brand educational and enlightening? Is it light and fun? Informative and political? Bold and Controversial? Inspiring and Motivating?
These tones really come through in not only imagery, but in your actual voice via video and copywriting. If you have a very serious formal brand presence and then post a video swearing and dancing to trending songs, this will come across as jarring to your audience.
b) Content Pillars: In addition to understanding your tone, you can create consistent pillars so your audience knows what to expect. For example, maybe your pillars are as follows: Educational content, Personal Stories, Promo Content, Social Proof…or maybe you content pillars follow a sales funnel – Awareness, Interest, Decision, Action etc.
c) Name: now that you have a clear understanding of the identity and feelings you want your brand to evoke, choosing a name should be easier. What does your brand mean? What does it represent? How does it tie in with your industry? Do you want your legal name associated with it? For example, I am a social media manager and so I wanted my name to be associated with my industry, thus Socially Kailee was born 🙂
d) Platforms: Pending your target audience and niche you can decide where your key marketing will take place. It’s great to be active on all platforms but not always necessary. For example, I primarily sell and work on instagram, but I also have a business presence on Tiktok and Pinterest! Determine where your key audience is and then make that your primary platform. Regardless of which platform you end up choosing, you should always have an accompanying website with an email list! People may stop using certain apps, but everyone will always use email!
3) Brand Identity
This is the fun part – your brand identity is all the physical design elements associated with your brand.
a) Colour palette: use colour psychology to determine your brand colours. What feelings do you want your brand to evoke? Is it warm and cozy? Dark and mysterious? Earthy?
*Pro Tip: sticking to 2-3 brand colours will make your life a lot easier when it comes to creating a consistent aesthetic.
b) Mood Boards: A really fun way to work with colour palettes is creating a mood board. Mood boards showcase your colours within photos that represent your brand feelings and aesthetics.
c) Typography: Choose 2-3 key brand fonts. One Primary font for all your titles and headings. A second font for subheadings and a basic font for your main text or copy.
d) Logos: Once you have your brand image and colours you can start designing a logo that ecompasses your brand. For example, my brand has always focused on vintage aesthetics/references to educate on modern marketing and technology, so it made sense that my logo be a typewriter 🙂 Having an alternate or ALT logo is also beneficial when working with different brand elements and content. For example if your logo is white and you are using a white background, maybe your Alt logo is black, Or perhaps you need a miniature simplified version of your logo.
e) Key Elements and Graphics: You may have certain design elements, textures or templates for your content that should always remain consistent. For example, most of my IG posts utilize two key templates that I alternate with. Same with fonts and colours, don’t have a million different elements on all your content – stick with 2-3 key templates and a handful of elements.
4) Brand Style Guide
A brand style guide is a PDF booklet that contains all of the above mentioned brand information. Style guides are an amazing reference for your business. You can always go back to them for inspiration or to reconnect with your why. I also have a BRAND KIT folder where I keep all my individual elements so I can just pull them up whenever I’m creating content 🙂
I hope this guide helps you get clear on your Branding and get started on your business journey. Click here to download the full Branding Guide Checklist 🙂
