Branding is making yourself or your business memorable and attractive by creating a distinct identity for yourself or your business through the use of color(s), symbols, language use, and more.
The very first thing I always ask someone looking for branding is, “What is your goal?” Why are you creating this business? Who are you creating it for? What do you hope to do with it? Take some time to write out a goal for your business. Try to see it from your future customer’s eyes. What do they get out of it? That’s who you’re trying to appeal to hopefully.
If I was to ask you what color you associate with companies, most of the time you’d guess correctly. Let’s try it. What color do you associate with McDonalds? How about Pizza Hut? Starbucks? This was not an accident. In the marketing industry. Colors have meaning. They are carefully chosen for these meanings and memorability. When branding your own business, keep this in mind. Here’s some examples of colors and their meaning. Green is associated with nature/natural or money/finance. Orange is meant to get you excited. Blue is soothing/reassuring. Black is professional. Yellow is fun, vacation time, ease of use feelings. Red is romance, excitement, or wow, look at me, this is important (think Red Cross). Do you see how many logos above are red? That’s not an accident. When choosing your color for your brand, do some color research. It’s more important than you think.
Once you have your goal and color picked out, next will be your logo. A logo is a symbol of your business. It takes seeing something five to seven times before people typically start remembering it. One way to do this is a logo. It’s a symbol people can associate with your business. They can see it and know exactly who you are, what you offer, and if they might be interested. Let’s break down a logo in visual form. I used my author brand logo.
As you can see there are specific things you want to include in your logo. Your chosen color. Your business/brand name or initials. Also, you’ll want to use a font that is copyright permissible to use for profit, easy to replicate, easy to read, memorable, and that fits into your industry. For example, you don’t want to use a font that looks cartoonish for a professional brand. Let me reiterate that fonts are copyrighted. Do your research to make sure that yours is free to use for commercial purposes or purchase a font for commercial use. Lastly, the styling is up to you. It can be as simple as your name and that’s it or it can be as extra as mine. The simpler it is, the easier it is to replicate and duplicate. However, if it’s more memorable, people might want it just for the appeal. For example, keep in mind what your logo might look like on hats, letterheads, and your social media.
Finally, branding is more than visual. It’s also about your tone of language. How do you portray yourself? Both written and verbally. What tone are you trying to get across? The sky is the limit with this, but the biggest thing is to keep it consistent. If you are looking to be seen as professional, speak and act professionally. If your business is meant to be chill and outside the box, portray this using your written and verbal language and even your body language. My biggest advice on this, is be yourself, then figure out what tone that is. If you are naturally funny, be funny. If your business typically has a certain vibe to it, don’t try to stand out by changing that vibe unless it comes naturally to you. People are attracted to authenticity. Full stop. Whatever your default is, integrate that into your business consistently.
These are the main elements of starting to create a brand for your business. Looking at the brands above, what do you think, feel, associate them with? How can you take that concept and integrate it into your own business? What do you want your target audience to think, feel, desire, do or buy when they see your brand? Marketing can be as simple and as difficult as just that.
Thank you for learning some marketing with me today. If you’re new here, you will notice I tend to take you down rabbit holes of information that I know or others know. You can browse the categories below. Let me know if there’s something you want to learn, that you can share with us, or just comment on todays topic. Thank you.
The Sides to a Story 
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