Why You Need to Build a Strong Brand for Your Business
Many new entrepreneurs don't prioritize building a strong brand for their business, but the truth is that intentional brand strategy is the key to the success! In this video, I talk about what branding even is, clear up some common misconceptions, and show you why it's so important to build a strong brand identity for your business — yes, even if you're just starting out!
→ VIDEO TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 — Why You Need to Build a Strong Brand for Your Business
02:10 — What even is branding?
04:37 — Crafting a story with brand strategy
05:29 — 6 Benefits of building a strong brand for your biz
10:55 — Marketing vs branding. What's the difference?
11:30 — The marketing rule of 7
12:50 — The problem with focusing on ads and cold pitches before you build a brand
16:19 — Entrepreneurship should be fun!
Note: This was written casually as a script outline for the video. Please excuse any grammatical errors.
Hi imaginary friend! My name is Leigh and today I’m thinking about the power of branding.
I want to talk about all the amazing benefits of intentionally building a solid, strategic brand for your business. I really think this is something that is so necessary, especially in the modern business world. But I honestly feel like it isn’t talked about enough, like relative to how important it actually is. And I think that’s because most people don’t even really understand what it is, really. Like, a lot of people use the words “brand” and business kinda interchangeably. Or they think branding is just the visual stuff, like a logo and a colour palette. I see this a lot with my creative studio, because I offer brand design & strategy together, but people are usually so focused on just the design aspect, the pretty aesthetics. And that’s really just one part of what brand-building actually is.
I am on a mission to help more small business owners and entrepreneurs understand the amazing magical power of strategic brand-building and why it is so necessary for your business.
Ok so first lemme explain what branding even is…
To put it in the simplest terms possible, your brand is the way that people perceive your business.
That is really the core of it, it’s a super simple concept. So what that means, is that every single business has a brand, they go hand-in-hand BUT a lot of new entrepreneurs and small businesses unfortunately end up having what I like to call a “default” brand. And that’s exactly what it sounds like, it’s the basic, kinda boring “default” brand you end up with when you don’t really put any thought or intention into your brand strategy. And it makes it so much harder to grow your business this way, but this is how a lot of new businesses start out. And that’s why I’m on a mission to help you understand the actual power of branding!
Branding is about the things you do to intentionally influence how people perceive your business.
So you know, the visual things definitely play a large part. The types of fonts you use, the colours, the shapes, how you style your photos, the lighting. But it’s about more than just looking nice, it’s about crafting a story. And then there’s the less obvious stuff, like your brand voice, what type of content you share, what platforms you’re on, your company policies, and there’s so much more. All of that influences what people think of your business, that is your brand. And it determines what kinds of people will be attracted to your business.
So that’s actually the first benefit I wanna share on my list.
A solid brand attracts the right people.
It shows your audience that you “get” them, you share their values, you have the same sense of style, and you understand their needs.
Building a brand will legitimize your business.
Modern consumers, modern people, have certain expectations when it comes to where they spend their money. Honestly, we have high standards, especially when it comes to supporting something new. So when you build a brand that is clearly intentional, you’re signalling to people that you’re running a legit business. It’s not just a hobby or a personal side project.
It is so much easier for you to create consistent content.
If you have brand specific fonts that you use, specific colours, or words, or a specific style of photography, you instantly free up so much time and space whenever you’re creating something new. You’re not starting from scratch every time you need to create an instagram post or a sales page or a photoshoot or whatever you’re creating for your business.
And on a related note, another benefit is that
Having a well-defined brand makes it a lot easier to hire help when you need to.
If you need to hire a web designer, a social media manager, an ad agency, an editor or something else like that for your business, it’s going to bring up a lot of challenges if your brand identity is just “your personal style” without the element of consistency or strategy. When you get to the point where you’re collaborating with other people, they’re not gonna be able to read your mind to see your vision. And so it’ll save you a lot of time and frustration, and even money if you have defined and documented standards, not just for your brand visuals, but also for your brand messaging, your values, your goals, things like that.
Brand-building makes your business more memorable.
And there’s two parts to this, if you have a brand that’s unique, it’s going to be memorable because it’s different, it stands out. But the other thing is that with specific brand standards comes consistency, and repetition, and that builds a sense of recognition over time.
And that brings us to the last benefit, number 6, which is that
Building a strong brand makes your marketing more effective.
There’s this concept in marketing called the rule of 7 which is basically that a potential customer has to see something 7 times before they’ll take action. Now obviously this isn’t true 100% of the time, sometimes we’re impulsive. But generally speaking, most people aren’t gonna buy some random thing they saw in an ad once if they don’t know the brand. Like, I can speak from my personal experience as a buyer, even when I do make an impulsive purchase, it’s from a brand I already know, like, and trust. This point is especially relevant today, in the modern business world, with the internet and social media, brand-building is more important now than ever. The thing that a lot of people don’t talk about is that ads just aren’t as effective as they used to be, at least not in the same way. People are so overwhelmed with ads everywhere they go, that we start to mentally block them out. We’ve learned to scroll past them, to use adblockers, or to just ignore them. That’s why building a brand is such a valuable part of marketing your business, because you’re really going to struggle if you’re just relying on things like ads and cold calls. Not that it’s impossible to succeed that way, that’s not what I’m saying. But most modern consumers are very turned off by those types of strategies. Idk about you, but I get a bunch of e-mails and DMs from complete strangers offering their services to my business, and I just straight up delete those messages, because I don’t know those people. And also they’re usually so impersonal I just know they’re sending the same copy pasted message to 1000 other people. Like that is so not compelling! That is just an old-fashioned way of running your business and honestly to me, it doesn’t seem that efficient use of your time and it certainly doesn’t seem like fun. And if you’re not having fun building your business then literally what is even the point? Like you could just go get a job.
But if you’re trying to build a business ignites your passion and makes you excited to work every day, I recommend creating an intentional brand identity. And if you want a little extra help getting started with your brand, or improving your brand strategy, check out my free Brand Vision workbook (below). That is a free resource I made for you to help you start thinking about your brand strategically, even if you already have a logo and a colour palette, this workbook is about clarifying your vision and your brand strategy.
Looking for a branding expert to help you build the brand of your dreams? I invite you to check out LEIGH THE STUDIO where I offer brand design, web design, and brand strategy guidance to creative entrepreneurs that want to make money doing their own thing.
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