Your secret weapon to launching an amazing brand.
So you have an amazing new business idea that you’re looking to launch, and have got something together on Canva which you think looks great – the logo is your favourite colour and appeals to your taste perfectly. However, sales aren’t as you had hoped, and you’re left wondering why.
I see this mistake a lot. It’s a myth that your branding needs to be based on your personal preferences, and a big mistake to do so. Read on to find out why.
Who is your target audience?
When starting off with brand creation, one of the first questions I always ask is Who is your target audience? This is a really important piece of the puzzle, and is absolutely key in launching an amazing brand.
If you can understand who your target audience is, then you can start to understand what drives them. What are they trying to solve with your service or product? What will really resonate with them and make them stop in their tracks?
You see, the most important people that your brand has to appeal to, is your target audience – and if they so happen to have a different taste to you, then so be it.
That’s not to say that the branding shouldn’t represent who you and your business are as well. In fact, it’s equally as important to do this too!
How do you want your business to come across?
When thinking about the image for the brand, it’s important to again, not think about what appeals to you, but how you want your business to be perceived. A great place to start, when thinking about this, is to think about what drives you. What are the business’s core values and aims?
It’s sometimes helpful to think about the business as if it were a person – what would this person be like if you met them in real life? Would they be fun, serious, quirky, professional? Think about how you want your customers to FEEL when they deal with your brand. All of this needs to also come across within your branding to appeal to your target audience.
So, how to go about appealing to them?
There’s a bit of psychology involved at this stage, but it’s useful to have a think about the different thoughts, feelings or emotions that come up when thinking about different colours. For example, Red is a very pressing, urgent and bold colour, whereas Blue is more calming and safe.
The same goes for fonts – if you have a look through any basic fonts list, some will come across as very modern looking; others will come across as more traditional. Everything invokes some kind of thought or emotion, and what you’re looking for is something that will both appeal to the type of people your customers are, as well as representing who you want your brand to be.
So that’s your secret weapon – understanding that it’s not all about you, but about your customer. It might be that you will evolve this over time, and that’s OK too. Some of the most well-known brands have also evolved over the years and you can tweak things as you get to know your customer more.
Need a helping hand?
It can be daunting, working on all this information prior to starting anything creative, but I promise, it’s worth it, to really get to the bones of the business. If you need a helping hand, I have created a workbook which can be purchased here to help you gain some clarity on all of the above.
You can also contact me for help with your brand creation, once you know what direction you’re travelling in, whether that’s logo and brand creation from scratch, or rolling that out across further marketing materials such as your brochures and flyers.