So you’ve finally decided to build your brand, Hooray! What next?
Before we dive in, let’s take a look at what branding actually is – whether you’re branding your business or creating a personal brand:
Branding: Is the act of shaping how the public perceives you, your product or services. Great branding involves aligning your personal perception of your brand, your mission and values with the public’s perception of your brand through consistent communication and creative.
Simply put, your brand is only what people perceive it to be, so branding strategy is the act of aligning your vision and mission with how the public views you/ your brand.
Let’s dive into Branding 101, the BASICS, to help you define your brand’s mission, core values, target audience, tone of voice and logo!
1. Mission Statement
Your mission statement is a statement of purpose and vision, it communicates what your brand stands for, your goals and your value proposition. This statement should be clear, short, inspiring and authentic to your brand’s values. A great mission statement speaks directly to your ‘Why’ or the core belief that drives your brand.
Your mission statement should clearly define What you do, Why and How you do it. I would start by defining your ‘Why’ and once you’ve established that, what you do and how you do it will fall into place.
To define your ‘Why’ consider the deeper purpose driving your brand’s identity: What value are you offering your community? What is your purpose? What do you stand for? How does your brand solve a problem for your customer and how is it different from everyone else?
Brand Mission Statement Inspo:
“To nourish people and the planet. We’re a purpose-driven company that aims to set the standards of excellence for food retailers. Quality is a state of mind at Whole Foods Market.” -Whole Foods Market
“To offer designer eyewear at a revolutionary price, while leading the way for socially conscious businesses.” – Warby Parker
“Spread ideas.” -TED
” Our Mission is to build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.” – Patagonia
2. Establish Brand Core Values
Core values are a set of guiding principals that establish the foundation of your brand, this set of fundamental beliefs should drive every decision made within your brand. To define your core values, ask yourself what core themes and beliefs are at the center of my work? These should be un-shakeable, as they determine both what value you offer to your community and what your mission is as a brand.
Brainstorm key-words that you find to be fundamentally important to you and your mission as a brand, choose five of those words that resonate deeply and let those five core values drive everything that you do. If you find yourself questioning whether or not to write a post, create a product or post a piece of content to social media, ask yourself: does this align with my core values? If the answer is no, don’t move forward. This is a great barometer for your brand! To build a devoted audience and community, staying true to your core values and mission is incredibly important!
Your brand will resonate with individuals that share your core values, people align with brands that share their belief system and stand for their shared values and aspirations.
Core Value Inspo:
Authenticity, creativity, health, spirituality, achievement, adventure, community, self-expression, beauty, contribution, wellness, mental health, friendship, humor, leadership, technological advancement, connection, family, optimism, security, purpose… and so many more.
3. Identify Your Target Audience
The community that you wish to serve is at the core of your brand, identify your specific niche and get really detailed! Create a profile for your ideal customer and create content that speaks directly to them by offering a solution to a problem they have.
But how do you find your target audience?
Some questions to consider: What is their age, their gender and what is most valuable to them? What problems do they need help solving? What do they want to achieve? What does their lifestyle look like? What are they searching for online? What online platforms do they use regularly? Where can you find them in their free time?
Once you create a clear picture of who your target audience is, you can better serve them as a brand.
People want to support brands that align with their belief systems, if you stand for what they believe in and if you provide them value in some form, they will advocate for you!
4. Brand Tone of Voice + Personality
This is how to show up in the world and how you communicate to your audience. Your brand’s tone of voice is a culmination of your mission, brand values and target audience; The way you communicate and the personality that comes through in your copy and creative content should align with your beliefs as a brand. Your Voice should be consistent and distinct to you and your brand’s mission, it conveys the personality and ethos driving your brand and can build deep connections with your audience. Your Tone is the subtle inflection that can vary slightly depending on the content and the platform. Your tone of voice is incredibly important to building authentic connections to your audience, so stay true to your mission and values when deciding how to communicate to your community. Choose a tone that will allow you to convey your message as clearly as possible and will resonate deeply with your community!
For example, a scientifically driven medical brand will want to communicate with authority and poise, they wouldn’t want to communicate in a casual manner or use slaying or pejorative language. On the other hand, a holistic health or yoga brand will use language that resonates with their customer on a more personal and spiritual way, this language may be softer and more inspirational as opposed to authoritative.
Your brand’s tone of voice should be a reflection of you and your values, this will bring a sense of authenticity to your communication. While your tone across different platforms may vary slightly, consistency is key to retaining the trust of your audience.
5. Brand Mood Board
Mood Boards help you visualize your brand’s visual identity, by gathering a set of key visuals, designs and color stories, you can create more clarity and strategic direction for your brand. For help defining your brand’s personality, logo, brand colors and fonts, I suggest creating a branded mood board that visually aligns with your brand’s purpose, mission and tone. This board will serve as a visual representation of your brand’s visual style and can help you identify what brand colors, fonts and content styles best communicate your message and story to your audience. My favorite platform to use is Pinterest, simply create a private board and let yourself go wild! Keep in mind, don’t just pin any image you like to this board, try to keep your brand’s mission, tone of voice, value-proposition and target audience in mind when brainstorming your brand’s visual identity.
6. Content Pillars
Brand’s often have a set of content pillars that drive their creative content strategy. When planning and posting different types of content, brands will consider different sub-sets of their audience and think of creative ways to target individuals using a number of different content styles. This can help bring your brand to life by varying the content you post, creating dynamic, engaged posts that bring your brand’s story to life. These pillars are often targeted toward different sub-sets of your audience and niche, individuals within your audience that seek specific content to fit their goals and needs. Content pillars are at the core of your creative strategy and can come to life in many different ways, they centralize around core themes that stem from your brand’s mission statement. Content pillars represent relevant topics for your target audience, they can be centered around a core service or product that you offer
An example!
Brand: Natural Snack Food Brand
Audience: Health-focused millennial women, men in their mid-30’s seeking improved physical health, mid-30s father’s/mother’s seeking healthy snack options for themselves and their children
Content Pillars: 1.Recipes 2.Lifestyle Photography 3.Educational Health and Wellness Content 4. Brand Storytelling
Each of these pillars tie back to a core service or product that this brand offers, yet the creative content and style of communication varies depending on which content pillar their creative falls under. With consistent visual style and tone, all of this creative content will still align with the brand’s mission.
6. Logo + Variations
A killer logo can help your audience identify you across different platforms. The best logos are clear, legible and distinct. Your logo should tie into your tone of voice and clearly communicate both your brand name and the essence of your brand and mission. In terms of logo design, simple often works better. Symbols can be used to help bring clarity to your design, but make sure that they don’t detract from your overall design. Once you establish your main logo, you’ll want to create a set of variations to use in different circumstances. These should all work together cohesively. Logo and branding design are a unique and coveted skillset, hiring a professional designer can be a huge help, but there are great, free resources online as well!
To dive deeper into logo design and inspiration, I suggest that you check out these great resources!
7. Brand Colors + Fonts
There is a true psychological meaning behind choosing brand colors, certain colors have automatic and often sub-conscious associations. When choosing your brand colors, think back to your statement of purpose and target audience, what mood or emotion would you like to convey through your brand colors? Font choice may seem simple and obvious, but there are important subtitles to consider like clear legibility, how you will incorporate several different fonts (especially when considering website design), modern versus traditional serif fonts, the weight and size. I suggest exploring the links above for more inspiration and assistance in defining your brands colors and font choices.
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