How to Create a Brand Identity You Love
When starting your new business (or updating your current one) you know branding is important but the question is... How to create a brand identity that will resonate with your dream clients?
That’s where I come in - I’m going to walk you through everything you need to know about creating a brand identity you love and in turn your clients will too!
What is brand identity and why is it important?
In a nutshell, brand identity is the visual and vocal piece of your business, from your logo, fonts, colours and imagery to the tone of voice you use in your copy. It’s also the feeling that all these pieces bring together, ultimately how you want your audience/clients to feel when they land on your brand. The know, like, trust factor.
We’re getting more and more distracted everyday by social media, companies trying to sell us something multiple times a day, playing games on our phones whilst watching Netflix (come on you know you’ve done that) - that standing out from the crowd can be difficult.
That’s why brand identity is so important.
You want to be able to stand out from the crowd - quickly.
For example, when people are restlessly scrolling through social and your post comes up, we want them to stop and take a moment to look at what you’ve posted.
That person followed you for a reason, they like you and if your branding is easily identifiable to you - then they WILL stop scrolling. They’ll take a moment to take in what you’ve got to say.
When I’m quickly scrolling through my feed, I know when it’s one of my favourite visionaries posts so I’ll stop and pay attention. I stop because they have learnt how to create a brand identity that is unique to them and thus makes me want to read the post.
What Makes a Good Brand Identity?
Clarity.
When starting out a lot of people struggle with this point because they’re just finding their feet. Often when you start a business, you’re not quite sure what it is you’re going to be doing - this can be particularly so for service providers.
You may find that you look to what everyone else is doing and you may try and emanate them which I myself have been guilty of - this never works. The whole point of a great brand identity is that it is unique to you and your business.
What you’re doing may not be unique, I’m sure there are others doing what you do, others using the colours you are wanting to use - but the way that you put it all together, the tone of voice of the copy you use WILL be unique to you.
So just do you and try not to visually change your brand every two months or so. Consistency is key.
Get REALLY clear on what you like visually, if you think it will resonate with your audience / clients, be confident and go with it.
How to Create a Brand Identity that Resonates with You and Your Audience
Above I talk about what makes a great brand - clarity on who you are, what you like, not trying to emanate someone else and confidently go forth with your idea (not to chop and change it every few minutes). Now I’m going to go into more detail on how to do this.
Get to Know Yourself
When I work with my website design clients, I give them a questionnaire to get to know them better and also for them to get to know themselves better. I do this because to create a brand you and your clients love and be attracted to work with - we want it to be a soulfully aligned part of you and who you are.
Why is that important?
Because there may be multiple people doing what you do, and the reason someone will buy from you is because they resonate with YOU. This is why we want to get WHO you are across in your branding.
To best explain this, I thought I’d show you a sample of some of the questions I ask my clients. Here is an example from Genevieve’s questionnaire...
If you were to ask your friends and family (even clients) how best to describe you, what do you think they'd say
Kind, warm, friendly, approachable, spiritual, calm, good sense of humour
What design style are you drawn to - fashion/interiors etc?
Relaxed yet well put together, softer colours - I like muted pastels, nature indoors - plants/flowers etc, not a big fan of patterns, simple and modern, I like to wear pinks and blues - oh and neutrals, whites/cream etc
What do you want your clients to FEEL when they land on your website, they see your branding?
Calm, peace, connection, cool, funky, trust, comfort, harmony, relief, hope, optimistic, inspired, excitement, love, eagerness, warmth, friendliness, confidence
** can you see from these words colours that come to mind? I see blues and neutral soft colours. From Genevieve’s words I would never think red or fluorescent pink would be right for her brand.
You can see what Genevieve’s website looks like here >>>
If you’d like to know what else I ask my clients and so many more tips on how to create a brand identity you (and your clients) love, check out my brand workshop here >>>
Get to Know Your Target Audience
** hint it’s kind of you!
A lot of the clients I work with are service based clients where the brand identity is centred around them as the face of the company and even when it’s not, they’re usually the inspiration behind it.
I think even when you aren’t the face and it’s a product based business - mostly the founder does have a huge influence on the brand.
For example Richard Branson of Virgin, is very humorous and bold, he loves adventure - this is reflected in his branding from the visual aspect of the bold red to the tongue in cheek tone of voice of the brand.
Sara Blakely of Spanx is also like Richard in that she’s very funny as a person, she’s kind and cares about her customers. This is reflected throughout her company's branding. Again she uses red as her main colour - there’s that boldness again and the tone of voice of the brand is all about empowering women and kindness.
The reason I’m saying all of this is because your audience are normally a wider extension of you. You probably started your business because you recognised a problem that you’d had and you’ve found the solution and you now want to help others find it.
So if your target audience are a wider extension of you, they will probably be attracted to colours that you are. I think some people get distracted with what ‘they think’ their clients will like and go so vastly different from what they themselves do, that the branding is never congruent between the two.
That all being said, I would first start off with what you like branding wise and then go and show your initial thoughts to people who may be your potential audience, see if it resonates. Do be careful with this as not everyone will love what you’ve created but they may have some great insights for you.
My way of doing things may be slightly controversial as I know so many people that spend a lot of time getting to know their audience and where I think that’s so important when writing copy for a sales page or social media - for your branding I think YOU are more important as like I said, mostly your audience are a wider extension of you.
Find Inspiration
I find the best place to start when looking for inspiration is in your home and wardrobe. That’s where I start first.
Look at the colours that you wear the most in your wardrobe.
What highlight or base colours do you have a lot in your home?
You'll find that you have a pretty good idea of what taste you go for when you do this. Back when I said - try not to emulate what others are doing, what I mean is don’t do what they’re doing exactly.
I think it’s great to get inspiration from people that you see as peers/competitors. You may see a colour palette someone uses that feels very you, but maybe you use slightly different tones and add in a highlight colour that pops out.
Create a Brand Identity Vision Board
OK so this is my all time favourite thing to do when I’m rebranding my own business and what I get my clients to do before we start working together… I get them to create a brand vision board on Pinterest.
What prey tell is a brand vision board I hear you say??
A brand vision board is where you pin lots of images that FEEL good to you aesthetically and the direction you’d like the brand for your business to look like.
At this point if you’ve followed my advice above and asked yourself some deep questions about who you are, how you see your audience, how you want them to feel etc - you should be ready for this next stage.
See below for my step by step guide on how to create your own brand identity vision board.
STEP 1
Create a board in PInterest and make it a Secret board. I prefer to make the boards secret at this stage because I personally don’t want people to see, totally up to you though!
STEP 2
Here are some key terms to search for when in Pinterest;
Colour palettes
Fonts
Logos
Images / vibes
Shapes / Patterns
Photoshoot Inspiration
Website Design Inspiration
STEP 3
My suggestion is to pin, pin, pin. Sometimes you won’t even know you have a style. You just pin what feels good and what you’re attracted to. Often when we do this, there can be quite an eclectic range of imagery and what I want you to do after you’ve finished pinning is to refine it.
Create a section within your board that is called FINAL BOARD or whatever you’d like to name it. In here, move all of your favourite pins that feel 100% aligned with how you see your brand.
STEP 4
There you have it. Your board should be complete at this point. Your next step is to pick your exact colour palette, the fonts you’d like to use, source the stock imagery and your own photos that.
Collate everything so that you can start the process of using your brand identity on your website, your social media and any other promotional materials you need for your business.
Learn How to Create a Brand Identity with me
Wahooo, you now know how to create a brand identity you love for your business, whether it be for a totally new business or your rebranding - congratulations.
You’ve learned how to;
Get to Know Yourself (this may seem silly but honestly it’s a biggie!)
Get to Know Your Target Audience (hint it starts with you)
Find Inspiration
Create a Brand Identity Vision Board
I myself LOVE reading blogs that help me with certain aspects of my business that I’d like some help with and I hope this was helpful to you BUT how I best learn is visually.
That’s why I wanted to take what I’ve written here for you and create a workshop for you. I’m so excited to share it with you as I now use it with all my clients and the results I’ve seen have been amazing. The brand vision boards and questionnaires I get back are so much more nuanced and finely tuned, that it makes the process of creating the brand and thus the websites for my clients sooo much easier. I want this for you too! So when you’re ready to design your website or hire a designer to do it for you, you will have a blueprint of your brand ready to go.
You can sign up for your FREE brand identity workshop here, where I’ll teach you everything you need to know about how to create a brand identity you love.
Do drop any comments / questions you have below on how to create a brand identity for your business and I’ll answer them happily.