Your Brand Is So Much More Than Your Logo, And It Has To Be Genuine
When new business owners think about their brand, they often picture what their logo will look like. Now, while this one aspect of your brand is often the most tangible, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Your brand is everything your customer sees and hears about you. It’s your tone of voice, communication style, your energy when in a meeting or filming a video, and of course, visual things like your colour pallet and fonts. Now I’m no branding designer (I leave that up to the experts, like Club Coco), but I do know a thing or two about communicating your brand essence.
Take the Have and Hold brand. Because of the stage of business I’m in, it’s very much based on my (Kelsey) personality. One of the threads you’ll see throughout my marketing is gardening references. I LOVE my veggie garden, it gets to the point at times where it’s all I talk about, so of course it’s woven into my work persona, and the H&HM brand as an extension.
It starts on the home page of my website, with the line “I use authentic social media, beautifully designed and functional websites, data driven paid advertising, and community focused marketing strategies to ensure your business grows as well as my veggie patch does.”
It then features in my pricing. My social media packages are named, Tomato, Zucchini, and Pumpkin, and my Paid Advertising packages are Daisy and Sunflower. You’ll notice that some of my branding photos are taken outside in my garden, further solidifying this theme. And if I’m coming to your office for a meeting, it’s more likely that I’ll turn up with a Zucchini or a bunch of flowers in my hand than a coffee.
When it comes to brand personality and tone of voice, I’m typically a pretty happy-go-lucky person who doesn’t take myself too seriously, and I’m known to drop an f-bomb in a meeting. Equally, I know when to put my foot down, stand up for myself, and stop being Mrs Nice Guy. This is all reflected in my social media comments, conversations I have, and my favourite piece of feedback I’ve ever received, from my then-boss, “Your greatest strength is that you know when to play nice, and when to scruff someone by the neck.”
Figure out what your brand personality is made up of, make it genuine to who you and your team are, and stick to it. I’ll leave you with three questions that I ask clients in their prep work for The Strategy Experience to start developing this yourself.
If your brand was a person, who would they be? This can be a celebrity, a person you know, or a persona (the fun single aunt). Describe them.
How would you describe your tone of voice when speaking with your customers?
What pieces of your personality weave their way into your business personality?