Ok, full disclosure. We’re not mind-readers. But, we do know good branding tips like the psychology of color and design. You’ve probably heard that statistic about how you have a matter of seconds to make a first impression? That’s true about your brand, too. The colors and design elements you use will influence the way people view your brand.
Branding Tips
Fear not. One good thing about branding: you can always tweak it. And if you want to get an idea of what message your branding sends, you can start by looking at the customers you’re attracting. In fact, we did this ourselves. We shifted from being primarily known for providing freebies and templates to being known for helping small businesses have big brands. Once we decided to focus on serving people leveling up their business, we updated our branding to reflect that.
Do you know who your ideal customer is?
There’s a good chance you’ve seen some form of this question somewhere on the internets. Terms like “ideal client,” “ideal client avatar,” and “ICA” are thrown around like confetti. But if you’re making a shift in your biz (or to use some more business buzzwords: scaling or pivoting), your ideal client’s probably changing too.
Sometimes when thinking about ideal customers, people focus exclusively on demographics. Demographics are things like gender, age, relationship status, job, socioeconomic status, family size. These things can be useful, especially when developing messaging. If you target moms and you write about #momlife, those moms are more likely to feel like you get them. But we all know that not all moms have the same style or are drawn to the same things.
This is why knowing the psychographics of your audience is so important. What are their personalities like? What are their values? Their attitudes? Their interests? Going back to the mom example, are they more like Clair Huxtable or Lorelai Gilmore? Or any wonderful variety of mom in between?
How do I find this information about my customers?
Some of this information might be obvious from your interactions with your customers. You might have no idea about some of it. You don’t have to know it all. But the more you know, the more you can develop a brand that speaks to them.
If you’re connected to your customers through social media, spend some time checking out their profiles. Don’t worry, we’re not saying be a stalker. We’re just encouraging you to look for some of the information we covered above.
If you really wanted to go all in on understanding your audience, you could survey your customers. You could ask them questions like:
- Why did they choose you over other options?
- What was it about your business that initially got their attention?
- What did they like most about their experience with you?
- If they had to choose 3 words to describe your business, what would they choose?
Once you notice some trends, you’ll know those are the types of things other potential customers would notice too. Then, you can intentionally implement these things into future design, copy, or social media posts. Or you can have branding professionals help you with this part. For a busy entrepreneur, branding can be overwhelming. For businesses like ours, it’s what we love to do.
Knowing what appeals to your ideal customers is just one part of branding. If you’d like to learn more about how to understand/update your branding, we invite you to sign up for our free DIY Brand Audit Workbook. There’s even a section there for you to take notes on your ideal customers. Once you use the workbook, you can use it to update your branding yourself, or share it with a branding professional to help them quickly understand your brand. Win-win!
What are some branding tips you’ve heard or learned? Let us know in a comment below!
