Ep 15: The Rooadmap to a Successful Brand + Website – Phase 1: Discovering Your Brand’s Indentity

In each episode before we start with our main topic. We want to recognize clients and share design news and trends. So this week, one of our clients Pacific Neuro Science Institute has a doctor that recently released clinical trial results from the first glioblastoma vaccine. Renowned neuro-oncologist Santosh Kesari MDPHD is one of the authors of a phase three trial that found that the use of both newly diagnosed glioblastoma and recurrent glioblastoma extended the survival of patients. This is amazing and the world’s very first glioblastoma vaccine. 

 

If you would like to learn more the link will be in our show notes and you can also subscribe to our newsletter to get all of the links as well. 

 

In addition, we wanted to feature this article, Personalized Marketing Done Right by Jonas Nelson on Sparks and Honey. 

 

Personalized marketing matters more than ever consumers expect highly authentic interactions with their brands of choice. Organizations are expected to understand their consumer and steepest needs and quickly get how to connect with their audiences at a time when people are more tuned into privacy than ever before. How can brands know if they’re getting it right? 

 

Sparks and honey dive into the cultural tensions between consumer personalization and privacy at scale. To learn more, please click the link in our show notes, it’s really, interesting and can potentially help you and your business market themselves. Highly recommend checking this out. 

 

All right. That’s it for our design news and client spotlight. 

 

Let’s jump into our main topic. In the last episode, we started a series called The Roadmap to Building a Successful Brand and Website, and in this series, we will teach you how to build a successful brand and website. In this episode, we will focus on phase one, Discovering your Brand and Identity, I like to call this the discovery phase. In this phase, we will be digging in and articulating what you envision for your brand. 

 

Download the phase one to-do list so you can follow along and take additional notes as we go through each step. So please access the show notes now and download that for yourself, I’ll take some time for you to do this. The next part of this podcast will be highly interactive, and I ask that you bring out a piece of paper and something to write with and be prepared to jot down your thoughts, your notes, and what you envisioned for yourself and your brand. So I’m going to give you a few moments, please go get some paper, some water, and something to write with, and be prepared to start off discovering your brand identity. 

 

The first step that we’re going to complete is one. Determine your brand’s personality. 

 

All right, so start by grabbing that piece of paper I was telling you about and something to write with. Now close your eyes and imagine your brand. Take a second and think about how you want people to see your brand. 

 

What do you envision? 

 

Take some time to think deeply about this. 

 

What do you feel when you think of your brand? 

 

How do you want people to feel when they see your brand? 

 

How does that match the products that you want to sell? Or the services you want to provide? 

 

All right, I’ll give you a few more moments. 

 

Okay, open your eyes and write down the word that came to your mind. 

 

Is it modern and sophisticated maybe? Maybe family oriented? 

 

Or even creative with a twist? 

 

Write down a list of descriptive words. 

 

This might be a little bit difficult, but I challenge you to think of all the ways that you can describe your brand and what you envisioned for yourself. 

 

Perfect, now that you have some descriptive words, let’s circle the words that are most important to you and how you truly want people to perceive your brand. I’ll give you some time, and feel free to pause this podcast if I’m going too fast, and take some time for yourself to think about these things when you’re ready, go ahead and press the play button. 

 

All right, now circle the words that are most important to you and how you truly want people to perceive your brand. Keep these words handy, as we will add them to our brand guidelines. If you’re still trying to imagine what your brand could be, you could review this article for inspiration. Its article features different trends and different things people are doing,  to represent their brand’s personality. 

 

Reviewing trends may inspire new ideas and expose you to ideas you never thought were possible, but at the same time, review trends with caution as they always come and go. If you find a design that inspires you, create something similar that reflects the words you wrote earlier, or just take a little bit of inspiration here and there, doesn’t need to match exactly

 

Right now we will be discussing our second step which is, Find and set your brand’s vision and mission. 

 

Determining your brand’s vision is very important, it dictates a collective goal of the company and what you want your brand to become. Although I made it seem like it’s the most essential thing in the world and that it’s a concrete thing, the fact is that it’s not. What your vision is right now could be greatly different from your vision a year from now and that’s completely okay. 

 

Moving through life as people, we change, society changes and it’s okay for this to shift. Your mission statement focuses on the now, what you’re doing to meet your bigger vision, and think of your brand’s vision as the bigger picture the and mission statement is the steps, goals, and little things that help you achieve this vision. 

 

A solid mission within a business helps you to stay on track, true to your brand, and true to your goals. Everything you do within your business, from the clients you take on to the marketing that you create should be rooted in your mission. You can also think of your mission statement as a compass that points to your vision. 

 

 I’m going to give you some time right now to think about what your vision and mission are.

 

Start with your brand vision, think broad terms. I think determining your brand’s personality will be helpful to imagine your brand.  

 

What is your brand vision? 

 

What do you want your brand to be? Like, what do you see for your brand? 

 

And once you have this in mind. Think how can I get there? 

 

So moving on to step three. Do your research and set your target audience. 

 

The biggest mistake I see people make when setting their target audience is saying that everyone is their target audience, well that is completely not true. You want to relate to the customers by sharing common values and interests. When your target audience is very broad it is hard for people to relate to it. People can relate to things that are more niche, and they feel like, “Wow I also experienced that”, “Oh my goodness I can relate to that”, but it cannot be broad. 

 

So take some time to think about your target audience and decide if it fits this will help set the right tone for your campaigns and get the most results. Make sure to keep this information handy. 

 

Some important tips: Think about who would be attracted to your brand, And what can you offer them. Will they be interested in these things? 

 

Think about age ranges, think about genders, even think about socio-economic status, think about education, think about location. 

 

There are so many different aspects, really sit down and think about who would benefit from your services and products, from what you are offering, and what kind of audience you want to be attracting. Make sure there’s consistency there as well, so make sure to keep this handy. 

 

And we move on to the fourth step. Identify the tone for your brand’s message. 

 

We’re going to take some time right now to go over all of the information we have written down throughout this process. Take a step back and analyze everything and make sure that everything sounds consistent. If an aspect clashes with another area or doesn’t fit, take some time right now to think through everything and make changes accordingly if needed. Once you’ve done this. 

 

It’s time to identify the tone of your brand’s message. You’re brand messaging conveys who you are, what you offer, and why it adds value to your audiences.

 

This part encourages us to use words and phrases that connect with our target audience, which we identified in the previous step. So some examples of this are maybe your tone of voice is positive and inspiring like Nike, or maybe it’s strong and aggressive like Harley Davidson, maybe it’s proud and inclusive like Ford, or maybe it’s absurd and weird like Old Spice, or elegant and sweet like Tiffany. 

 

Think about how you want to be perceived again, this ties into everything that we’ve already talked about. This is more about how are we going to say these things and how are we going to express this.

 

Take some time right now to brainstorm some ideas, this might be a little bit difficult, but I know you can do it. Feel free to do your research and find examples that may be relevant to you and your brand. 

 

Once you complete that let’s move on to step five. Which is to Define and nail down your offerings. 

 

Now, since we know our audience and their needs it’s time to create offerings that meet these needs. Let’s take a moment to review all of the information that we have come up with until this point. Let’s look at all the information and make sure that everything makes sense together. 

 

I know I encouraged you to do this and the last step, with this being the very last step, it’s important that we do this one more time and continuously do this to make sure that everything is consistent. 

 

 We don’t want to create your brand’s vision and mission in a way that wouldn’t appeal to your target audience. I’ll give you a moment to review everything and make any necessary changes. Feel free to pause. 

 

Okay hello, how did it go? Did you make sure that all parts are consistent with each other? 

 

Amazing, now we can work on creating your offerings. 

 

Since we just made sure everything looks accurate, now we will brainstorm possible offerings that will match and be consistent with the information you just reviewed. 

 

Make a list of ideas for different offerings that align with your brand. Make a list of at least five and think, is this something I can offer at all times? Is this something I can only offer sometimes? What would the customer’s journey look like? 

 

I’ll give you some time to brainstorm now. 

 

Hi, I’m back.

 

Are you able to brainstorm a few options? 

 

Perfect! If not all good, take me a few more moments. 

 

Once you feel confident in your options we can analyze the options you wrote down. Look over your lists and eliminate any options that don’t align with your brand’s info we came up with earlier. Think about what options are something you can promote consistently. 

 

Try to narrow it down to one or two, and identify what offerings can be added later to improve or enhance the customer journey. Now think about what options are, something you can promote consistently, and try to narrow it down to one or two options. 

 

Perfect! So these items that you listed can be viewed as your main offering. 

 

Identify what offerings can be added later to improve or enhance the customer experience journey. This would be something like add-ons or maybe a supporting product or service even. 

 

Were you able to identify your main offering? Amazing! 

 

As of this point, I suggest focusing on your main offerings, but also planning as to when, or maybe a general timeline of when you want to incorporate those supportive offerings. 

 

Congrats! At this point, you should have determined your Brand’s Personality, Vision, Mission, Target Audience or Audiences, Tone for Message, and Offerings. 

 

Now that you know, your brand’s identity, we can move on to phase two, the Initial Acquisition.

 

We’ve gone over a lot of information, so make sure to review your brand’s identity one more time before next week’s episode to make sure it aligns with your vision but also is consistent overall. 

 

I am so excited for you and your brand. 

 

If you found this difficult to do no worries, this is what we do. Feel free to reach out to us if you would like assistance in creating your business’s brand and making your brand and website a reality. All information will be in our newsletter, so make sure to subscribe to our website.