How business starts OUT...
Traditional "Start Up Business Essentials" Kit
Logo
Business Cards
Simple Website
Why no customers ???
What's Missing?
The problem
Your "Marketing Team" is typically made up of people in their own profession, who don't communicate with each other, don't know the vision of your company, and only do what they think is best for your company. When looking at the whole picture of your visual communication... everything looks detached, inconsistent and is not attractive/engaging.
Logo
Sally
Graphic Design/Side Hustle
Graphic Design/Side Hustle
Business Cards
John
Printer
Printer
Simple Website
Mark
PC Fixer/Website Maker
PC Fixer/Website Maker
WHAT ARE SOME BRANDS YOU LIKE?
WHAT DO THESE BRANDS HAVE IN COMMON?
Strong Brand Identity
They have a clear and consistent brand image that resonates with their target audience. This includes a memorable logo, color scheme, and overall visual identity.
Emotional Connection
They define the highest possible impact your company makes in the lives of your customers, so you can form and develop a commitment behind that purpose..
Consistency
They understand the wider beliefs of our audience. What’s important to them in the wider world, how that relates to your company, and develop a shared belief to align your company through.
Strong Online Presence
They leverage digital platforms effectively to engage with their audience, using social media, websites, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and other online tools to maintain visibility and interaction with their customers.
These traits help major brands stand out and maintain their position in the market.
as a small business, how CAN YOU LEVERAGE THESE big brand TRAITS?
Develop a Strong Brand Identity
Create a memorable logo and brand identi, choose a consistent color scheme, and develop a unique voice for your brand. This helps in making your brand recognizable and trustworthy.
Emotional Connection
Ensure that your branding is consistent across all platforms, from your website to social media and even in-store experiences. Consistency helps in building trust and recognition.
Tell Your Story
Share your brand’s story and values. People connect with stories and are more likely to support a brand that they feel emotionally connected to.
Focus on Customer Experience
Provide exceptional customer service. Small businesses can often offer a more personalized experience than larger companies, which can be a significant advantage.
Leverage Social Media
Use social media platforms to engage with your audience, share content, and build a community around your brand. This can help you reach a wider audience without a massive budget.
Brand ambassadors
Encourage your employees to be brand ambassadors. Their genuine enthusiasm can help spread positive word-of-mouth and build your brand’s reputation.
Future Proof
Become a high authority in your industry, and provide peace of mind to your business, that will set you up for 15 - 20 years in to the future, as you become the go to brand.
HOW DO WE GET THERE?
To help shift our mindset from business to brand, we will refer to oursleves as
[THE BRAND]
Complete brand
BRAND SUBSTANCE
BRAND EXPRESSION
BRAND SUBSTANCE
Purpose
vision
Mission
Values
POSITIONING STRATEGY
Audience
Competitors
Difference
Brand Persona
Personality & voice
Communication
Core Message Framework
Storytelling framework
Name Tagline Hooks
Visual Expression
brand identity system
Brand Presence
BELIEFS
BELIEFS ON THE INDUSTRY
Understand the Industry Based internal beliefs amongst the leadership within [THE BRAND] to understand where it’s headed and if there’s some positives to get behind or some negatives to push back on.
CUSTOMER BELIEFS
Define the highest possible impact [THE BRAND] makes on the lives of our customers and form a develop a commitment behind that purpose..
WORLD BELIEFS
Understand the wider beliefs of our audience. What’s important to them in the wider world, how that relates to [THE BRAND] and develop a shared belief to align through.
OUR FUTURE BRAND
WHERE WE’RE GOING
It’s crucial that we have a crystal clear understanding of where [THE BRAND] is headed and what that future looks like.
CUSTOMER BELIEFS
We need to understand what the future landscape looks like for our customers, our industry and our market. Where do we fit in that future and how do we achieve it?
AMBITION AND INSPIRATION:
It’s important that we are bold in our ambition and aspiration and commit to working towards a higher goal and a firmly established presence for [THE
BRAND].
COHESION
All personnel need understand and believe in the direction of [THE BRAND] and buy into the opportunity of achieving that future brand vision.
commitment
UNCOVER THE EVERYDAY
We need to identify the core commitments of the everyday tasks of [THE BRAND] so there is clarity
throughout the brand personnel about what needs to be accomplished to move towards the future brand vision.
UNDERSTAND THE PROMISE
Once we become clear on the difference we want to represent for our customers, we need to build a mantra around that difference. Our mantra becomes what we live and breathe on a day to day basis and guides our activities.
REFERENCE TOOL
In order to stay focused on the task and commitment at hand, we need to weave this commitment through the fabric of the brand and the way to do that is by referencing it everyday. A crystal clear internal message will help us do that.
PHILOSOPHY
DEFINE THE WAY WE WANT TO DO BUSINESS
We need to define how we want [THE BRAND] to be seen in our industry by our customers, our suppliers and the wider public.
CONSISTENT BRAND EXPERIENCE
It’’s important for our customers receive the same brand experience regardless of the channel of communication. Defining a brand experience philosophy
and how we want our customers to experience the brand is a key aspect of building brand loyalty.
MORAL COMPASS
Develop a set of guidelines that defines the values our brand will live by and how they are applied in our day-to-day operations.
Complete brand
BRAND SUBSTANCE
BRAND EXPRESSION
BRAND SUBSTANCE
Beliefs
Future Brand
Commit-ment
Philo-sophy
POSITIONING STRATEGY
Audience
Competitors
Difference
Brand Persona
Personality & voice
Communication
Core Message Framework
Storytelling framework
Name Tagline Hooks
Visual Expression
brand identity system
Brand Presence
Complete brand
BRAND SUBSTANCE
BRAND EXPRESSION
BRAND SUBSTANCE
Beliefs
Future Brand
Commit-ment
Philo-sophy
POSITIONING STRATEGY
Audience
Competitors
Difference
Brand Persona
Personality & voice
Communication
Core Message Framework
Storytelling framework
Name Tagline Hooks
Visual Expression
brand identity system
Brand Presence
Complete brand
BRAND SUBSTANCE
BRAND EXPRESSION
BRAND SUBSTANCE
Purpose
Vision
Mission
Values
POSITIONING STRATEGY
Audience
Competitors
Difference
Brand Persona
Personality & voice
Communication
Core Message Framework
Storytelling framework
Name Tagline Hooks
Visual Expression
brand identity system
Brand Presence
Complete brand
BRAND SUBSTANCE
BRAND EXPRESSION
BRAND SUBSTANCE
Purpose
Vision
Mission
Values
POSITIONING STRATEGY
Audience
Competitors
Difference
Brand Persona
Personality & voice
Communication
Core Message Framework
Storytelling framework
Name Tagline Hooks
Visual Expression
brand identity system
Brand Presence
TARGET AUDIENCE
SITUATIONAL CLARITY
Having a clear picture on our customers situation is key to understanding their lives which is defined in a comprehensive audience audit. Once we have a clear grasp of what their lives are like, we can see where [THE BRAND] fits in and what conditions we enter their lives in.
CHALLENGES AND PAIN-POINTS
We need to clarify where our audience is struggling and the pain-points associated with their struggle. Our customers challenges come pain-points and tapping into those pain-points is the key to resonating.
MORAL COMPASS
We need to understand our audiences fears, desires and emotions which will allow us to communicate with them effectively through those emotions.
PERSONALITY CONNECTION
By defining our audiences personality type, we can use their characteristics and behaviours to develop a personality that they’re attracted to.
COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE
COMPREHENSIVE COMPETITIVE AUDIT
We’ve already completed some research on our competitors which has given us some valuable insights
into the market landscape. A comprehensive audit
allows us to put the market landscape under the microscope.
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
The comprehensive competitive audit allows us to see a broad range of competitors and extract both their strengths and their weaknesses.This enables us to fully
understand the choices our audience has and how they feel about those choices.
MORAL COMPASS
The process of looking at the competitive landscape through a microscope allows us to see patterns. The patterns tell us where customers are satisfied, and more importantly, where our competitors are not meeting the needs of
their customers and where the gaps in the market are.
Differentiation Strategy
DEFINE WHAT WE WANT TO BE REMEMBERED FOR
Approaching the market with the same or very similar options to what’s
already out there will work against
[THE BRAND].
Defining why our audience
should choose us over our competitors is key.
DEVELOP A POSITIONAL APPROACH
Once we’re clear on how we want to approach the market and how we define
our difference, we need to develop a framework around how we communicate
that difference.
MEMORABLE QUEUE
The process of looking at the competitive landscape through a microscope allows us to see patterns. The patterns tell us where customers are satisfied, and more importantly, where our competitors are not meeting the needs of
their customers and where the gaps in the market are.
Complete brand
BRAND SUBSTANCE
BRAND EXPRESSION
BRAND SUBSTANCE
Purpose
Vision
Mission
Values
POSITIONING STRATEGY
Target Audience
Competitors
Difference Strategy
Brand Persona
Personality & voice
Communication
Core Message Framework
Storytelling framework
Name Tagline Hooks
Visual Expression
brand identity system
Brand Presence
Complete brand
BRAND SUBSTANCE
BRAND EXPRESSION
BRAND SUBSTANCE
Purpose
Vision
Mission
Values
POSITIONING STRATEGY
Audience
Competitors
Difference
Brand Persona
Personality & voice
Communication
Core Message Framework
Storytelling framework
Name Tagline Hooks
Visual Expression
brand identity system
Brand Presence
Complete brand
BRAND SUBSTANCE
BRAND EXPRESSION
BRAND SUBSTANCE
Purpose
Vision
Mission
Values
POSITIONING STRATEGY
Audience
Competitors
Difference
Brand Persona
Personality & voice
Communication
Core Message Framework
Storytelling framework
Name Tagline Hooks
Visual Expression
brand identity system
Brand Presence
Human personality
ALIGN BEHAVIOURS AND CHARACTERISTICS
We first need to understand the personality type of our audience which we uncover in the comprehensive audience audit. Once we understand their personality and their desires around their challenges and pain-points, we are
able to develop a personality to appeal to those desires.
DEVELOP A POSITIONAL APPROACH
Key to developing our personality is by defining the archetypal framework
that we develop it around. This framework provides a solid structure for our
personality and also assists in keeping it defined and familiar,.
MEMORABLE QUEUE
Once we have a clearly defined personality, we need to ensure it’s displayed
across all brand communication. Our personality will be a point of difference as
well as a key tactic in resonating. It’s important that we have a guide to make
sure this personality comes across consistently.
BRAND VOICE
DEFINING THE RIGHT TONE
Our personality will directly impact the tone of voice we adopt for our brand.
Our personality allows us to display characteristics though our tone of voice is
a large part of the delivery method of those characteristics.
DEVELOP A POSITIONAL APPROACH
The characteristics we want to display through our personality and tone of
voice will shape the language and vocabulary we use in our messaging. We
need to build a library of vocabulary that will form the foundation of our
messaging framework.
Complete brand
BRAND SUBSTANCE
BRAND EXPRESSION
BRAND SUBSTANCE
Purpose
Vision
Mission
Values
POSITIONING STRATEGY
Audience
Competitors
Difference
Brand Persona
Personality & voice
Communication
Core Message Framework
Storytelling framework
Name Tagline Hooks
Visual Expression
brand identity system
Brand Presence
Complete brand
BRAND SUBSTANCE
BRAND EXPRESSION
BRAND SUBSTANCE
Purpose
Vision
Mission
Values
POSITIONING STRATEGY
Audience
Competitors
Difference
Brand Persona
Personality & voice
Communication
Core Message Framework
Storytelling framework
Name Tagline Hooks
Visual Expression
brand identity system
Brand Presence
Complete brand
BRAND SUBSTANCE
BRAND EXPRESSION
BRAND SUBSTANCE
Purpose
Vision
Mission
Values
POSITIONING STRATEGY
Audience
Competitors
Difference
Brand Persona
Personality & voice
Communication
Core Message Framework
Storytelling framework
Name Tagline Hooks
Visual Expression
brand identity system
Brand Presence
MESSAGING FRAMEWORK
DEFINING THE WHAT AND THE HOW
We will already have a large piece of the ‘How” through our personality and
brand voice but we need to clearly define the “What”. Knowing what we
want to say and how we want to say it will be based on our audience and the
difference we want to represent to them.
POSITIONING FOCUS
Much of what we want to say will take direction from the position we take in
the marketplace. When we know the difference we want to represent to our
audience and what that difference means to them, that becomes to the core
message we want them to understand.
SEGMENTED DEPLOYMENT FRAMEWORK
Once we define the message we want to deliver to our audience, we’ll need to
build a framework to deliver it. Our message needs to be more than a simple
paragraph. We need to dissect the message into relevant key messages that we
can use as a guide for ongoing communication.
STORYTELLING FRAMEWORK
CLEARLY DEFINED JOURNEY
We need to develop a story around a clearly defined journey our audience
goes through from start to finish. This involves specific research onto our
audience, the path to success they follow and the events along the way.
POSITIONING FOCUS
Once we understand the journey, we can begin to develop the story. Both
our brand and our audience play key roles in the journey though it’s vitally
important that we have the limelight firmly focused on our audience and not
our brand.
SEGMENTED DEPLOYMENT FRAMEWORK
As with the core message framework, we need to dissect our story so it acts as
a guide for creating ongoing communication. Each section of the story should
tell an important part of the journey and lead to other stories that resonate
with the audience.
NAME, TAGLINE, HOOKS
A NAME THAT ALIGNS WITH THE MESSAGE
If possible, we would want the very first representation of our brand and the
easiest one for our audience to remember, to be formed from the message we
want them to understand. If we can derive the name from the message our
brand is aligned in communication from end-to-end.
DEVELOP AND UNFORGETTABLE TAGLINE
There are very specific characteristics that make up an effective tagline. We
need to make sure we instill these characteristics in the development as the
tagline is key in cementing our positioning strategy.
PERSONNEL HOOKS
It’s important that all brand personnel are crystal clear on what the brand
does. We develop hooks that can be memorised so all brand personnel have a
structured answer at the ready when asked what the brand does. These hooks
include 5 second version and a 20 second version.
Complete brand
BRAND SUBSTANCE
BRAND EXPRESSION
BRAND SUBSTANCE
Purpose
Vision
Mission
Values
POSITIONING STRATEGY
Audience
Competitors
Difference
Brand Persona
Personality & voice
Communication
Core Message Framework
Storytelling framework
Name Tagline Hooks
Visual Expression
brand identity system
Brand Presence
Complete brand
BRAND SUBSTANCE
BRAND EXPRESSION
BRAND SUBSTANCE
Purpose
Vision
Mission
Values
POSITIONING STRATEGY
Audience
Competitors
Difference
Brand Persona
Personality & voice
Communication
Core Message Framework
Storytelling framework
Name Tagline Hooks
Visual Expression
brand identity system
Brand Presence
Complete brand
BRAND SUBSTANCE
BRAND EXPRESSION
BRAND SUBSTANCE
Purpose
Vision
Mission
Values
POSITIONING STRATEGY
Audience
Competitors
Difference
Brand Persona
Personality & voice
Communication
Core Message Framework
Storytelling framework
Name Tagline Hooks
Visual Expression
brand identity system
Brand Presence
BRAND IDENTITY SYSTEM
IDENTITY THAT REPRESENTS THE PERSONALITY
Our strategy, position and personality will heavily influence our brand identity
system. The logo, typography and colour palette have major roles to play and
we need to ensure they align with our message.
IMAGE STYLE THAT DISPLAYS CHARACTERISTICS
We will need to develop an image library that we can use throughout our
brand presence. These images can be highly influential in communicating
characteristics depending on the direction.
GUIDE FOR CONSISTENCY
Once the brand identity system has been developed, we need to make sure it’s
applied as it’s intended. We’ll develop guidelines the provide rules of application
to make sure the identity remains focused over time.
Complete brand
BRAND SUBSTANCE
BRAND EXPRESSION
BRAND SUBSTANCE
Purpose
Vision
Mission
Values
POSITIONING STRATEGY
Audience
Competitors
Difference
Brand Persona
Personality & voice
Communication
Core Message Framework
Storytelling framework
Name Tagline Hooks
Visual Expression
brand identity system
Brand Presence
Complete brand
BRAND SUBSTANCE
BRAND EXPRESSION
BRAND SUBSTANCE
Purpose
Vision
Mission
Values
POSITIONING STRATEGY
Audience
Competitors
Difference
Brand Persona
Personality & voice
Communication
Core Message Framework
Storytelling framework
Name Tagline Hooks
Visual Expression
brand identity system
Brand Presence
Complete brand
BRAND SUBSTANCE
BRAND EXPRESSION
BRAND SUBSTANCE
Purpose
Vision
Mission
Values
POSITIONING STRATEGY
Audience
Competitors
Difference
Brand Persona
Personality & voice
Communication
Core Message Framework
Storytelling framework
Name Tagline Hooks
Visual Expression
brand identity system
Brand Presence
Complete brand
BRAND SUBSTANCE
BRAND EXPRESSION
BRAND SUBSTANCE
Purpose
Vision
Mission
Values
POSITIONING STRATEGY
Audience
Competitors
Difference
Brand Persona
Personality & voice
Communication
Core Message Framework
Storytelling framework
Name Tagline Hooks
Visual Expression
brand identity system
Brand Presence
Complete brand
BRAND SUBSTANCE
BRAND EXPRESSION
BRAND SUBSTANCE
Purpose
Vision
Mission
Values
POSITIONING STRATEGY
Audience
Competitors
Difference
Brand Persona
Personality & voice
Communication
Core Message Framework
Storytelling framework
Name Tagline Hooks
Visual Expression
brand identity system
Brand Presence
Complete brand
BRAND SUBSTANCE
BRAND EXPRESSION
BRAND SUBSTANCE
Purpose
Vision
Mission
Values
POSITIONING STRATEGY
Audience
Competitors
Difference
Brand Persona
Personality & voice
Communication
Core Message Framework
Storytelling framework
Name Tagline Hooks
Visual Expression
brand identity system
Brand Presence
Complete brand
BRAND SUBSTANCE
BRAND EXPRESSION
BRAND SUBSTANCE
Purpose
Vision
Mission
Values
POSITIONING STRATEGY
Audience
Competitors
Difference
Brand Persona
Personality & voice
Communication
Core Message Framework
Storytelling framework
Name Tagline Hooks
Visual Expression
brand identity system
Brand Presence