Your brand is your promise to your customer. It tells them what you have to offer and differentiates you from your competitors or others who are in the same field as you. Having a strong, distinguishable brand is an extremely useful way to solidify who you are and create a known name and image for yourself. Here is what we think you should know about brand development and how it can help you become more successful.
Make a Branding Strategy
A branding strategy is the how, what, when, where, why, and whom, in regards to communicating your message. Answering these questions about yourself will help you decide how you are going to show yourself off to the world both visually and verbally.
Think about how a company like Oreo brands itself compared to a generic or store brand cookie. You want to be like Oreo! So when thinking about your branding strategy you can apply techniques used in larger companies or from individuals who you feel are successful in representing themselves.
Define Your Brand
To define your brand you can ask yourself and answer these questions:
- What is your mission?
- What are the features of your creative talent?
- What do your fans or viewers already think of you and your creative talent?
- What qualities do you want associated with yourself and what you do?
After you go through these questions and have a better definition of yourself and what you do, come up with three words that encompass all of this information. These keywords can be used for inspiration and as a foundation for building your brand.
Understand the Brand Developing Components
Once you have a branding strategy that you feel would work and have successfully defined your brand, it is time to put everything together.
Create a great logo
The first thing that you can do is create a memorable and unique logo. This logo will be your main representation so you want it to really make a connection to who you are. Place this logo everywhere! A great tip is to order stickers with your logo and hand them out or sell them for a low price at your events or other venues. This is practically free marketing because your logo will be placed so many places.
Tell your story
Have your brand tell your story. A great story or message has the ability to attract both fans and the press. The more you can express your creative story within your brand the better.
Have a brand standard
You should create a consistent connection of colors, images, logo, writing voice,etc. among all of your platforms (website, Facebook, twitter, Instagram, press material, etc.).
Be true to your brand
In order to keep fans and admirers you have to follow through with what your brand promises, so make sure to stay true to what you state and visually represent through your marketing materials.
You can base the above brand developing components on your initial branding strategy, the answers to the define your brand questions and your three keywords to define your brand that you came up with.
Conclusion
Once you develop a brand, be true to it and stick with it. If you change things around all of the time there will be no set style that people will associate with you. You want your fans to know who you are, while understanding the underlying message of your creations or talent. Your brand will get you far so don’t be afraid to take some time to think about, and discover, a brand that truly exposes who you are, and what you do.
Do you need help? Arts Spark offers branding assistance! Check out the following link to learn more: Marketing Kick Start
The following info graphic from itscreativejuice.com is a good summary of what components your brand needs and the importance of keeping it consistent.
Sources:
http://skinnyartist.com/artist-branding-tips/
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/77408
http://www.public-good.com/WhatWeDo/IntegratedBrandingStrategy.aspx