Everyone is talking about it. Branding. Personal Brands. Business Brands. While it has always been in the marketing mix, small businesses are realizing that they really can’t survive with just a business card and a sign on their door. So, you’ll need to enter the brave new world of branding.
Branding Strategy begins with your own soul search. Big companies do it, and they give it a fancy “marketing speak” name we won’t mention here. As a small business in the luxury sector, you’re going to be a bit more personal in your approach but the process is the same.
Start with a blank book and work each day to put down your thoughts about your business, key words are helpful. Create a list of words that describe things like:
- products/services
- customers/clients
- projects/platforms
This list above, is designed to get you thinking about your business as if you were describing it to a historian or curator. Every detail should be included in your notebook over a period of say, a few days or a week. Artists call this “getting it out of my head” and onto paper. There are no wrong answers here; just your thoughts freely expressed. You may already know all of this, why write it down?
This is the first step in getting a clear idea about your message that will end up on a number of channels. Many of you may already be very visual (Interior Designers, for example) working with words may be very challenging for you. Designers are very good at saying things with objects, colors, spaces, form and design. Putting together your branding notebook is just like a “ideas” board or “mood” collage so you can certainly add an image or two. This is one place to begin your brand platform.
Your portfolio, client list or body of work might also be another place to review as well. Are you doing the projects you want to do? Do you have an idea of what sort of work you want to do for the future? This can also be included as the vision or future direction of where you wish to take your business. This is the “aspirational” portion of this exercise. See if you can put this future concept into one or two sentences, or go back to your description words list.
When you’re finished take a step back and put the work aside. We suggest taking a walk. Then, call us in the morning.
Pikke Allen/Brand Curator/CCO
For more details on Personal Brands, head over to: The Style Strategy Journal on WordPress.
ARTIFICE Atelier 