Launching & Building a Brand For Dummies. Amy Will

different, and why it’s better. It’s all about defining your brand identity in a way that differentiates your brand from competing brands or other products or services that may attract the attention of your target market. See Chapter 3 for details.

      Step 3: Establishing your branding goals

      In this step, you set goals for your brand, including the following:

       Increasing brand awareness

       Creating an emotional connection with customers and prospects

       Differentiating your business, product, service, or self from the competition

       Building credibility and trust

       Increasing sales and profitability

      This step also involves building a plan to meet your branding goals and deciding on ways to measure your progress toward achieving those goals. See Chapter 4 for details.

      Step 4: Defining your brand’s customer avatar

      A customer avatar is a fictional character that represents your target customers. Its purpose is to give you a sense of your audience that inspires you to create design elements and content that are likely to persuade customers to support and even promote your brand.

      This step involves research and analysis to get to know the people who make up your target market, describing your avatar in your own words, and refining it to keep up with the times and any changes in your target market.

      

You can create more than one customer avatar to represent people from different market segments you’re trying to penetrate. But you want to avoid trying to be all things to all people and making an avatar so broad that your design and content have no measurable impact on anyone. See Chapter 5 for guidance on creating a customer avatar.

      Step 5: Creating a brand style guide

      One key factor in branding success is consistency. Every time someone encounters your brand, you have the opportunity to reinforce your brand identity in their mind. Think of your brand as being a catchy song that gets stuck in the listener’s head. A brand style guide is a rulebook that ensures consistency by governing everything that contributes to the look and feel of your brand, including the following:

       Corporate guidelines, including mission statement, values, and targeted demographics

       Colors

       Typography (typeface, sizes, and spacing)

       Logos

       Imagery (photos, illustrations, and infographics)

       Tone of voice (fun, professional, caring, and so on)

      See Chapter 6 for guidance on creating a brand style guide.

      Step 6: Building a branded website, app, and email account

      Because so many people spend so much of their time on the Internet these days, creating a strong online presence has become an important part of branding. To begin to build an online presence, do the following things:

       Claim a unique domain that reflects your brand, such as GirlGangtheLabel.com.

       Build a website, blog, online store, or a hybrid of those three things in that domain. This site acts as your main hub. Then you can drive traffic to your main hub from other Internet sites, such as social media platforms and discussion forums.

       Use the domain in your email address (such as [email protected]) to reinforce your brand in every outgoing email message.

       (Optional) Create a branded app (or hire an app developer to do the work for you) that further reinforces your brand while making it easy for customers or clients to place orders and stay connected.

      See Chapter 7 for details.

      Step 7: Forming strategic partnerships

      One of the most powerful ways to promote your brand is to form mutually beneficial partnerships with other brands, sort of like hitching your wagon to a star. If your brand is built around retail, getting your products into popular retail chains is one approach. I was able to persuade Nordstrom to carry my Girl Gang the Label fashion line, which was mutually beneficial. The partnership generated sales and revenue for both parties, increased my brand’s profile, and helped Nordstrom position itself as a hip place to shop.

      

Always be on the lookout for potential partnerships. Even if you’re flying solo or have a small business outside the retail space, you can find partnership opportunities to extend your brand’s reach and boost brand awareness. See Chapter 9 for details.

      Step 8: Launching your brand

      After building your brand, when you have all the pieces in place, you’re ready to launch it. This step involves scheduling the launch, preparing incentives to generate interest, getting press coverage, and making it easy for users to share your content with everyone they know. See Chapter 10 for guidance on executing a successful launch campaign.

      

At this stage in the branding process, your goal is to get your campaign to go viral. To achieve that goal, you need to do a big push in both traditional and social media channels — wherever the people in your target market go for information.

      Step 9: Promoting your brand

      Promoting your brand involves everything you do during and after your launch to extend your brand’s reach and strengthen brand awareness. It typically involves the following activities:

       Content marketing — sharing content that subtly promotes your brand without explicitly doing so (see Chapter 8)

       In-person experiences, such as events, pop-up stores, retail locations, and conferences (see Chapter 11)

       Podcasting — sharing audio presentations and interviews (see Chapter 12)

       Social media marketing (see Chapter 13)

       Email marketing (see Chapter 14)

       Advertising (see Chapter 15)

      Step 10: Caring for and protecting your brand

      Branding