How to build a brand that stands out?

Connect to your audience

Without a clear purpose, a personality, and cross-platform brand storytelling on how you will make a difference, your clients could quickly forget you or dismiss you as yet another branded message in the crowd.

Connecting with your audience is an essential part of building a successful website and business. Here are a few ways to achieve this:

  1. Define your purpose and communicate it clearly: Your website should clearly communicate what your business does and how it can help your audience. This will help to attract the right visitors and build trust with them.
  2. Develop a consistent brand personality: Your brand personality should be consistent across all platforms, including your website, social media, and marketing materials. This will help your audience to recognize and remember your brand.
  3. Use storytelling to make a difference: Use storytelling to showcase how your business is making a difference in the lives of your customers. Share customer testimonials, case studies, and other real-life examples of the impact your business is having.
  4. Engage with your audience: Use social media, email marketing, and other tools to engage with your audience and build a community around your brand. Encourage feedback and respond to comments and questions in a timely manner.
  5. Personalize your communication: Personalize your communication as much as possible. Use your audience’s name and segment your email list based on their interests.
  6. Use video and images: Videos and images are a powerful way to connect with your audience. Use them to showcase your products, services, and brand personality in a way that is engaging and memorable.

By connecting with your audience in a meaningful way, you can build trust, establish a loyal customer base, and grow your business over time.

If you don’t already have a website, then that is a good place to start the planning because it will become your key asset that will grow with your business.

An affordable website for small business

Once you have a website, the proven way to stand out is for your brand to have a personality and purpose, and to tell a story that resonates as authentic with your audience. I usually work on this when I plan the website, but if you don’t already have a clear brand, it’s not too late to start telling your story. When you tell this story in a way where your audience sees themselves as the hero, you create a connection.

Resonate as desirable across paid, earned, shared, and owned media

Using a StoryBrand approach to build your brand can help you resonate as desirable across paid, earned, shared, and owned media. This approach focuses on creating a clear and compelling brand story that resonates with your audience and helps them see themselves in your brand.

  1. Develop a clear brand message: The StoryBrand approach starts with developing a clear and simple brand message that communicates the unique value of your business. This message should be communicated consistently across all platforms and media.
  2. Create a brand personality: Your brand personality should reflect the traits and values that your audience admires and aspires to become like. By creating a brand personality that resonates with your audience, you can build an emotional connection with them.
  3. Build a brand story: A brand story is a powerful way to connect with your audience and inspire them to take action. Use storytelling to showcase how your business is making a difference in the lives of your customers.
  4. Use a consistent visual style: Consistency is key when it comes to building a brand that resonates across media platforms. Use a consistent visual style across all platforms to ensure that your brand is easily recognizable and memorable.
  5. Use paid, earned, shared, and owned media: Paid media, such as advertising, is a great way to reach a wider audience. Earned media, such as press coverage, is a powerful way to build trust and credibility. Shared media, such as social media, is a great way to build a community around your brand. And owned media, such as your website, is a powerful way to control the message and tell your story.

By using a StoryBrand approach and building a brand that resonates with your audience, you can create media that inspires and has influence across all platforms.

Craft an authentic, relatable story that makes your client the hero

Crafting an authentic, relatable brand story that makes your client the hero can be a powerful way to connect with your audience and build trust with them. Here are a few tips to help you create such a story:

  1. Understand your audience: Before you can craft a brand story that resonates with your audience, you need to understand who they are and what they care about. Conduct market research to learn more about your target audience’s demographics, pain points, and aspirations.
  2. Make your client the hero: The StoryBrand framework emphasizes on making your client the hero in your story. Your brand should be the guide that helps your client overcome their challenges and achieve their goals.
  3. Use relatable language: Use language that is relatable and easy for your audience to understand. Avoid industry jargon and complex concepts that may be difficult for your audience to grasp.
  4. Be authentic: Your brand story should be authentic and transparent. Avoid using false claims or exaggerating the benefits of your products or services.
  5. Show, don’t tell: Use storytelling to bring your brand story to life. Showcase how your business is making a difference in the lives of your customers through customer testimonials, case studies, and other real-life examples.
  6. Use visual storytelling: Use images, videos, and other visual elements to help tell your brand story. This can be very effective in capturing your audience’s attention and making your story more relatable.

By crafting an authentic, relatable brand story that makes your client the hero, you can create a deeper emotional connection with your audience and build trust and loyalty with them.

When you tell your authentic brand story with personality, in a story format that resonates as purposeful, this can help transform your customers into devoted partners and brand ambassadors. Brand partners and ambassadors as stakeholders will enthusiastically share your message, and you get clear air to breathe above the crowd.

To help you craft an authentic brand that resonates, we created a quiz to help you find your brand’s authentic characteristics that have been proven to resonate with defined markets. Take this brand archetypes quiz to find your brand’s personality traits.

Brand archetypes are a useful tool for identifying the personality traits that are most likely to resonate with your target audience. There are 12 brand archetypes, each with its own set of characteristics and values. By identifying your brand’s archetype, you can create a more authentic and relatable brand story that connects with your audience on an emotional level.

A quiz can be a great way to identify your brand’s archetype. It typically includes a series of questions about your brand’s values, mission, and target audience, and uses your responses to determine which archetype best fits your brand. It’s important to keep in mind that the quiz is only a tool and it’s a good idea to also consult with a branding expert to help you define your brand personality.

It’s important to note that once you identify your brand archetype, it’s not set in stone, it’s a living and breathing aspect of your brand that can evolve as you grow and learn more about your audience.

Once you have identified your brand archetype, you can use it as a guide to help you create a more authentic and relatable brand story. You can use the characteristics and values associated with your archetype to inform your messaging, visual style, and overall brand identity.

Having a clear and consistent brand message

Having a clear and consistent brand message and a strong brand personality can help you spend less effort, emotional energy, and expense on getting leads and sales. When your brand is authentic, relatable, and resonates with your target audience, it can be easier to attract and retain customers.

  1. Less effort: With a strong brand and clear messaging, you’ll spend less time and effort trying to attract and retain customers. You’ll have a clear understanding of who your target audience is and what they want, which makes it easier to create content and campaigns that resonate with them.
  2. Less emotional energy: A strong brand can also help you spend less emotional energy worrying about whether or not your marketing efforts are working. When you know your brand is authentic and relatable, you can be more confident in your marketing strategy.
  3. Less expense: With a strong brand and clear messaging, you’ll be able to attract and retain customers more efficiently, which can help you spend less on acquiring new customers. You’ll also be able to create more effective marketing campaigns, which can help you save money on marketing expenses.

In short, a brand that has a clear, consistent message and a strong personality will be more likely to attract and retain customers, which means less effort, emotional energy, and expense on getting leads and sales. Additionally, customers will be more likely to recommend your brand to others, which can help to grow your business in a cost-effective way.

Stand out! The air is clearer when you elevate your brand above the crowd

Have the plan to stay relevant

Gone are the days when status was king and proving you were bigger and better was important. Authenticity has been described as the new holy grail in advertising and marketing, and there isn’t any shortage of brands competing for the prize. But the authenticity effect requires a strategic plan, and that doesn’t happen by accident. Without a clear purpose, a personality, and cross-platform brand storytelling on how you make a difference, your clients could quickly forget you or dismiss you as yet another branded message in the crowd.

Stand out as authentic!

Staying relevant in today’s fast-paced and competitive market requires a strategic plan that focuses on authenticity and building a strong brand that resonates with your target audience.

  1. Define your purpose and mission: Your brand’s purpose and mission should be clear and communicated consistently across all platforms. This will help to attract the right audience and build trust with them.
  2. Develop a consistent brand personality: Your brand personality should be consistent across all platforms, including your website, social media, and marketing materials. This will help your audience to recognize and remember your brand.
  3. Use storytelling to make a difference: Use storytelling to showcase how your business is making a difference in the lives of your customers. Share customer testimonials, case studies, and other real-life examples of the impact your business is having.
  4. Monitor and adapt to market trends: Keep an eye on market trends and adapt your branding and marketing strategies accordingly. This will help to ensure that your brand stays relevant and resonates with your target audience.
  5. Engage with your audience: Use social media, email marketing, and other tools to engage with your audience and build a community around your brand. Encourage feedback and respond to comments and questions in a timely manner.
  6. Continuously improve: Continuously monitor and evaluate your branding and marketing efforts and make changes as needed. This will help to ensure that your brand stays relevant and resonates with your target audience over time.

By having a plan to stay relevant and focusing on authenticity, you can build a strong brand that resonates with your target audience and stays top-of-mind in a crowded market.

In today’s cluttered media landscape where competing brands are competing for the precious commodity of attention, consumers have also become savvier at filtering out branded messages that don’t present a relatable personality and purpose. You need a plan!

To craft a purposeful and coherent brand message and stand out from the crowd, an integrated storytelling approach needs application across your paid, earned, shared, and owned, media. Your brand needs to get a personality that resonates with your client’s inner desires and external needs. How do you craft an approach that positions you and your brand as a trusted ally and partner with relatable characteristics? You can start by doing research on your customer base, but creating engagement with quality media content that offers value is what is going to yield the best long-term benefits.

Stand out with personality!

Increasingly, consumers want brands to have a purpose and a personality they can relate to and engage with. The personality traits your brand adopts come to affect everything from your look down to your sales copy, but it is also the medium through which you can have a conversation with all of your brand stakeholders. Portray a brand identity that resonates with your audience and helps inspire them to become the best versions of themselves they can become through your products and services, and they will help tell you what they want, and move products for you?

Having a sociable and relatable brand personality elevates your brand above a mere cash transaction and buts you ahead of the crowd. You want your brand to have that human touch and to inspire brand appeal, trust, loyalty, equity….. Your brand deserves that proper archetype appraisal that can optimise your ability to stand out, resonate and become the foundation of a successful digital media strategy, but it also needs a content strategy to fester continual engagement and feedback.

Let’s make a plan!

Stand out with a plan

Once your brand is operational we provide a plan to stay agile, adaptive, and innovative enough to stand out in the fast-changing digital media conditions starts by having a relatable brand and story communicated in an integrated strategy across paid, shared, and owned media. This starts with doing an inventory of your owned media and plotting a path to building organic traffic growth.

To craft an integrated storytelling approach that positions your brand as a trusted ally and partner with relatable characteristics, you can follow these steps:

  1. Research your customer base: Understand your target audience’s demographics, pain points, and aspirations. This will help you to create a brand message and personality that resonates with them.
  2. Create engagement with quality media content that offers value: Use storytelling, videos, images, and other visual elements to create engaging and valuable content that speaks to your target audience. This will help to build trust and establish your brand as a credible and reliable source of information.
  3. Use a consistent visual style across all platforms: Consistency is key when it comes to building a brand that resonates across media platforms. Use a consistent visual style across all platforms to ensure that your brand is easily recognizable and memorable.
  4. Use paid, earned, shared, and owned media: Use a variety of different types of media to reach your target audience. Paid media, such as advertising, is a great way to reach a wider audience. Earned media, such as press coverage, is a powerful way to build trust and credibility. Shared media, such as social media, is a great way to build a community around your brand. And owned media, such as your website, is a powerful way to control the message and tell your story.
  5. Monitor your audience’s engagement and feedback: Continuously monitor your audience’s engagement and feedback and make changes as needed. Use this information to improve your messaging and overall brand strategy.

By following these steps, you can craft an integrated storytelling approach that positions your brand as a trusted ally and partner with relatable characteristics. This will help you to build trust and establish your brand as a credible and reliable source of information, which will ultimately lead to more leads and sales.

If you don’t already have a website now is the time to start.

My Website Process

Become a thought leader

Becoming a thought leader in your industry can help to enhance the value of your brand and reduce the overall budget required to get new leads. Here are a few steps to help you become a thought leader:

  1. Use an integrated approach: Use a holistic communications strategy that includes evergreen content, storytelling, and research to build a strong brand that resonates with your target audience.
  2. Start with evergreen content: Evergreen content is content that is always relevant and valuable to your target audience. By creating evergreen content, you can establish your brand as a credible and reliable source of information.
  3. Research your industry: Stay current on industry trends and use your knowledge to create valuable and informative content that sets you apart as an expert in your field.
  4. Share your expertise: Share your knowledge and expertise through blog posts, articles, white papers, and speaking engagements. This will help to establish your brand as a thought leader in your industry.
  5. Engage with your audience: Use social media, email marketing, and other tools to engage with your audience and build a community around your brand. Encourage feedback and respond to comments and questions in a timely manner.
  6. Monitor your audience’s engagement and feedback: Continuously monitor your audience’s engagement and feedback and make changes as needed. Use this information to improve your messaging and overall brand strategy.

By following these steps, you can establish yourself as a respected thought leader in your industry, which can help to enhance the value of your brand and reduce the overall budget required to get new leads. Additionally, by being a thought leader, you’ll be able to establish your brand as an authority in your field and make it easier to generate more leads, sales and improve customer retention.