Is Your Brand Effective, Or Just Pretty To Look At?

Guest post by: Erin Ferree
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Icons For Small Business Branding - By Erin Ferree

Do you want your brand to be a work of art?

If so, stop right there. This is where small business owners get mixed up in the branding process.

They mistake brand design for art. It’s an easy mistake – you’re paying someone to draw things for you, right? That’s art… right? Better yet, it’s commissioned art – and there’s a decent chance that this is the very first time that you’ve commissioned anyone to create art for you.

Let’s set the record straight, once and for all.

Brand design is not art.

You are not commissioning a masterpiece.

You are not having something designed so that you’ll like it, or so that it will reflect your personal tastes…

…. at least, that’s not the main point of the brand design process.

You’re designing a brand so that you’ll get noticed, attract your ideal clients, reach more prospects, stay memorable, and generate REAL revenue.

In order to design a brand that does all of that, you need a strategy.

What is a brand strategy?

To put it simply, a brand strategy is a plan for your brand.

A strong strategy begins with 3 elements: where you’re going, how you’re going to get there and how long it will take.

1. Where you’re going.Your business vision and goals. In order to create a brand that helps you realize your dreams, you have to know what those dreams are. You can never achieve success without first knowing what success actually means.

2. How you’re going to get there.What are you going to do in your business to get to those goals? How do those business activities need to be supported and boosted up by your brand? Who are your clients and what do they need to see in your brand to make them buy?

3. How long it will take to get there.In order to be strategic, you have to create a timeline. You need to know when you’re doing every step along the way with your brand so that you can plan plenty of time in for writing, design, printing and promotion.

A full brand strategy goes beyond these basics, but this will get you started down the path to making a brand that’s not just a pretty work of art, but also an effective business-building tool.

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Icons For Small Business Branding - By Erin Ferree

About the Author: Erin Ferree

RSS for Erin's articles - Visit Erin's website
Erin Ferree is a branding coach, design genius and strategic thinker. She's been told that her right-brain, left-brain combination of creativity and logic is hard to come by... and that it's what small business owners need to be successful. She loves connecting the dots between passion and profit, mixing strategy and inspiration and shaking things up. She deeply enjoys working with entrepreneurs who want to help more people and look good doing it. Who want all of their branding and marketing to make sense and speak to their ideal clients. And who want an open, honest, inviting brand with integrity - instead of using icky, pushy, sleazy marketing tactics and trickery. She's branded over 450 small businesses in the last 10 years. She's been published in so many books and periodicals that she stopped counting. She's shared stages with some awesome people - like Michele PW, Linda Hollander, Lisa Cherney, Sheri McConnell and Kelly O'neil. In the rare moments when she's not obsessing about branding or design, she can be found hugging her corgi-dog Stanley, going for long walks, cooking improvisationally, or throwing parties so her friends can enjoy them.
Click here to visit Erin's website.

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