Going Solopreneur

You’re almost at the end of your 21 days! You should have an awesome body of work completed by now. Today you’re going to take everything you’ve learned so far, put it all together, and create an effective marketing strategy for your brand.

Millions of Burritos

So what’s the best marketing strategy for your brand? You know the answer—it depends! There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to marketing your brand (and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise). There are just too many factors involved—your industry, your company size, your budget, your personality, your target market, your differentiator, your style, your taste, your goals, etc.

There are literally millions of possible combinations for your marketing strategy. If you think I’m exaggerating, consider the number of options available at Chipotle. There are 26 different ingredients (rice, beans, chicken, salsa, etc.) and containers (burrito, bowl, salad, etc.). With this small list of options, there are 6,294,456 different ways you can order your food. You could eat a different combination every single day for 17,237 years! You can check the math here.

Just like there’s not one Chipotle meal that works for everybody, there’s not one marketing plan that works for every brand either. You’ve got to try a few things and see what works and what doesn’t. The best marketing strategy is simply the one that works the best for you and your brand.

What to Do?

The big question then is, “What can I do right now?” How can you market your brand so you stand out and attract the right people? Here’s the good news—you’ve done most of the hard work already!

Everything you’ve done up to this point in this series has given you the insights and tools you need to create an effective marketing strategy for your brand. All of the work you’ve done so far all comes together here in your marketing strategy.

Here are a few ideas for using your work in your marketing strategy:

* Use your manifesto. One of the most effective ways to connect with your people is to share your values and beliefs. Grab your brand manifesto and start sharing what you believe and why you do what you do.

* Use your unique selling proposition. Your USP is a great resource for communicating how your brand is different and unique. You should be using it extensively in your marketing.

* Use your brand story. When writing your marketing copy use your brand’s story as a template. This is a great way to show the struggles your clients experience and the solution you provide.

* Use your value proposition. Grab your VP and pull out a few key phrases that convey the value, benefits, or results your customers will get after experiencing your brand.

* Use the right images. Consistency is key to your marketing strategy, so use images with the same look and feel. Remember that your images should reflect the happy outcome your clients can expect.

* Show your personality. Don’t forget your brand voice and personality. Refer back to your archetype<...

If you’ve been working through the 21 Days to Build a Better Brand series, then you’ve done a lot of work so far. You’ve built a solid foundation on which to build your remarkable brand. Today you will start working on your marketing plan by choosing the best marketing channels for your brand.

What is Marketing?

Many people confuse branding and marketing. Marketing is about getting people to take notice, it’s about pushing out a message to attract more customers.

Branding is more strategic. Branding is about pulling people in and keeping customers once they’ve purchased from you.

Everything you do to ATTRACT customers is marketing.

Everything you do to KEEP customers is branding.

Branding should precede and underlie any marketing you do. You can’t effectively market your business if you don’t first have your branding sorted out.

Simply put, great marketing starts with great branding.

The basis of all marketing is to get your people to know, like, and trust you. Once you’ve accomplished these three things, selling to them is easy. In fact, it won’t be like selling at all, the will just see you as having the best solution to their problem.

What are Marketing Channels?

In marketing terminology, a channel refers to a way of making a product available to the end consumer. In other words, marketing channels are all the ways in which your brand communicates with your audience. And there are a whole lot of marketing channels available these days. Here are some of the most common marketing channels in use today:

* Website

* Email

* Social Media

* Blogging

* Video

* Podcast

* Webinars

* Social media advertising

* Paid Search

* Display Ads

* Billboards

* TV ads

* Radio ads

* Newspaper ads

* Networking Groups

* Live Events

* Referral Partners

* Brand Champions

No one can possibly do all of these channels well, so when thinking about marketing your brand, it helps to focus on just a few marketing channels. The idea is to do one or two really well before moving on to some of the others.

Choosing the Best Marketing Channels for Your Brand

So, how do you choose the best marketing channel for your brand? You’re not going to like this answer but…it depends! Marketing is not a one-size-fits-all solution. There are many factors to consider when choosing the best marketing channels for your brand. Here are a few to think about:

Who is your customer?

This should be no problem for you! Just refer back to the work you did on your ideal customer and jot down who they are, what they’re struggling with, and how you might be able to help.

Example: You are a productivity consultant. Your ideal client is Steve, the CEO of a medium-sized manufacturing company. Steve loves productivity hacks but struggles with putting them into practice and making them stick. He needs someone to give him a plan and to hold him accountable.

Example: You are a wedding photographer. Your ideal client is Rachel, a recently-engaged twenty-something. Rachel wants to share her amazing wedding photos with everyone she knows. She needs someone who can capture the feelings and emotions of her most special day.

Where can you find them?

Again, refer back to the work you did on your target market. Where does your ideal customer hang out? Where do they live, work, and shop? What are their hobbies or interests? Where will your marketing message be best able to reach them?

Example: Your target market is CEOs looking for help being more organized and more productive.

Your website is one of your most powerful marketing tools and your “About Us” page is one of the most important pages on your website. Why then do so many businesses neglect this page? Today you’ll learn how to write a better “About Us” page for your website.

Why Your ‘About Us’ Page is So Important

Whether you call it “About Us”, “Our Story”, “Our Mission”, or whatever, your “About Us” page is one of the most visited pages on your website. People actually want to know why they should do business with you. When they click on your “About Us” page they are actively looking for a good reason to buy your product or service. So don’t let them down!

Think of your “About Us” page as the heart and soul of your website. It’s a chance for you to reveal the purpose behind the brand and start making those important human-to-human connections.

It’s a great place to show how your brand is different and why you are the better choice.

With just a few simple tweaks you can turn your “About Us” page into a powerful sales page for your brand.

Tips for Writing a Better ‘About Us’ Page

Talk directly to your ideal client. Your reader is leaning in. Use words like “you” and “your”. Remember, it’s all about them, not you.

Use a conversational tone. Try to avoid insider lingo and business jargon. Speak in a conversational way, as if you were talking to someone at a cocktail party who has no idea what you do.

Pull back the curtain. People love to see behind-the-scenes stuff. What goes into making your product? What does it take to do what you do? Show them the passion and effort that you put into your business.

Use your brand manifesto. This is an awesome place to share your values and beliefs. I’ve seen businesses just use their manifesto as-is for their “About Us” page and it works beautifully.

Use your brand story. This is the perfect place to tell your story. Just use the context, problem, conflict, solution format and you’re good to go.

Be authentic. Don’t try to sound like everyone else, just be honest and be yourself.

Don’t forget your personality. Don’t be bland. Your “About Us’ page should show off your brand’s personality and voice.

Use images. Use photos to capture the essence of your message. Are you pulling back the curtain? Show them what’s its like behind the scenes. Are you sharing your brand story? What images help tell that story?

Tell them what to do next. This is an often-missed opportunity to guide customers along to the purchase. Be sure to have a compelling call to action at the end of your “About Us” page.

Examples of Awesome ‘About Us’ Pages

Jeni’s Ice Cream uses their “About Us” page to share their mission—“We believe that you can grow a business as a community of people, with artful attention to detail and the customer experience, and get continuously better at the same time.”

They talk about the difference in their ice cream—“Our ice creams have a uniquely smooth texture and buttercream body, with bright flavor and clean finish (we don’t use synthetic flavorings, dyes, or off-the-shelf mixes).”

And they share a little about the company—“Using Direct Trade and Fair Trade ingredients,

Your website’s homepage should be one of your most powerful marketing tools but surprisingly, not many brands get it right. Today you’ll learn how to create a compelling homepage, one that gets real results.

It’s Not About You

So you’ve started a business and now you’re working on your website. Great job! It’s time to tell everyone how awesome you are…right? Wrong!

This is a huge mistake I see businesses make all the time. They all want to show everyone how great they are so they make their website all about themselves. They show pictures of themselves, their employees, their offices, and all they talk about is how great their product or service is.

Instead, your website should be all about your customer. Your customer should be the hero of the story, not you.

Show people how you can help them. Describe the transformation they will experience. Show them how awesome their life could be if they used your product or service.

There are three things you can change on your website that will have a huge impact on how your customers perceive your brand:

* Capture their attention with a great headline

* Show them that you have a plan to make their life better

* Show them how to purchase

Grab Their Attention

The most important real estate on your website is the top section of your homepage. It’s the first thing people see when they visit your site, and often it’s the first impression they ever have with your brand. So it’s critical that this section grabs their attention and pulls them in. They should be intrigued enough to want to scroll down the page to see more.

One of the best ways to create intrigue is to write a compelling headline. Your headline should clearly and simply explain what you do and how you help people. Focus on the transformation you are promising.

It helps to pair your headline with a high-quality image that helps convey your message. This is often called the “hero image” on your website. It’s usually very large, at the top of the page, and it gives people an idea of what your brand is all about.

Here are a couple of examples of sites with great headlines and hero images:

Trello uses a great headline, “Trello lets you work more collaboratively and get more done”, that tells the customer how their life will be better if they use their product. They also use a subheading, “Trello’s boards, lists, and cards enable you to organize and prioritize your projects in a fun, flexible and rewarding way”, that further explains how their product works. The background image is subtle but it shows smiling people happily working on a project together.

Purple Carrot only uses a few words to give you a sense of what they’re all about and how awesome your life could be: “Cook delicious, power-packed meals. Feel amazing.” Sign me up! I want to feel amazing!

Show Them Your Plan

Unfortunately, a great headline and beautiful hero image are not enough to compel your audience to purchase from you. You also need to show them that you have a plan for helping them.

Your “plan” is how your business works, it’s the way you do things. Your plan might be your processes or the steps you take to make your customer’s lives better.

This does not mean you need to tell them everything that you do. Don’t list all of the products or services that you offer. Just chunk it down into a few bite-sized pieces that give your audi...

Storytelling has been the primary way humans have communicated for millennia. Our brains have evolved to love a good story. It’s now baked into our DNA. This is why it’s critical that you tell a compelling brand story.

Why Tell a Story?

Ever since the first cave paintings 27,000 years ago, telling stories has been one of our most fundamental methods of communication. Storytelling is a big part of who we are as humans. How does this relate to you and your brand?

Storytelling captures our attention. Studies have shown that people’s brains are more active when listening to a story, so your message is more likely to be understood.

Stories are easier to remember. We’ve been hearing stories for thousands of years so they make sense to us. People are much more likely to remember a story than a list of benefits or bullet points.

Stories are easier to share. We have also gotten very good at passing stories on to each other. Before we had written communication we told stories. People are much more likely to recall and share your brand story than something like your company’s mission statement.

Stories make your brand more relatable. A good brand story helps you connect with people who share your ideals, your values, and your worldview. People will see you as more human and more relatable.

Stories don’t tell, they show people how their lives could be better. As opposed to just telling them the benefits, a good brand story will pull people into the narrative and show them how their lives can be transformed.

The Building Blocks of Your Brand Story

Context

Context is simply the who, what, where, or when of your story. Context provides a place of reference for your readers, a starting point. Context also makes your story more believable. Here are two possible ways you could start a story:

* A woman started a business.

* In 2013, Susan, a 37-year-old mother of two, started her own sourdough bread bakery in downtown Seattle.

Which sounds more relatable and believable?

Give your readers a reference point. Make sure your story includes enough context so that everything afterward makes sense to the reader.

Problem

What was wrong? What issues did you see that needed to be addressed? Your audience will most likely have faced these same issues, or something similar. Be sure you understand where they are coming from.

For Susan, she may have noticed that she couldn’t find any high-quality, authentic sourdough bread anywhere in Seattle.

Conflict

The conflict is the struggle in your story. What did you do to try to solve the problem? What didn’t work? What continues to not work? What has your audience tried that did not work?

Susan tried every bakery in town, but they all fell short. Their ingredients were not organic, the bread was tasteless, no one specialized in sourdough. She just couldn’t find a decent loaf of sourdough anywhere in town.

Solution

What did you do to solve the problem? What have you created? What is the solution your brand now provides to solve this problem?

Susan created the only organic all-sourdough bakery in Seattle. She uses the finest organic ingredients and her starters have been handed down through generations. Her artisan sourdough bread is simply amazing and now her brand is the talk of the town.

Examples of Great Brand Stories

Here are a few examples of how brands use story to communicate who they are and what they’re all about. Notice how each story contains the building blocks—context, problem, conflict, solution.

Warby Parker

Every idea starts with a problem. Ours was simple: glasses are too expensive. We were students when one of us lost his glasses on a backpacking trip. The cost of replacing them was so high that he spent the first semester of grad school without them,

One of the most visible elements of your brand is your logo. Your brand logo will be seen everywhere—on your website, your business cards, every social media post, in all your advertising, and in every email you send. It’s critical that you have a well-designed logo, one that accurately represents your brand.

The Role Your Logo Plays

Remember when I said your logo is not your brand? While I firmly believe that statement, I also believe you need to have a great-looking, professionally-designed logo to help communicate who you are as a brand.

Your logo will be seen just about everywhere your brand is seen, so it’s critical that you have a logo that not only looks great but also accurately represents your brand’s personality.

Because your logo plays such an important role for your brand, I’m going to insist that you hire a professional to design your logo. Unless of course, you are an experienced graphic designer, in which case you can DIY all day long.

Distilling the essence of your business down into a simple, catchy tagline can feel like a daunting task, but fear not. Today, you are going to learn how to create a compelling brand tagline for your business.

Your Brand Tagline

Just do it. Think different. The breakfast of champions. What’s in your wallet? These are a few examples of the most well-known brand taglines ever created. There’s nothing really magical about any of these statements. It’s just that over time, they’ve become synonymous with the brands they represent. None of these slogans mention their brand by name but there’s no doubt who they belong to.

Your brand slogan or tagline helps communicate what your brand is all about. Your tagline can convey your brand’s core essence, the value you offer, who you are as a brand, or who you aspire to be. An effective tagline can help position your brand as the different and better choice.

How to Create a Compelling Brand Tagline

“Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.” -Mark Twain

Crafting a compelling brand tagline may seem pretty challenging, but it isn’t. Believe it or not, there isn’t any spell-casting or magic involved in the process. The easiest way to create your brand tagline is to start with your value proposition and then whittle it down.

If you’ve done your homework from yesterday’s post, you should have a pretty good value proposition written. Using your value proposition as your starting point, begin trimming out all of the unnecessary bits. The idea is to start whittling it down to its essence—the essence of your brand.

For example, here’s the Starbucks value proposition I created:

At Starbucks, we create a consistent and intimate experience around drinking coffee, an experience that people weave into their lives. We serve the best coffee in the world and treat our customers with kindness and respect. Our customers come for the coffee but often end up staying for the atmosphere.

Next, I took out a lot of the unnecessary stuff and ended up with this:

At Starbucks, we create experiences in our stores that extend beyond just drinking great coffee.

And then I tried to say the same thing just using a few words:

Starbucks: Expect more than coffee.

Examples of Awesome Brand Taglines

Below are examples of some of my favorite brands and their taglines. I’ve included their value propositions as well. I want you to see how they’ve trimmed them down to their essence and then crafted a short, simple, yet compelling tagline.

Squarespace

Squarespace makes beautiful products to help people with creative ideas succeed. Our platform empowers millions of people — from individuals and local artists to entrepreneurs shaping the world’s most iconic businesses — to share their stories and create an impactful, stylish, and easy-to-manage online presence.

Squarespace: Make it beautiful.

Dollar Shave Club

Dollar Shave Club makes and delivers everything you need to look, feel, and shave like a million bucks. Get quality razor blades and grooming products delivered to your door every month for just a few bucks.

Dollar Shave Club: Shave Time. Shave Money.

99designs

99designs is the world’s largest online graphic design marketplace. We connect more than one million talented freelance designers with creative people, genius entrepreneurs, savvy businesses… anyone who needs great work.

One of the most compelling ways to communicate the benefits of your brand is to create a value proposition. A clear and concise value proposition will explain how you help your customers and why your brand is the better choice.

What is a Value Proposition?

Your brand value proposition is a clear statement about the outcomes your customer can realize from using your product, service, or solution. In simpler terms, it is a statement about the value you are proposing.

Think of your value proposition as a promise of outcomes or results that your customers will experience. “If you use our product or service we promise that you will…” “…save time, save money, feel better, get stronger, look better, be less stressed, be more productive, etc.”

Keep in mind—your value proposition is not your slogan or tagline (we’ll be working on that tomorrow!), it’s a few short statements about the benefits your customers get.

USP vs VP

I often hear the terms “value proposition” and “unique selling proposition” used interchangeably. I want to make a clear distinction between these two statements. I explained in a previous post that your unique selling proposition (USP) is a statement of your uniqueness. It’s all about how you are different from your competition. On the other hand, your value proposition (VP) focuses on the benefits the customer gets. It’s all about the results of doing business with you.

USP=Uniqueness, differentiator

VP=Benefits, results

What Makes a Good Value Proposition?

A well-defined value proposition should meet the following criteria:

* It is very clear and easy to understand.

* It shows how your product or service solves a specific problem or improves a situation.

* It communicates very specific results your customers can expect.

* It explains why you are the better choice.

* It can be read and understood very quickly and easily.

Building Blocks for Your Value Proposition

Like most things, there’s no right or wrong way to create your brand value proposition, but I’ve come up with some guidelines to help you get organized and get your thoughts down on paper.

Here are the building blocks you can use to create your value proposition:

* Your ideal client

* Your product or service

* The benefits you offer (it does this)

* The outcome your customer gets (so you get that)

* Ways you are different and unique

To help you make sense of this process and see how it all comes together, I’m going to create a semi-fictitious value proposition using Starbucks as an example.

Your Ideal Client

Start with a brief description of your ideal client. List a few of their needs, desires, problems, or issues that your brand helps solve for them.

Starbucks example:

The ideal Starbucks customer wants a consistent, high-quality experience everywhere they go. They want a comfortable place to hang out alone or with friends. They have specific tastes and needs and want to feel like they matter.

Your product or service

Next, explain in a short sentence or two exactly what you do. Don’t make this too complicated or try to say too much, just say what you do.

Starbucks example:

Ubiquitous, upscale coffee shops serving consistently great coffee in a comfortable atmosphere.

The benefits you offer (it does this)

Make a list of the benefits your brand offers. What’s good about your brand? What does your brand “do”?

Starbucks example:

We are everywhere.

One of the best ways to express your brand’s personality is through imagery. But not all images are created equal. You need to take some time to choose the images that work best for your brand’s unique personality. Today you’ll learn how to choose the right brand images.

Why are Images Important?

You’ve probably heard the old adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” There’s definitely a lot of truth in that old saying. Pictures help tell a story by showing your audience what you mean instead of just telling them. For example, I could tell you about my friend Daniel’s mobile espresso business, Urbana Cafe, built on a vintage Vespa motorcycle, and you might understand what I mean. Or, I could show you the image below and BOOM, you instantly get it.

What to Look For

Every image you use in your communications helps round out the story of who you are as a brand. While there are no hard and fast rules as to what images you should use (every brand is so different), there are a few simple guidelines you can follow.

Focus on the transformation. Choose images that show the transformation your ideal client will experience after using your brand. Your images should show the end result or the happy ending that choosing your brand gives them. For example, Blue Apron shows how you can transform the ingredients you get in their home-delivery box into a beautiful gourmet meal:

Choose smiley, happy people. If your brand images are communicating the transformation your ideal client will experience then it makes sense to show their smiling, happy faces. Be sure the people you use in your marketing closely resemble your ideal client. You want your audience to put themselves in the picture and think, “I want to feel the way she does!” Perfectly Placed does this simply and beautifully. Here’s a happy mom who gets to spend more time with her cute kid because she’s more organized and less stressed:

Evoke an emotional response. To have a greater impact, your images should evoke an emotional response from your audience. This doesn’t mean you have to make them cry. Your images might make them laugh, they might inspire them, motivate them, or even cause them to rise up in anger. charity: water shows us how happy kids can be if they have clean drinking water. They tug at our heartstrings and inspire us to make a donation:

Use your images as visual hooks. Interesting images can grab your reader’s attention and draw them in. Intriguing images will draw more attention to your post, article, or advertising and keep people engaged longer. NASA regularly shares fascinating images via Twitter, inspiring their readers to click the link to see and learn more:

See that swirling cloud that looks like cream in coffee? It’s actually a massive, raging storm in Jupiter’s northern hemisphere, seen by @NASAJuno. Take a look: https://t.co/jH8hV4OESA pic.twitter.com/ra27E0LRYW

— NASA (@NASA)

One often-overlooked aspect of your brand’s personality is your voice. Today you are going to learn how to find your brand voice and how it can help you express your unique personality and point-of-view.

What is Brand Voice?

Your brand voice is the style you use to communicate your message to the outside world. It’s your unique point-of-view or perspective on your topic. Ann Handley says in her book Everybody Writes, “…your brand voice is simply an expression of your company’s personality and point of view.”

It’s important to understand that it’s not just what you say but how you say it that matters. You might be an expert in tax preparation with years of experience, but if you sound like every other tax preparer on the planet, your brand just gets lost in all that noise. Not many businesses take the time to develop a unique voice for their brand so there’s a real opportunity here for you to stand out.

Examples of Brand Voice

Below are a few examples of brands with clear and consistent voices. They each express a unique perspective and a consistent brand voice in all of their communications. I grabbed a few screenshots to show you how they’re using brand voice effectively on their websites.

Whole Foods

Whole Foods has a simple mission, to be “America’s Healthiest Grocery Store™”. Their voice is authoritative yet approachable and always reflects their mission.

Brass Taxes

Brass Taxes is “Tax help for freelancers, artists & other nice people”. Their voice is unexpected, irreverent, a bit quirky, but always smart.

Patagonia

Patagonia’s mission statement says a lot about their brand: “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.” Their voice is adventurous, down-to-earth, caring, and a determined activist.

How to Find Your Brand Voice

Finding your unique brand voice can take time, but there are a few things you can do to get yourself moving in the right direction.

Start with your manifesto. What do you believe in? What does your brand stand for? Look over your brand manifesto and pull out the key ideas or phrases that exemplify your personality or perspective.

Listen to your audience. What words or phrases do they use? How do they communicate their questions or problems? How can your brand voice compliment their communication style and their personality?

Speak through your brand archetype. Imagine you are your brand archetype. What would you say to your customer? How would you greet them? How would you express empathy? What words or phrases would you use to relate to your audience?

Developing Your Brand Voice

As you work to develop your brand voice here are some things to keep in mind:

Remember who you are talking to. With everything you write or say always speak directly to your ideal ...