Are you tired of second guessing your brand? Do you waffle between visual styles and the messages you send in your marketing? It can be hard to brand your business when you don’t have a set of meaningful guidelines. While trends come and go, your values are most likely to stand the test of time. Moreover, they can help shape your brand dialog, differentiate you from industry peers and attract the right clients.
What values actually are
Many people believe values are the traditional ideals they were raised with. However, while that’s partly true, it’s not the whole story. Traditional values are not the only ones you might have. It’s also important to note that just because a value seems admirable doesn’t mean it’s an actual value of yours. Before selecting an ethos to help shape your business branding, do a gut check to be sure it rings true to you.
Examples of non-traditional values are adventure, having fun, facing challenges head on, time alone, developing competency at the activity of your choice and more. Both traditional and non-traditional values can be used to brand your business. What matters most is that it’s a deeply held matter of importance to you and that it resonates on some level with your intended audience.
How to use values to brand your business
Your personal values can be used to craft your dream business experience. They can also help to communicate the essence of your business in a way that attracts your most ideal clients. When you know and lean toward what you hold dear, you can uniquely position your brand in exciting and memorable ways, including how you …
- Create services and products
- Select clients to work with
- Set up your business environment
- Communicate about your business
While it’s supremely beneficial to integrate personal values into your business, it’s also important to know your ideal clients’ values and aspirations. You’ll want to pinpoint the intersection between what you and they hold dear. Within those crosshairs, choose the values are most moving to you and select them for use in your branding. This will help you to create a deeply authentic brand that’s exciting for you and also attractive to your ideal customers.
If this is something that interests you, then you’ll definitely want to book a Brand Map session. This is a process that I created to help people discover and develop their most authentic and fascinating brand that attracts the right clients.
Now that you know the importance of values to brand your business, it’s time to consider the ideals you might choose to shape your brand. We all have a hodgepodge of characteristics, so you don’t want to bring them all to the table. That would be confusing to your audience! Remember to choose a select few that will help you tell the brand story you most want to convey. Have fun and let your ideals guide you to develop unique offerings and ways of communicating that you absolutely love to create and deliver.
Branded services and products
The services and products you craft, and the way you deliver them, can be a major point of differentiation for your brand. For example, if you value public contact, excitement and community, you might choose to do three-day, in-person workshops that bring your clients together, rather than traditional one-on-one coaching sessions spaced out over months.
Brand niche
Further, your values can help you decide who you want to work with or create products for, otherwise known as your niche. Having a niche is helpful to hone in on the type of solutions you offer and how you market them. Anyone who strongly values helping society and having moral fulfillment at work might choose a niche for consulting with nonprofit organizations whose missions they believe in.
Branded business environments
Even the way you set up your business can become a key part of your brand. As an example, let’s say you value artistic creativity at work. You might choose to rent an office space where you could design a colorful and interactive environment that allows for you and your clients to sketch ideas on large white boards or do other activities that spark visionary ideas.
Brand communications
Finally, colors, fonts and language you use are all major components to brand your business. Your values can point to the types of visual cues and words you use in your marketing. For example, if you value intimacy and closeness, your brand might include restful colors and lettering with flourishes. You might sprinkle words like “cozy and warm, passionate, loyal, affection and cherish” into your website copy and marketing content.
To sum it up, using values to brand your business is a fun process that takes deep introspection. If you’re not sure what your top values are or which to bring to the table, it will help to ask yourself questions from many different angles to uncover them. So, ask yourself … what values do you hold? And how can they be used in one of the above four ways to brand your business? Want help to find out? Book a Brand Map session.
