When and where to let your creative juices flow

1. 12/20/22, 2:46 PM When and where to let your creative juices flow - Evernote Whether you're building your brand for the first time or revamping to improve on an existing one, you need to be able to take all those experiences and create a brand that's as great today as it was yesterday. A brand that stands the test of time is a powerful tool in the market and one you should work tirelessly to achieve. Your brand is everything. It's how you are recognized, what gets you that first interview, and why new clients want to work with you before meeting you in person. A great brand is essential to advancing your career, but no brand started as great. Your brand may have had its fair share of missteps and adventures when it was first introduced to the general public, and there are likely some scars on those shiny cheeks that only time can heal. To get you up and running quickly, here are some suggestions for steadily bettering your brand from within: Have a consistent voice on social media. You want your customers to know they interact with the same person or company whenever they speak with you. That's why it's important to have a consistent voice on social media, whether running a business or working for one. If you're looking for expert advice on how to leverage social media to advance your company's profile, this post from eCommerce branding is a great place to start. It describes how social media can help your business at every stage of the customer lifecycle (from initial exposure and brand building to ongoing customer care and advocacy). If you're posting for an agency, make sure your tone is consistent with the client's brand voice. If you write for multiple brands, avoid confusing readers by mixing up styles. And if you're writing content for more than one platform — say, Twitter and LinkedIn — make sure each platform has its unique style guide so that everything looks like it belongs together. Develop a unique online presence. Your brand is all about you, so it's important to ensure your online presence is one-of-a-kind. Think about what makes your brand unique and start developing your website. Create an engaging social media presence. Social media is a great way to engage with your customers and connect them with your brand. It's also great to show off how awesome your company is! Please make sure you have accounts on all the major social media platforms and use them consistently https://www.evernote.com/client/web?login=true#?n=4076ad9a-b1a9-0762-29c7-9360fc3f013c& 1/4

2. 12/20/22, 2:46 PM you have accounts on all the major social media platforms and use them consistently. When and where to let your creative juices flow - Evernote Create an email marketing strategy. Email marketing has become increasingly popular over the past few years because it allows businesses to reach their customers directly without paying for advertisements on other sites or apps. Email marketing can be highly cost-effective and beneficial for both parties exchanging goods or services. Be authentic and honest in all interactions with customers, employees, and vendors. This will help build trust between yourself and others in a professional setting and make people want to do business with you again down the road! Clean up your website. Visitors' first impressions of your business will be shaped by how professionally designed your website is. It must grab the viewer's attention and hold it while also being functional and aesthetically pleasing. To get the most out of your website and ensure that it loads quickly for your visitors, it is recommended that you work with a web design agency. Many companies have websites that need to be updated or are just plain ugly. If you don't want people thinking about how bad your website looks when they visit it, it's time to take action. Why? Because many people make judgments about companies based on their websites — which are often negative! In addition to looking good, a good website should also be easy-to-use and navigate; it should give potential customers information about you (and what makes you unique), and it should allow them to contact you for more information if they want it quickly. If you need help cleaning up your website, hire a professional web designer to help create a site that represents your company in the best possible light. Be bold with your blog's design. The most common thing people do wrong with their brand is not thinking about it. They start doing something and realize it's not working out as it should. Be bold with your blog's design. If you want people to take you seriously, you have to look the part too! Your design should be consistent with your brand's identity and reflect the overall message you're trying to send. Be consistent with your blog's content. We all know how important it is to be compatible with our blog's content, but only when we look at it from an outside perspective do we realize how important it is! How you write and publish posts is also part of your branding strategy and can either help or hinder efforts toward building an audience base over time. Read this post about real estate branding to learn how much of an effect and improvement it can have on your business if you hire professional designers. Learn to speak visually. We're all busy. We're all doing more for less. And we're all trying to get the most out of our limited resources. But sometimes, it's easy to get so caught up in the day-to-day that we lose sight of what's important: Your brand. The truth is, it's not enough to be good at what you do. You have to ensure you're doing it well and that https://www.evernote.com/client/web?login=true#?n=4076ad9a-b1a9-0762-29c7-9360fc3f013c& 2/4

3. 12/20/22, 2:46 PM When and where to let your creative juices flow - Evernote y , g g y g people know it. Learn to speak visually. When you're busy trying to get things done, finding time for marketing and branding tasks can be challenging — especially if you're not naturally inclined towards visuals or design. But this is precisely where automation comes into play. Using tools like Canva or Pablo by Buffer (both free), anyone can create beautiful graphics without having any design skills or training! So instead of trying to learn how to use Photoshop or Illustrator (tools with steep learning curves), spend that time creating content that will help build your brand from within. Test, test, and test! Always be testing. You can have the most fantastic copy in the world, but if your audience isn't responding, there's no point in using it. If a line isn't working, change it. If an image isn't resonating with people, replace it with something else that does. Test, test, test! Know your audience. I know, I know — this sounds like something your mother told you when you were eight years old and trying to convince her that you didn't want to eat dinner anymore (because she made pork chops). But really: Know who your audience is and what they want from you. You don't need to be a mind reader or have ESP to figure this out — use common sense and do some research (which includes talking to people). Having said that, there are still opportunities for Branding Mistakes to be made. Be aware of these potential pitfalls of brand building… When you're forming a brand for your business, there are huge opportunities for mistakes. Mistakes in your logo, tagline, etc., can make all the difference. Take advantage of these opportunities. Donʼt do it alone. Donʼt do it alone. Trying to do everything yourself is tempting, but you should consider bringing outside help when needed. This could mean hiring a marketing agency or bringing an intern to help with content creation. Still, it also means working with other businesses or professionals who can do things better than you. Not having a marketing plan. If you need to know where your brand is going or what you want it to become, it's easier for others to understand what your brand stands for and what makes it unique. Not knowing your target audience and how they differ from other users. Your target audience might not be what you think it is — it's important to research who the people who buy your product or service are rather than just guessing (or assuming). You need to know who your competitors are. You need to understand who you're competing with if you https://www.evernote.com/client/web?login=true#?n=4076ad9a-b1a9-0762-29c7-9360fc3f013c& 3/4

4. 12/20/22, 2:46 PM When and where to let your creative juices flow - Evernote want to know how well you're doing against them. Not knowing what makes your product or service unique compared with other offerings in the same space. If all of the competitors offer similar things, why should someone choose yours over theirs? Not hiring a professional to help you with copy and logo design. Many entrepreneurs believe they can design their logo or write their copy — but unless you're an artist or copywriter by trade, it's best to leave this kind of work up to professionals who know what they're doing. A logo design should be memorable and convey the essence of your business; likewise, copywriting needs to be crisp and clear without being boring or repetitive. Hiring a professional will save you time — not just in terms of money but also in terms of getting results that resonate with customers. Design agencies in Brisbane offer more than just design services to their clients. Plus, you have a devoted project manager looking after everything behind the scenes. When you have a project manager on board, you can rest assured that your writers and coders are on the same page. Thinking small. Thinking too small is one of the biggest mistakes people make when building their brand. They focus on one thing – perhaps a single product or service – and then use that as their brand identity. There are several problems with this approach: Itʼs hard for someone to get excited about something they donʼt understand, so the first step in building your brand is making sure everyone knows who you are and what you do. If youʼre only known for one thing, that becomes your identity – which means that if something goes wrong, it could take down everything else. It doesnʼt give customers much incentive to come back because they know what theyʼre going to get: more of the same thing they got last time. Not planning for the future. If you're starting, don't expect your first clients to be loyal customers for life. You must plan for future growth by developing relationships with new potential customers through networking and social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Your first customers might be around for a while, but if you have an established base of followers, people will keep coming back to see what's new in your store. https://www.evernote.com/client/web?login=true#?n=4076ad9a-b1a9-0762-29c7-9360fc3f013c& 4/4