Whether you believe in coincidences or not—I assure you, this is no coincidence.
There is a particular journey your future customers will take. It starts with brand awareness and ends with a conversion.
And guess what?
If you want to move your future customers along that journey with ease, your brand development journey needs to mirror the customer's journey.
Could it be that simple?
Let’s start by taking a closer look at the customer’s conversion journey.
THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
In a nutshell, this is how Tonia (the name I'm giving your future customer) will make her way to buying from you.
Step 1. BRAND AWARENESS
It always starts with brand awareness. Tonia will be made aware of your brand through social media, an organic search that brings her to your website, or even paid ads.
If Tonia fits the profile of your ideal customer, her first impression of your brand and business will be positive. That’s because your brand has been strategically designed to resonate with a customer exactly like Tonia. (More on that shortly.)
On social media, building brand awareness is arguably easier and definitely less expensive than SEO and paid ads. The more memorable your brand identity is on social channels like Instagram, the easier you make it for people like Tonia to spot you again and again.
If she doesn’t follow you right away, this visual consistency will make you easy to recognize and Tonia will soon wonder what she’s missing by not following you.
Step 2. ENGAGEMENT
Tonia’s positive first impression will encourage her to engage with your brand. On social media, this may mean going on a deep dive through your content. On your website, this may mean checking out a few more blogs or your about page.
She’ll choose to engage with your brand to see what you’re all about. The visual experience so far has been memorable, but what she wants to know is if there’s more to be gained from you.
If you’re all looks but no substance, her journey ends here.
Step 3. CONNECTION & TRUST
Your brand messaging is how we establish a connection. Your brand messaging means what you speak about in your social media content and in your captions to every word on your website.
As a brand, the more you can speak to their deep desires and pain points and counter those with possibility and transformation—the more inclined they'll be to hang around.
Now trust isn’t built over night. Customers like Tonia need to come to really know a brand before she decides to buy from them. But if the pieces are in place—i.e. your story, your values, your tone, and the types of offers you have—then it will be a only a matter of time before Tonia decides you’re the right brand to buy from.
Okay, so that is a very simplified overview of the customer journey. Now, to create a brand that will do all of this for someone like Tonia, we have to start where the connection begins and work our way backwards.
THE BRAND DEVELOPMENT JOURNEY
With Tonia, the last step of her conversion journey is the connection factor and establishing trust. This needs to be what anchors the entire brand strategy.
Step 1. BRAND STRATEGY
The branding journey starts with creative thinking, not creative design. We want to dive deep into your story, your core values, what you do and why you do it. These are the emotional elements that support your entire brand persona and appeal.
Your brand strategy is the heart and soul of your brand experience. It guides your brand direction, facilitates clarity and leads to more authenticity and ease of connection with future customers.
Step 2. BRAND MESSAGING
Your brand strategy will uncover the best opportunities for positioning your brand. Brand positioning means how we want your brand to exist in the mind’s of your future customers when compared to the competition.
We develop your brand messaging and position your brand to consistently speak to specific stories and emotions that will increase memorability and connection with your future customers.
Step 3. BRAND IDENTITY DESIGN
The last thing we do is the first thing Tonia sees: the visual identity.
When a brand identity is born from the strategy, every design decision can be used to favour your goals as a business. The brand identity is designed to grab the attention of a customer like Tonia and then guide her along her conversion journey.
LET'S REFLECT
The customer journey looks like this:
They see your brand identity, which has been designed to draw them in.
They engage with your brand, learn about who you are and what you do.
Your brand messaging is where they connect with your values, your story, what you offer which leads to trust, love and loyalty.
The branding journey mirrors the above and looks like this:
We dive deep into your story, your values, what you do and why you do it.
From that we develop your brand messaging and position your brand to consistently speak to those stories and emotions in a strategic way.
Then and only then do we develop your brand identity to ensure every visual element is designed to draw them towards your brand.
Your brand should mirror what your audience wants for themselves.
Like I said, this isn’t a coincidence. This process works because you start where the magic is—the connection—and create a plan out from there. Our emotions are what drive our behaviour and decision-making. Every step of this plan leads out from that magical centre and offers a glimpse of what’s to come.
Remember, your brand is a business tool. To develop a brand that will truly achieve what you need it to do, you need to build that tool with care. The Studio can help with this!
Jenny Henderson Studio is a branding studio that increases memorability, connection and performance for service-based solopreneurs using strategic simplification and design.
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