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Why Branding Matters for Your Business HD

We are going to kick things off right away with a little game and so this is something I want everyone teo play along whether you're in the online audience and you guys get to go first so you to be the guinea pigs on dh we're just going to kick things off by starting to think about other products or businesses so before we even talk about you guys were going to talk about how how you ours consumers so I want you to think of a product or a business that makes you feel sexy what do you guys think and online audience? I want you guys to chime in too, so uh we'll kick it to you in a minute unless things are starting to pour in but what do you guys think? Name of brand a product and so is that something that makes you in particular feel sexy or do you think that's just something that you feel like you're supposed to say is the answer like it's the image they portray ok, but is there like a brand or product or something that you love that makes you feel you personally feel sexy? Maybe uh you...

r favorite perfume? Oh yeah, yes if there's a perfume that you love or something I know I picked up not not the boots that I'm wearing I should have planned this better but I picked up these boots that were altuzarra for target there like five inch heels but they there's something about them that you just put him on you're like yeah this is great so this one is probably going to hit some kind of cord with you guys what's a product or business that makes you angry something that year like frustrated with women weapon a few theo the boat s something that a woman thinks is making her feel sexy year it's driving you crazy interesting what do you think a brandy or something you've had a bad experience with something that you're like I can't stand them because it was just what about that burn like that affection what is it that kind of it was edgy and all the guys were wearing it back in the day affect affliction of oh you know what I mean yeah okay that one like irritates me I feel like there's no identity too to it I feel like the guys that where it are like trying to be cool but it's not cool so it makes you angry because of the people that the brand associates with yeah that totally interesting brands that you know exploit yeah you know uh I don't actually know which one but yeah I mean you there some big yes that have been accused of exploiting people around the world well you may have to do with the child labors are better that's associate without brain name yeah, so places, places that are have unethical treatment, those brands, thank you. Agree? Awesome will not. Awesome, but you know what I mean? Ah, how about adventurous? Is there a brand that makes you feel like you can, like get out there and or business something that makes you, like, ready to travel are ready to try something new? Totally over. Perfect. Yeah. Yeah, well, that makes sense that they're all kind of fit. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's perfect. Yeah. So you immediately or calling up thes brands and that's what we're going to be talking about in this workshop so a strong emotional reaction is the essence of a strong brand. You were going to talk about all of the details of branding, we're going to talk about things like your logo and your color palette and your products and your packaging, and we're going to talk about all of that. But at the heart of what we're doing here is just what we did to start. We're thinking about the strong emotional reaction because that's really the essence of a brand. So I'm just gonna ask you guys a couple of ah, rhetorical questions here to get you thinking because I think we're probably on the same page, but do you wish you could get more people to remember and talk about your products, right? We want yeah, I'm seeing the nods in the studio audience we want more people to remember us, and we want more people to tell our friends about us and of course, you want to sell more, right? You want people to buy your product more people to buy your products more often, and I think for a lot of us, we wish people would willingly pay more for our stuff if you're making it by hand, you're putting in a lot of labor, you're making it ethically in the us, all of those things mean, you need a higher price point, and we want people to willingly pay that price point, and if we're really lucky, we want people lining up around the block, whether that block is in real life or whether it's virtual well, people lining up around the block for a chance to buy our products. So how do you do this? How do you create that desire and demand for your products? And the answer is simple and complicated all at the same time, which is by building a strong brand and that's what you're all here for today. So what I want to talk about in this first segment is really what the essence of it means, what the essence of a brand is, what it means to be a brand so branding is not your logo it's not your fonts it's not your packaging it's not your advertising it's not any of those tangible things instead a brand is an emotional connection repeated over time and you're going to hear me say this so often in the next handful of segments because it's really the essence of what we're doing here ah brand is an emotional connection repeated over time and that means that branding is using the visual and the verbal elements of your business to make people feel something so branding is creating your logo, creating your fonts, having your image is putting all of you know, the stories that you tell it's putting all of these elements of your brand together to make people have that emotional connection. So who is this workshop for? Well, first off it's for, you know, the sola preneurs and I put one woman shows we have we have west here too, so but I know most of you are probably right, but one person shows so brandon isn't just for big business is I know it's really easy for those of you who are maybe just starting out or just you two feel like maybe brandon doesn't apply to me, right it's not for me that's something only big businesses do they have brand budgets, they have brand managers it's not my deal but branding is absolutely for those people who are individuals and in fact branding can make your business look more put together than you feel right it's that kind of fake it till you make it thing maybe you're like well I'm just starting out and it's me and my kitchen counter and I'm making stuff and it's you know but if you put together that great brand package that makes people feel something really strongly and looks polished and professional people are going to think you're a more legit business so branding has that power this workshop is also for you know, maker's designers crafters obviously we're on the craft and make her channel so anyone with a product this workshop is going to apply to you and I think for a lot of you you'd rather be in your studio making or designing things right the marketing pieces not your favorite piece maybe going a lot of shows are selling that's not where you really want to be but having a strong brand lets you create more of the things you love and it lets you sell them for a higher price so you can get that branding aspect of right it's gonna let you do the thing that you actually really love to dio and then if you're not a maker you're not a product person maybe you're you want a bricks and mortar store maybe you own a local business maybe you're even you know selling services or something you could still apply this workshop to you you know all of these same branding principles apply whether you make a product or have a service at its core branding is about that emotional connection with your audience repeated over time, so even though we're going to be drilling down and talking about some product development stuff as it relates to your brand there's still a lot that you confined here and even if you're a small mom and pop maybe you're the coffee shop or the yoga studio here's the thing the big chains air doing it everybody is is working on branding and consumers air responding to branding so if they're doing it, you should be doing it too. What is one thing that each of you is hoping to learn during this workshop? So sarah monica alright, I'd like tio kind of bundle it all up I feel like I have a nice idea of where I want the brand to be, but I want to just really be able to solidify that and create a visual element to that awesome cathy I really wanna get my message straight, you know? Yeah, streamline the message and not have maybe three different ideas I want I'm there's maybe three different ways that I want to portray my brand and I want extremely met into one so that I can get it across eleven news I am so happy to hear you say that I was actually taking a look at your website and that was something I noticed I was like, oh she's got a couple different messages happening there so I'm so glad you said that we're absolutely going to tackle that they're so I have recently come teo I have defined what I want for my brand but I need to be able to communicate it I don't know how to do that excellent perfect um my products rather unique so once you see it you immediately recognize it so want to make it more basically branded okay oh it's kind of hard to explain but once you see the product you understand so I think what we saw from the studio audience was a good kind of mix of what we're going to be doing in this workshop so we're gonna be talking about how to make your products more cohesive and more memorable and I think you know, for a lot of our our studio audience here you guys all have really solid product basis to begin with, but for some of you in the online audience you might still really be developing your product line so we're going to really talk about how to make that cohesive so that when someone sees your product they're like yes, that is that brand get it I know it and we're also going to talk about how to create a strong foundation for your brand through things like your name, your tag line, your mission statement sort of all of that really quick short messaging that's really important in terms of those sound bites and then we're going to go into that longer messaging so we're going to identify the key brand stories that you and your customers can tell we want to generate some of those stories because that's going to make it easier for your customers to talk about you and that's a really key part of your marketing if you could get your customers to talk about you that does a lot of marketing work foryou, right? It takes a lot of pressure off of us, so we're going to work on those stories, then we're gonna talk about how to create the visual elements that support the emotion so how to actually get that really cohesive visual brand packaging everything from your fonts to your color scheme too your logo to your photography so that you have that really complete overall package and we're going to talk about how to protect your brand because I know that's a point of nervousness for a lot of people you're putting all this energy into your products and your branding, so we're going to talk a little bit about some of those defense strategies and then we're gonna talk about implementing you're branding or your re branding strategy, so we're going to identify the areas of your brand that need the most work. For some people, it might be messaging for some people, it might be design. We're going to figure out what those are, and you're going to create an action plan because it's really important to me that when you leave this workshop, you don't just know what branding is, and you know what? Maybe you should be doing like I think I should be working on this I don't want to do that. I want you to have a list in hand of actionable steps that you khun take every day to improve your brand. So by the end of this workshop, you'll have a clear understanding of what makes your brand tick and how to communicate that to your customers, and you'll have a road map for creating raving fans and selling more products. That's really what we're doing here, we want to create those raving fans so that they talk about us and we sell more product because people just have to have it. So the branding strategy that we're gonna be using here really boils down to two again it's that simple but complicated to kind of simple ideas that were going to spend a lot of time talking about so the first one is that we have to figure out which emotions we want our brand to elicit what do we want to make people feel such a better way to phrase? I don't know why I just didn't say it that way to begin with how do you want to make people feel that's step one and then in step two, we're going to create that visual and verbal strategy. Teo amplify those emotions across every element of your business. So how do we want people to feel? And then what do we say and what we show them to make them feel that again really simple in theory, a little bit more complicated in practice. So while you're watching this workshop, and while you're thinking about your brand, I really want you to remember that your brand doesn't exist in a vacuum, so brands are about the interaction between the product, the company, you and the customer. So that means that you can't just sit squirrel away, thinking about your brand, right? You're gonna, like, polish it up and get it all perfect, and then you're gonna present it to the world that does not work for branding, I want you guys to take action, to make changes, to experiment and to see how people respond, so, you know, as we're working through this, maybe you come up with you know, a great kind of mission statement or tagline something that really encapsulates your brand. I don't want you to hold on to that for fear that someone's gonna copy it. I want youto you know, post it on facebook and see how your customers respond right away see what you get to see what the vibe is and that's really what this is all about if you think you know what my sight would look better if it was a black background, I don't know why I'm just going there should be a reason for that, but if you decide that in the course of this workshop, go ahead and make that change if you don't like it, you can change it back tomorrow, you're not going to break anything, so I'm going to give you permission during this workshop to make those changes and do those experiments. Yes, brand building is about consistency and eventually that consistency is really important. You can't make changes every month for the next four years and expect to have a strong brand, but through the course of this workshop you need to have that sense of experimentation. You have to take your business or along that kind of bumpy, rocky brand building road for a little bit, see what happens and it's going to be so much better, so that's my challenge to everyone it's coming from one line to apologize with chapman sit down early you may need to hit refresh to get in there but death jeffrey up there the fact that they're growing all the time we got loads of people coming in from canada so welcome to everybody who's in canada today on wonder lopez is saying I want to find my signature brand and transfer it to the world excellent really great and sandra glover is saying I want oprah to talk about my products oh well who doesn't yeah on scavenger and essays to bring everything together under the scavenger and the umbrella that's my goal it all feels like a jumbled up jigsaw puzzle at the moment yes, I think a lot of people feel that way like you have a lot of disparate ideas your creative person and you have to bring those together and we're definitely gonna be talking about that during this workshop so the other thing that we're going to be doing here that's really important for everyone to keep in mind is that the best brands are built by getting to the core of who you are not just by copying and other brands strategies so I'm going to show you guys lots of examples but I'm I'm gonna ask you even more questions we've got this great workbook that's free within roll on all of the questions that I'm gonna be asking you guys are in here so this is going to be your road map throughout this class you're going to sit down you're going to think about the answers to these and that's what's going to build a strong brand you might look and say oh, well, you know, I kind of like the adventurous thing and what north face is doing and we use them is mabel when your face is doing that seems to work so maybe I'll just like copy what they're doing that's never gonna work, you know? And you could do the same thing with like, hey meghan's up here talking and what she's doing is working and well, maybe we'll try that that's never gonna work because it's not doesn't come from the core of who you are, so don't be afraid to dive in and really do the hard work of what you know what we're doing here in this class because that's going to build a much stronger brand, it might actually be a little more uncomfortable it's harder to kind of drill down right and figure out like what the brand is really about what you're really about but it's definitely worth it in terms of building that strong brand so I'm gonna give you guys just a three second finish he'll hear about who I am because it's going to set the tone for you since I am going to use myself as an example so much so as jay ko said when we opened I'm a designer I'm a maker I call myself a metal smith and I have kind of ah vary to product line and I started I think like so many makers started and then I was really passionate about making stuff right? I wanted to make things I actually went to school for jewelry and medals and I made really crazy things right? So you know when we're talking about that yes, that is like a four foot wide spanier's that I made and actually warren a fashion show so when we're you know when we're talking about like I'm a creative and I have so many ideas and it's really hard to kind of bring it in I'm right there with you you know, I've been making things for years and I love to play and I love to experiment but over time I started to take kind of all of these crazy ideas and I started to drill them down into something that felt a little bit more consistent so you know, first of all I want to tell you if I could do what you can do it too so I've got a million ideas spinnin but at some point you can settle down and think about it so I developed this production jewelry line and it's evolved over the years you know, I think about kind of designing new things and then I recently launched a textile line so under that umbrella that I was working with my brand, I wanted to branch out, and we're going to talk so much about this kind of idea of, like, finding the core of your products and then giving yourself that room to explore. So we're going to talk about that for those of you who are thinking, okay, I'm really creative, but it was finding my brand that really gave me the freedom to do this. So when I first started, I was really defined very heavily by the materials that I used and kind of the design aesthetic of my jewelry, and it wasn't till I understood what my what made my brand tick that I felt confident that I could release these other products, and even though visually they might not be exactly the same as my jewelry, they still fit the mantra of my brand, and that makes people respond to them. So when you have that strong brand, you actually have a little bit more flexibility in your creativity when you want to explore those other ideas. Now the other aspect that I have in my business is that I run a website called designing an mba, and this is a website that's about, you know, creative thinking for designers and makers. And the reason that I bring this up here is that I actually went through a re brand and a rename with this website as well, so the mega nomine brand has really been about this kind of constant slow evolution to really get me kind of to the place that I am today and it's going to continue to evolve, but with this brand, it actually started out with the name crafting an mba, and I started to feel like the audience didn't fit, so I actually made a big shift, changing the name, changing the tone and actually having to do that big break. So whether you guys there in that position of doing the slow evolution of your brand or rather you need to make that kind of big break big shift, I've been there and both of those situations and I can help you out with that truly global audience here, conservative live, we got people joining in from south africa so welcome that must be very late at night there scavenger and he's saying hello from a frosty cheshire in england on about two, people sharing what they they're looking for debbie's saying, I'm here today in megan's class because I'm so confused as to who I am as a small business owner, I love so many different styles and themes and just can't decide on one single image for my oh, yeah, perfect is definitely be learning about. Yes, we're definitely not talking about that. So I'm so glad that you're here and watching.