Branding is on (almost) everyone’s lips (about time) and many people use this term without really understanding the power behind it.
To raise the curtain right away, Branding is the sum of all the experiences and all the emotions that your prospects and customers will experience when they come into contact with your Business.
To make it even shorter: Branding is the art of raising your customer’s Social Status. The happier and prouder they feel buying from you, the better your Branding.
Dans la dernière partie de cet article, je vous donne les 7 Piliers d’un Bon Branding et ce que vous pouvez faire tout de suite pour améliorer votre propre marque.
But before that, I have good news and wonderful news.
The good news is that there is no set path and method to follow to the letter. Because unlike Digital Marketing, blindly copying what your neighbor is doing will be catastrophic for your business. Imagine for a moment that Asics does the same commercials as Nike. Who will win in the story?
The wonderful news is that it allows you to develop all the uniqueness of your business! This is followed by a ton of benefits that I have ordered alphabetically… Just for the sake of it.
So if you want your customers (and many of your prospects):
- Buy much faster
- Move mountains to buy from you and not from a competitor
- Convert more often and faster
- Defend your business and protect you
- Evangelize your words
- Federate new customers in turn
- Grow Socially and be proud of your Tribe
- Humanize your brand with their testimonials
- Radically ignore the competition even if it is cheaper
- Celebrate only in the presence of your products and services
- Love the results you bring them
- Weight their shopping cart
- Multiply buying opportunities themselves
- Never negotiate your prices
- Dare to take action faster
- See greater value in you
- Quadrupling your results (at least, at least…)
- Write positive or at worst ultra-constructive comments
- Remember you longer
- Silence the critics for you
- Use your products and services more than once
- See in you a part of themselves
- White-List all your E-mails
- Explode your profits and watch your videos
- Youtube until the end without ever
- Never skip your Call-to-Action again
*Closes the Dictionary and puts it in the library*
I invite you to read these next lines. There is gold in these paragraphs.
But how to generate so many positive emotions without witchcraft?
There are actually three Fundamental Secrets that are found in all the Great Brands of this world. If you too want to benefit from a powerful aura that attracts your customers, these three golden rules are for you.
- A Great Brand demonstrates authenticity. It is aligned in its essence. Mission, values, vision and actions are in perfect harmony day after day.
- A Great Brand is consistent. It doesn’t change overnight to follow a trend. She makes sure we can recognize her at a glance
- A Great Brand also demonstrates surprise. Because in a world where the average attention span has dropped dramatically, our customers are more and more prone to getting bored quickly. A great brand knows how to hold its customers in suspense for a long time.
Well that’s all well and good, but how to concretely improve your brand:
As I told you above, there are 7 Essential Pillars for a brand to gain power.
Miss a pillar and your brand will lose consistency.
If you only base your Branding on a single Pillar, your brand will not hold.
All the pillars must have the same importance to equally support your Brand.
Pillar #1: Your Logo.
It is a centerpiece of your Branding. The purpose of a logo is threefold. A logo identifies you, differentiates you and helps your customers remember you.
One of the biggest mistakes I see in my clients’ logos is that they try to put all the weight of their communication on their logo alone. They try to tell a complex story, to advertise the services they do in their business and use too many details which ultimately work against them.
In reality, it is the job of your photographs to tell a story (Point #4).
Rappelez-vous que nous voyons en moyenne entre 250 et 300 marques, publicités, annonces par jour. Nous ne sommes absolument pas capable de nous souvenir de tout.
Donc votre logo doit répondre à 3 critères précis. Il doit être :
- Simple
- Memorable
- Appropriate
If you think your own logo does not meet these 3 principles, change, simplify.
Pillar #2: Your colors
Your colors are essential. They allow your customers to identify and recognize you quickly.
Lorsque les couleurs sont bien choisies, elles génèrent chez vos prospects et clients un sentiment de confiance accrue. Réduisant le temps nécessaire pour passer à l’action.
Lots of mistakes are made with colors. My favorite is this AB Test which shows that a red button converts better than a green button. It’s not as simple as that.
Certainly, red is a color that stimulates more than green. But it’s not just that. It would be too easy. In reality, the test in question is biased by a cruel lack of contrast in the initial version of the page.
And the secret to a good color palette is CONTRAST.
But back to red shall we?
Would you feel confident if Facebook had a red cast? Probably not.
Colors are there to generate unconscious emotions. Too many mismanaged colors kill those emotions and your customer will want to leave.
And although today, more and more big brands (like Dropbox for example) know how to develop large and very diverse color palettes (for a few million at Collins), it is better to stick to a fundamental principle:
What is the emotion that your customer must feel when using your products / services?
Is it excitement, confidence, joy, passion?
By looking for these feelings, you will see that very often, colors are associated with them. This is a great starting point for developing your palette.
Pillar #3: Your Typography.
My God, how I love this subject!
Coming from the country that created THE most emblematic typeface in the world (Helvetica), you can imagine that I like typo.
The rule is very simple:
Readability + Personality == Choice of your typography
For this, Google Font is your friend.
And before choosing a font, ask yourself the question of the personality you want to offer your customers.
What must they think of you at first glance? Are you rather irreproachable, serious, intimate, fun?
Compare your answers with the style of the writings that are on your site / on your sales pages. Does it match?
You may not be able to feel personality in a typeface. In that case, ask a graphic designer. And respect his point.
In any case, if you have more than 3 different font styles on the same page, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
Pillar #4: Your photos / Your imagery
This is probably the most delicate subject.
Do you have to take photos of yourself mainly?
Or, for the sake of shyness, you probably prefer to use images on image banks?
There really isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer here. But there are a few things to think about that I like to offer my clients:
- Do your stock images give your customers the opportunity to imagine a story? Or are they too “primary” for that (like the image of the girl facing the sun, spreading her arms and breaking her neck to show how free she feels…)?
Small bonus: Emilia Clarke announces her conversion as a stock photo model. - Are your photos of you of good enough quality, with good light that shows you well and shows you in your best light (even in moments that may seem trivial.)?
What I like to do for my clients who want to put themselves forward: organize a shooting session with a photographer who follows my client and photographs him for at least half a day like a report. My clients organize their day normally and remain somewhat productive.
It seems weird for the first few minutes, but then my clients forget the presence of the photographer and get caught up in the game.
It gives really authentic, powerful, true images.
Pillar #5: Your personality
This is one of the points that you build without realizing at the start of your career.
When you are an infopreneur, the way you speak, the words you use, your ability to take yourself seriously or not are an inescapable part of your brand.
So just one watchword. Respect who you are. Don’t try to have a different attitude because a microphone is on or a camera lens is looking at you.
I know, it’s easier said than done. But there is no magic wand.
Train and love yourself with your imperfections. The world will accept you as you are and that’s why you will create deep connections with your customers.
If you have a business, things are quite similar. Imagine her coming to life (much like Pinnochio). How does she behave in everyday situations?
Pillar #6: Your Design
We have almost all the ingredients, it’s time to put them to music.
Here, we are talking about composition, hierarchy of information, structure.
We take your logo, your fonts, your colors, your images and we structure everything in coherent rules and compositions.
I know, it sounds boring. But in reality, the goal of Design is to transmit information as quickly as possible. A bad design makes the understanding of the message slower. Increases confusion for your prospect.
And believe me, people hate confusion above all else.
So yes ! For your site, you can use WordPress themes like Enfold or Divi. But if you dare to go a little bit outside the framework of these themes, you will quickly be annoyed.
I can only advise you to trust one or more professionals for this. They generally have several years of study behind them to make your messages attractive, interesting, readable, understandable, organized…
Of course, I preach for my parish. But Design is the most powerful tool in our modern world to convey clear messages. Always remember that Bad Design kills lives every day. Don’t kill the business relationship you might have with your client.
Pillar #7: Your Positioning
Positioning is the biggest of the 7 levers to build a powerful and lasting brand.
Knowing your positioning on the Market is THE key to standing out from the crowd. To stop selling the same products as the competitor, but 10€ cheaper.
Often, we have the bad habit of introducing ourselves by saying: “I do this, I am that”. We focus on ourselves and forget about our customers.
It is a more complex and profound subject than one imagines. But to help you get ultra-powerful faster, here’s the best question I can ask you:
What is the TRANSFORMATION EXPERIENCED BY your client thanks to you?
Then say this: “I help my clients go from [Status before knowing me] to [Status after transformation]. Thanks to my services, my clients [Result].”
Example: I help infopreneurs go from being a successful entrepreneur to being an Inspirational Brand. Thanks to my services, my clients solidify their business and multiply their profits in the space of 6 months.
This is the most direct way I know of. There are of course several ways to find the right positioning, but the one I presented to you above has the merit of being short and powerful at the same time.
Now the giveaway!
I sincerely hope that this article will have pleased you and enlightened you on the different facets of this superb profession that is Branding. A profession where each project reveals its uniqueness and brings even more value to the world.
And to thank the first ones who will have arrived so far, I offer you the possibility of downloading a really qualitative e-book which asks you the right questions on each of the pillars we have talked about in this article.
