Brand Manual

June 15 2023

What Should You Include in Your Brand Strategy?

I want you to answer this question without cheating: When’s the last time you looked at your brand strategy?

If you answered in any of the following ways:

It’s been at least a few months
It’s been more than a year
What brand strategy?

You need this blog.

If I took all my clients and put them in two piles, the pile of clients that didn’t have a brand strategy beyond some very basic goals would be much, MUCH larger.

Today, we’ll talk about what you should include in a brand strategy. Creating a strong brand strategy can not only help you with vendors, prospects and internal team members, but it can also help you reinforce your values and goals to yourself. Let’s dive in.

What is a brand strategy?

Everyone follows a different framework and may include different elements in a brand strategy, but from a high level, I see it as a roadmap that outlines where you are, why you are there, and where you want to go within a certain timeframe. It’s important to include the present state of things and what your surroundings look like before you decide to drive further down the road.

What should be included in a brand strategy?

Again, these included elements will look different depending on who you work with, but I see the brand strategy as a smaller piece of the brand manual I create for clients, and this particular part has three main areas of focus: a SOAR analysis, SMART goals, and a tie to the HubSpot flywheel.

SOAR Analysis

Shout out to Miller for recommending the SOAR Analysis. Prior to the recommendation, I was using the standard SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats), but I’ve found that moving to something with more of an optimistic outlook has been helpful for me and my clients.

For those who are unfamiliar, a SOAR analysis gives you a chance to step back and look at your business from a few different angles, exploring the strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results you see or would like to see.

Strengths: Where does your business stand out? What can you do better than most, or you’re so familiar with it, you require no preparation to get started? If you sell a product, what do you offer that gets rave reviews? Is there a service tied to a product that customers seem to love? These could all be strengths.
Opportunities: What do your target personas need that you can deliver? Maybe there’s a gap in the market that you’re uniquely qualified to fill – this is something you can also explore when working on your unique selling proposition. Are there new market or service opportunities you could look into?
Aspirations: I usually start with clients by taking them through an exercise where they identify their core values, which then folds into their unique selling proposition. From there, we can look at aspirations – why they do what they do. Think about what you care about the most. Why are you running your business in the first place?
Results: When you work on a campaign, how do you measure results? Decide on 3-5 metrics to start that will help you determine whether you are on the right track. This could be an increased follower count, more engagement, more emails, more purchases, or anything else that helps you see the progress is being made. In the SOAR analysis, there is also the “triple bottom line” consideration of people, profit, and planet. If that is something you are looking to balance (and I sure hope you are), how are you conducting business in a way that achieves that makes moves that are good for all three of these pieces.

SMART Goals

Whether you think SMART goals are cheesy or not, I’ll tell you this much – they are super helpful in breaking down a goal.

A SMART goal should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. What does that mean? Here is how to expand a goal using “SMART”:

Original Goal: Get more traffic to the site

Specific: What will you use to reach the goal?

Through regular blogging and promoting blogs on LinkedIn

Measurable: Instead of just saying something like “make more money,” what trackable, numeric parameters can you add to your goals?

Average 500 pageviews per month through regular blogging and promoting blogs on LinkedIn

Attainable: What’s something you can plan for that’s ambitious and not unrealistic?

By finding organic keywords to shoot for that are attainable for a new website, adding up to about 5,000 searches per month or above, and high relevance to the brand, we stand a chance at achieving this goal of 500 pageviews on average per month over time. Expect to write 25 posts using low-competition, high-relevance keywords to start and evaluate to determine attainability every few months.

Relevant: How does the goal affect your business and bottom line?

Building notoriety on LinkedIn and bringing in quality traffic via organic search are both relevant to the business because they are forms of lead generation. They will also help solidify my specialties and serve as reference materials for prospects and clients.

Time-Bound: What can you accomplish based on your current bandwidth? When should you evaluate how you’ve done and maybe decide to change your tactics or keep going in the same direction?

I would like to achieve this goal by the end of 2024 at the latest. This would mean writing at least 15 new blogs by the end of 2023, using the beginning of 2024 to evaluate performance, drafting 10 more, and deciding if we are on track for 500 average pageviews or need to retool and reconsider our efforts. We should see upward momentum by Q1 2024 to make that decision.

Complete SMART Goal

Reach an average of 500 pageviews per month by the end of 2024 primarily through organic search and social traffic by focusing on writing 25 high-quality, relevant blogs that use appropriate, low-competition keywords (average of at least 200 searches per month per target keyword). The goal will be revisited and evaluated in Q1 2024 after 15 posts have been published.

Tying to the Flywheel

Some people like funnels, others like journeys. I’m partial to HubSpot’s flywheel, for a few reasons.

First, I really like the idea that you can add things to speed up the flywheel and build momentum. I’ve worked with clients who feel like they’re losing ground, and I like to remind them that anything we do, even if it’s small, can build momentum if it’s done regularly. If you don’t have time for 4 blogs per month, 1 is better than nothing. In fact, doing too much can even slow down the flywheel.

Source: HubSpot

Speed can be added through tactics like improving customer service, engaging in business development activities, building a content strategy, or launching paid advertising campaigns. Friction that slows down the flywheel can come from a mismatch between your messaging and the clients you’re trying to serve, internal processes that need improvement, poor communication, or confusing content.

The three main phases of the flywheel include attract, engage, and delight:

Attract: Strangers become prospects here
Engage: Prospects move to become customers
Delight: You keep customers coming back, turning them into promoters that attract more strangers

You want to take your goals and figure out where they fit into the flywheel, and the tactics that will help move things forward.

For the goal above, I’m mostly trying to move strangers into prospects, so I’d be putting blog writing and LinkedIn promotion into the “attract” phase. If I needed more speed in the flywheel, perhaps I’d do promoted posts or write more blogs.

Most businesses don’t take the time to walk step-by-step through a brand strategy process, but I promise, however long you spend contemplating where you want to go will pay dividends and save you so much time that would otherwise be spent trying and failing to launch several random campaigns.

Do you have anything you like adding to your brand strategy? Add a comment here or email me about it!

November 18 2022

Brand Persona Examples to Kickstart Your Strategy

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If someone asked you for brand persona examples, what would they look like?

If you were asked to describe your ideal customer as a complete human being, what do they look like? Do you have more than one type of ideal customer? Do these customers look like someone you know? Would you compare them to someone on television? Could you pull a stock photo and build a story around them?

Today I’ll be talking about dream personas, and sharing some brand persona examples and models you can use to get a better picture of who you’re trying to reach.

What is a brand persona?

In the simplest terms, a brand persona is a personification of someone who is interested in what you have to offer. These could be modeled off your current client base, or they could be based on a customer or client you aspire to attain. The more you identify about this persona, the better your targeting and messaging will be later on. Even if it seems like a cheesy activity, I don’t think it’s good to skip it.

Your persona has pain points – things that keep them up at night – that can be removed through your products or services. They may also have objections that could keep them from opting into what you have to offer, so you’ll have to think about ways to overcome those objections. They should gain a specific value from what you do, and you may even be able to quote some of their most common complaints or passing comments.

When I create a brand persona, I try to make it feel as real as possible. That includes finding a stock photo and naming them. If you create something that feels real, you’ll find yourself coming back to it when you’re working on creating content, building services, and choosing targeting criteria for advertising.

Targeting is hugely important. You need to think about how you can reach this audience. What social media platforms do they use? What do they read and watch? This will help you make decisions about where to spend your advertising money. Maybe they’re even more likely to choose something based on word-of-mouth, leading you to build up your referral networks.

Dividing into target audience types

The world is vast, and people are varied. How do you know where to start when you’re creating your brand persona?

Coding and creating your own brand persona types

First, you might want to start by choosing basic categories of what your brand persona is and what it isn’t. And, if you have two, you’ll want to think about how your target audience types play into one another, and where they might conflict.

The process could start with you gathering data on your current client base – remember, only include the clients or customers you’d like to keep getting – and start identifying their traits. This could come from interviews or surveys (more on that a bit later). Once you start to see patterns emerge, you might be able to assign common categories or traits to your persona types.

Using the 5 dimensions of brand personality

If you’re not into starting from scratch, you’re in luck. Jennifer Aaker developed 5 Dimensions of Brand Personality in 1997, and the model is still holding fairly strong today. While I have seen some arguments in academic circles over its strength, when you google “brand personality categories” or something similar, you’ll see Aaker’s model, or something very close to it, all over the internet. Using the model can be a great jumping-off point to identifying your brand personality, and what personas would be attracted to that brand personality.

The 5 main dimensions of a brand personality, and the facets under these dimensions, are as follows:

Sincerity
- Down-to-earth
- Honest
- Wholesome
- Cheerful
Excitement
- Daring
- Spirited
- Imaginative
- Up-to-Date
Competence
- Reliable
- Intelligent
- Successful
Sophistication
- Upper Class
- Charming
Ruggedness
- Outdoorsy
- Tough

I’ll be going through the importance of brand personality and voice and the various tools I use to pin that down in future blogs, but for now, I want you to think about this: If you are solid on your brand personality, it makes it much easier to find your target persona. Here’s an example.

You sell self-cleaning pants

Say you’re a company that sells these magical self-cleaning, almost indestructible pants. They resist dirt, grime, and water, and if they happen to get a bit dirty somehow, the silver woven into the pants resists bacteria and keeps them smelling, looking, and feeling clean. They’re perfect for people who have some rough-and-tumble travels in front of them and don’t have a lot of room to pack changes of clothes.

Based on the personality dimensions and facets above, what would you say the brand personality is? Probably ruggedness & outdoorsy, right? Perhaps tough? But maybe your brand wants to highlight the “techy” side of the pants – outdoorsy with a bit of a high-tech spin.

A brand persona example could be something like this:

Jess is an avid hiker who has set her sights on the American Discovery Trail next. While she knows she’ll have drops along the way for food and replenishing other supplies, she wants to make sure she has clothing that is up to the task and doesn’t take up too much space in her limited pack. Jess shops at REI and Patagonia. She’ll pay extra for quality – the last thing she wants is something to fall apart when she needs it the most. Jess is into tech and has a Garmin that can operate on battery saver for over a month and can be partially charged by the sun. She reads Outside magazine, shops at her local co-op, and is extremely brand loyal to the local hiking supply store in her area. She also reads Wired and loves learning about brands that offer new and innovative things. While she wouldn’t object to paying more for good pants, she might not buy something that doesn’t have a lot of good reviews already, opting more for established brands with proven track records. However, if someone well-respected in hiking endorsed the pants, she would be more likely to buy them. A recommendation from a friend would also work. So, how would we reach Jess?

Facebook / social media targeting

We could run target ads on platforms like Facebook using some of the things we know about Jess to reach out to her – building an audience based on people who like – Patagonia, REI, Outside Magazine, Wired, Garmin, co-ops, and so on.

Digital or print magazine advertising

We could also run ads in Outside Magazine, either via digital or print, or target people who visit certain website categories with Google Ads.

Influencer marketing

We could partner with someone influential and trustworthy in the hiking scene to test and recommend the pants.

Referral / affiliate marketing

We could also incentivize people who are likely to recommend the pants to Jess to do so by offering referral or affiliate bonuses – giving Jess $25 off and the referrer gets $35 off their next pair, for example. The more the person feels real and aligned to your brand personality, the easier it is to create a realistic brand persona example and build targeting and messaging around it.

How many brand personas should you target?

This is a tricky question that only you can answer, but my advice would be to stick to one or two at the very most to start. It’s very common for me to encounter clients who want to do everything at the same time. However, if you say that your target audience exists between a broad revenue level and could be in one of twelve industries looking for 6 or more services, when you try to speak to them, you may find yourself saying nothing that grabs anyone. Catering to everyone is truly catering to no one. Just because your messaging is focused on one brand persona doesn’t mean you’re closing the door to other types of customers or clients. It just means that the specific person you are targeting is more likely to engage with your content.

How often should my brand persona change?

I may surprise you, but I don’t believe that creating a brand persona should ever be a one and done exercise. Once you’ve created your target personas, keep an eye on them. Revisit them more frequently in the beginning (perhaps every quarter) and tweak as you go along and learn more about what messaging is and isn’t working. People change and so should your targeting. Once you know more, you can improve upon your plan!

What are some examples of brand persona documentation I can use?

Believe it or not, I’ve created a few templates for creating brand personas over the years (and if you want to do some one-on-one work with me on that, lemme know), but here are some good sections to include if you’re doing it yourself:

Demographics: Age, gender, where they are in the world, stage of life they’re in, parenthood status, career or title
Psychographics / Behavior: What do they buy, what do they like, what do they read, what are their motivations?
Pain Points: What is causing them pain right now that you could remove
Value you can provide them
Common complaints
Common objections to your service
How you can overcome those objections
Your elevator speech to your target persona
Testimonials that sound like your persona

Now that you’ve been armed with some strong brand persona examples, go forth and create? Overwhelmed? Reach out and I can walk you through the process, step-by-step.

Contact Me!

September 19 2022

Your Unique Selling Proposition is Boring – Here’s How to Fix It

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I can probably guess your unique selling proposition

If I told you that I could guess what your unique selling proposition was, would you believe me?

No, I’m not psychic, but I did spend several months this year conducting research on 500 of the top companies all from the same industry. You know what I found? Not a lot of “unique,” I’ll tell you that much. Instead, I found a lot of sameness.

Stop me if you say that you are set apart from your competitors by one or all of these values:

You go above and beyond for your clients
You treat your clients / employees / referral sources like family
You are dedicated to client success
You value hard work and integrity
You are innovative, going beyond what’s current and exploring what’s next to benefit your clients
Your clients aren’t just numbers to you

If you’re feeling sheepish, don’t worry. The good news is that you’re in the same boat as everyone else.

Most companies do not have a compelling unique selling proposition, and I’ll tell you why: They haven’t actually taken the time to think about what makes them truly unique.

Building foundational brand material is not a simple process. Chances are, you’ll need to spend hours, days, or even weeks or months putting together a selling proposition that does position you uniquely in your industry.

Writing a successful unique selling proposition

To write a successful unique selling proposition, I believe you need a firm understanding of the following:

Your brand’s core values – 3 words that describe what your business is to its core, beyond making money
Your personality – What you want to convey can build off these values
Your goals – What do you want to accomplish in the next 5 years? 10 years? How are you going to get there, and how can your USP help you reach your goals?

Unique selling proposition examples I actually like

Beyond your core values, personality, and goals, a strong unique selling proposition should stop you in your tracks. It should make you stop scrolling and think about what the person is saying. Here are a few unique selling proposition examples I particularly enjoy:

Kaufman Rossin: Joy

Kaufman Rossin, an international CPA firm, launched a new brand identity in 2022 with joy at the center. Their new tagline is “joy is your bottom line.” To see an accounting firm describe the work they do as joyful was incredibly refreshing. It is still, to date, the most unique thing I have seen a professional services firm say.

Who Gives a Crap: Toilet Paper That Builds Toilets

I was pulled in to Who Gives a Crap’s mission right away. First, by their amazing product name. Second, by their purpose. The company offers sustainable products made from bamboo and recycled paper, they donate 50% of their profits to build toilets, and they’re a Certified B Corp. They say they are “Good for the world, good for people, good for your bum,” and I couldn’t agree more.

Reparations Club: “Curated by Blackness”

Reparations Club is a bookstore in L.A., but not just any bookstore. The store bills itself as a “concept bookshop & creative space curated by Blackness.” It is a Black-owned, woman-owned store with standout branding, fantastic curated content, and a mission that’s in the name. Despite living in the Midwest, I was drawn to attend a virtual event at Reparations Club because of both the event itself and the unique positioning of the store.

Things to remember when crafting your unique selling proposition

I hope I have you fired up to get brainstorming and think up some eye-catching, provocative copy to put on your website. However, before you go off to the races, I want to offer one reminder: Consumers, potential clients, and young people, especially, can spot B.S. from a mile away.

Even though it’s tempting to put up something exciting just for the sake of it, make sure whatever it is you say about yourself is real, down to the core.

As the younger generations are entering the workforce, we’re seeing that they crave authenticity and purpose. Take the time to dig deep into your core values to identify what makes you special. Then, broadcast it in a way that feels real. Taking the time to do this right will yield incredible returns. Trust me.

Don’t know where to start?

Don’t worry, I’ve got you. I created a step-by-step guide to creating the best Unique Selling Proposition you’ve ever put to paper. You can build off the template I’ve created, or even work with me one-on-one. Ready to get started?

May 30 2022

Brand Manual Definition: What is a Brand Manual and Why Do You Need It?

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You know that saying about building a plane in midair?

That’s what I did at the last company I worked at. I came in, brand-new to the industry and brand-new to being a marketing team of 1.5, and I was asked to not only host a huge party, but also launch a website, within 4 months of starting.

Lucky for the firm, I thrive on that kind of chaotic energy. Challenges energize me in such a unique way. You want me to memorize a bunch of lines and put on a show in a 24-hour span? Done. You want me to create and publish a class in one week? Plenty of time. Want me to prep for a 50-mile walk? I’m already lacing up my shoes.

I’ve been known to perform a miracle or two in my day

There’s something to be said for pulling off something truly miraculous. We launched a 300+ page website in 4 months with 120 revised pages and no SEO snafus. We also got 160 people to show up to our office and have an absolute blast.

However, once I came down from that high, I realized that I needed to start formulating a larger game plan for the business.

In my role, I inherited no less than 8 email lists, all with different rules and different overlaps of subscribers. We were kind of using one CRM and also kind of using a practice management system. There weren’t set rules or protocols for anything. Most of the projects we took on were because someone suggested it and we ran with it, not because they were data-driven or based on a bigger strategy. It was a lot of “this is the way we’ve always done it” mentality, or habits that have never been examined.

Good processes can be hard to come by

Before I go on, I want to say something very important: This way of operating is NOT unusual. So many companies experience this kind of scope creep with their marketing projects, or any projects, for that matter. The pile keeps getting bigger and the plan is to make sense of it all eventually. But then, another urgent project gets in the way.

This is all to say that I recognize the immense amount of inertia businesses have to work against to do something new, especially if that’s to stop everything, take a step back, and figure out the best path forward. And I’m not necessarily proud of this, but it took a global pandemic to slow me down enough in this role to go, whoa, I can’t just be saying yes to every project that comes across my desk. I’m one person! We need a plan.

Enter the brand manual.

What is a brand manual?

Believe it or not, I’ve never Googled this myself. This is purely my definition and my approach cobbled together from years of experience with brands, going “it would be nice to have all this in one place.” This is my brand manual definition:

A knowledge repository

It serves as your resource for everything there is to know about your brand. A brand manual can include your voice, personality, your target audience (personas), your overall strategy & approach, what you’d like to accomplish in the next year, templates you use, and more.

A “hit by a bus” document

It can be that “hit by a bus” document – I kinda have a love/hate relationship with the overall idea of “hit by a bus” documentation, because it is such a morbid way of putting it, but it’s certainly eye-catching. Basically, if something terrible were to happen to me, but I wanted my brand to live on, the knowledge needs to exist outside my head and be documented SOMEWHERE. The less grotesque way of thinking about this is cutting out a bunch of time when you add someone new to your team. The onboarding process can be made that much smoother with a brand manual on hand.

A resource for vendors and onboarding

A brand manual is also a great resource for vendors. I’ve sent brand manuals to people who have done merch for me, or worked on graphic design elements, for example. Instead of reinventing the wheel and explaining the same things over and over, you can just plunk down your brand manual.

A reference for governance

It also can be your repository for governance, the founding principles of your business. Instead of writing a mission, vision, and values or guiding principles and never seeing them again, put them in a brand manual, where they can be revisited and evaluated regularly. And don’t worry, I’ll be talking a LOT about governance.

A guiding light and source of clarity

But here’s the big one, the value I found in the first brand manual I made time and time again – Clarity. If someone came to me with a project idea, and it didn’t tie into our goals that were outlined in our brand manual, we didn’t do it. Before that, I had a hard time staying focused or saying no. After that, it was a breeze.

So, why do you need a brand manual?

I’m guessing you’ve already identified yourself in some of the previous bullets. However, it stands reiterating that brand manuals are useful for people who are looking to get everything together in one place. They serve as a good reminder to slow down and move forward with a targeted intention, not just throwing spaghetti at the wall. I strongly believe our brand manual not only helped us continue to grow our web traffic, but also helped us focus and reach our goals quicker.

Prove it

By now, you might be thinking, oh cool, another marketer who’s all talk and no action. If something sounds good or unique enough on paper, people will buy on. But that’s not what I’m about.

I’m building a platform on substance for a very obvious reason. My content and offerings will not stray from that theme. What I’m going to do is document my brand manual, and the manuals of a few other clients, to show you what it does for their businesses, and in extension, what it can do for you. Now, I won’t give EVERYTHING away for free, but I’ll share just about everything. And along the journey, I’m planning on launching a do-it-yourself brand manual as well as opening up some other things if people are interested (thinking some group or 1-on-1 sessions to help you build the manual of your dreams). My goal is to make you wonder what you ever did without this guiding light.

Just recently, I was working with a client who’s still working on pinning down the exact voice and angle they’re trying to portray in their writing. They also asked me for stock photography, but because they didn’t have any style guide, I had to give 3 or 4 wildly different options and just hope something hit right with them. All of that indecision, while incredibly common, can waste a lot of time. I couldn’t help but think, “Wow, I wish they had a brand manual.”

I hope you stick around for the journey. It should go some very exciting places. Please reach out with questions if you have them!