Make More Money. Well, you certainly clicked on the right link! If you've landed on this page it's a good indicator that you are ready to grow your business and are looking for the best way forward. The next level up for your business could be simply a better brand away. Are you ready to push forwards and create a stronger emotional connection to your audience?

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Great branding has one foot deeply rooted in the world of
marketing and the other foot planted in the kingdom of graphic design.

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Branding or re-branding a business is much bigger than just creating a new logo- it's delving deep into the personality of your business and looking at what makes it tick. It's making sure that you are using persuasive sales copy and great graphics that accurately reflect your offering, and that appeal to your target audience. The goal is to be memorable.

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BRAND STORY DEVELOPMENT: The World of Marketing
Connection.
The goal of your brand story is to make a connection with your customer community.
By making a strong connection to your customer, your business will be easier to remember. When your business is easy to remember, then when your customer needs to repurchase or recommend a business they will be more likely to mention yours. Of course it goes without saying that if a business is highly memorable and generates positive word of mouth, then that business will likely to have a great deal of success.

So why the push on creating a brand story?

Humans have a long history of story-telling. We are social creatures that like to be entertained.
We also like to reach out and help each other. We like to offer helpful suggestions to our friends, and we love to feel lke the first one to "discover" a hot new trend. We spend a lof of our time chit chatting about these things and offering our advice and experiences to our friends and colleagues- mostly in the forms of "stories".
(The story of the great date you had, the story of the amazing new cafe that just opened up, etc.)
When we can add in some juicy details, we will, and that is exactly where your brand story comes in. It gives people something "juicy" to add to conversation when your product or service is mentioned. Your brand story offers customers a sneak-peak into the inner working of your company: A window into the heart and soul of your business, if you will.

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• A great brand story will ensure that your company is likeable.

• A great brand story will entertain the reader.

• A great brand story will connect with readers becuase it shows some aspect of the human condition.

• A great brand story will appeal to emotion. (Remember the rhetorical devices of ethos, logos and pathos from highschool English class? They've finally popped up as relevant!)

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When your business is likeable, people will feel more compelled to buy from you. The studies on consumer buying habits show us that purchase decisions are emotional ones. Very few people buy something because it is logical to do so. (This is why advertisers use kittens to sell us toilet paper.)

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Our brand story development begins with two main pieces of information from you:

1) Why did you start your business, and how has it been working for you?

2) Who do you want to sell to in the future, and why?

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After you have a firm grasp of what you want to communicate, and why, you should begin working to build your communications campaign. The words you use to address your audience can speak volumes about the type of business you have.

Are you friendly, relaxed and approachable?
Conservative, traditional and elite?

As part of your branding campaign, your copywriting should reflect your brand at every customer touchpoint.
Great brands have a consistent, recognizable voice that appeals to potential clients because of the way the advertisements are written. If you aren't sure where to begin, give us a call or email us and we will send you our brand basics sheet. We also have brand copywriters that are great at this sort of thing.

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BETTER BRAND GRAPHICS & COMMUNICATION

After you have the "what am I going to say" worked out, and that "what" makes sense for your brand goals and is in line with your brand story, and it also speaks to your audience in a way that they will connect with, it's time to put it all together into a marketing piece. (Yes, grab that market research, target audience demographics & psychographics, perception of your business offering, brand story and tone of voice.)

It needs a look. It needs a great logo that reflects all of this information, and it needs visual graphics that appeal to your community on an emotional level.

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20% of the people on the planet are highly visual.

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Most people use the "how does it look" test when they are making a first impression. How your marketing LOOKS is equally as important as what it says. Look at the flyers that arrived to your mailbox today. Which ones feel like they are from trustworthy, professional companies? Which ones look like they are start-ups that don't have $50 to spend on their corporate design? (If you can't tell, don't panic. Just know that you should not be in charge of doing your own flyers. Most people will be able to gauge what looks "more professional".) We all know that a picture is wirth a thousand words, and in the world of business your graphics speak volumes about how successful your company is, and how long you've been in business.

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• Great graphic design will let people know that your company is trustworthy.

• Great graphic design will pull your audience into the page or screen and urge them to read more about your company

•Great graphic design sets the tone for the brand, and can send out highly persuasive messages about the benefits of your product or service.

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CONSISTENT BRAND IMPLEMENTATION ACROSS ALL MARKETING CHANNELS
You're ready! Once you have your brand goals, your unique story, your tone of voice and your visuals ready you can begin to pump out marketing materials that work. You've probably heard that your customers need to see your name at least 11 times before they begin to remember you. The impression you make will be stronger with every marketing piece you send out, because your message will be clear and consistent. Your look will be memorable and uniform, and you will really be burning a mark "branding" your company into their visual memories.

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Put your new image everywhere.
• website • facebook page • twitter profile
You should aim to have all of your social media outlets designed to match your main website.

• signage • invoices • business cards • envelopes • brochures • powerpoint designs
Have your website match your office, and your office match your corporate identity. Have your corporate identity reflected on all of your printed campaigns.

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Consistency is key here.

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And, the wonderful thing is, when all of this work is done, you'll never have to "guess" about your marketing campaigns again. You'll have a visual look and feel to follow, a copywriting standard, and a visual system in which you will be fluent.

If you've never really branded your business and have found some success regardless, imagine the impact that branding could have on sales!
If you've got a brand that isn't working for you at the moment, we'd love to talk with you about working together to boost your sales through better branding. If you're not quite ready to brand your business, but want more information, we suggest you start on our resources page, or download the brand basics: first steps pdf to get started from the comfort of your own computer.