But it wouldn’t work for Sir David Attenborough. There’d be a disconnect between the man and the (brand) personality.

And this is an equally important truth for your corporate brand too. You can create and assign a brand personality, but it has to be something you can ‘wear’ authentically.

Failing that, you’re doing a disservice to yourself and your audience.

Read on to learn about all 3 criteria you need to consider to build a successful, well-rounded brand.

How personal brands influenced brand personality

Since the rise and early success of personal branding, businesses have been looking for ways to leverage that within their own branding efforts.

The key agenda of personal branding? Getting more attention. Great for businesses, right?

You can achieve great cut-through (as a personal or corporate brand) by adopting a brand archetype aka a brand personality, which I’d written about before.

Audiences connect easier with people than they did with businesses. So naturally, businesses started adopting more ‘human-like’ traits to become more relevant and relatable.

Being relevant to the target audience, your customers, your users, and your tribe is one of the main criteria for building a successful brand.

But the personal branding movement that spearheaded brands to try and be more relevant and human isn’t reliable long-term.

Most of its tactics tend to be polarising. Turning people into circus performers. This is also why we’re now witnessing personal branding’s imminent death.

Being relevant and relatable to your target audience is only one part of the equation.

Competition matters, but not as much as you think

As designers, we create and assign entire visual systems and brand personalities for the businesses we work with. 

If we do our job right, we will create visuals that evoke an appropriate and fitting brand personality.

But there is a danger. 

Many designers are driven and misdirected by perhaps the most viral branding myth of all – that the sole purpose of branding is differentiation.

So we make this our priority number one, forgetting any other objectives.

And when that happens, in our own need for self-expression and desire to differentiate, we can create something that feels amazingly daring and creative but totally inauthentic to the brand we’re creating for.

And on the flip side, as business owners, we may be tempted to follow the latest trends. 

Or to ‘outdo’ the competition with a daring rebrand.

Yes – differentiating adequately from the competition is an important aspect of successful brands. But not to the detriment of your brand’s character and reputation. 

If you’re a black suit and tie kind of business trying to wear a red dress and stockings, you may have got it wrong.

Customer centricity isn’t the only requisite

Customer centricity is a topic that’s progressively gained more and more traction. For years, it’s been advocated for and written about in branding channels en masse.

And with good reason. It’s an important mindset.

But what some business owners and designers alike tend to assume is that being relevant to the customer is the only thing that matters. 

They seem to stop there. 

Yes, showing up in a way your target audience expects is a must-have aspect of good branding.

But if you feel that your industry and your audience demand a certain type of brand to serve them, your question should be: can you authentically pull this off?

Remember that your business will need to ‘wear’ the chosen brand persona indefinitely. And you can only do that consistently if the people driving the business forward truly believe in it (and can personify it). 

If you don’t, your brand will likely suffer from a slow and embarrassing death.

So the third, and perhaps most important aspect of branding is – your business has to be able to personify how you show up in the world. It has to be authentic to you.

In summary, the 3 non-negotiables of successful brands are

Branding will continue to evolve. There will always be new trends, new approaches, and new mediums.

But 3 things will likely remain true if you want to create a successful brand of value.

Whenever you’re creating a new brand, going through a rebranding process, or making anything for an existing brand, think of the following 3 criteria: 

• Is this relevant and appropriate to my target audience?
• Is this differentiated adequately from competitors?
• Is this an authentic representation of my business? 

Are you taking into account all three aspects of brand creation?

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Many of the tools mentioned here will probably be more applicable to the latter. But I’m sure you’ll come across something useful. Whether you’ve been running your business for 5+ years, or only just started.

As an entrepreneur, you’ll know that growth and improvement are continuous. And we always have plenty of opportunities to fine-tune our processes and productivity.

These are just some of the tools I use daily. Or in some cases weekly, or monthly. They greatly improve the efficiency of my output.

Whether that’s allowing me to structure the days to be more productive.

Or to make me a better writer.

Or to make sure I get around to all those urgent and important tasks. Or those not urgent but important tasks that tend to sit on your to-do list for months until your enthusiasm dies.

The tools listed here all have free versions (many of which satisfy my needs).

For full disclosure, some of the links below are referral ones. I’ve noted that down for each relevant link. You can use them if you do wish to upgrade and get the additional benefits of the premium version of one of the tools. Usually, that means we both get some kind of a kick-back in a way of a longer free period, a discount, or some other perk. Win-win.

So as a Russian saying goes, let me stop yanking the cat by its tail and get to the list.

Trello

When you are selling your services at scale, you can lose track of some ‘smaller’ tasks. That’s why you need a system to help you manage them. While lots of designers rave about Notion – keeping all their eggs in one basket, so to speak, personally, I’ve always disliked anything that tries to be everything. Trello on the other hand has always kept the core offering simple – track your to-do’s (or projects) in a clean place. I use the Kanban-like layout for mine (but you can change the layouts). Keeping track of projects on the go, my personal to-do’s, list of people or clients to follow up, passion projects, and more. When running a more ‘serious’ business or projects that require tracking of more complexity, you can always upgrade to a premium account for things like timelines, Gantt charts, team management, and more. When I was running bigger teams, we had more complex tools like Asana for managing the overall projects’ workflows, but I still relied on Trello for managing my own workflow.

ProofHub

As I mentioned above, with larger teams it will still make sense to lean into a full-blown project management tool. I used Asana. And I ‘kissed plenty of frogs’ to get to it, including Wrike, and Monday. The former two were powerful, but that’s also what made them extremely bulky and complex to integrate into our studio workflow. I was also never fond of the UX/UI for most of the tools used. Recently, to help a client of mine who’s growing a larger team, I’ve been searching for other alternatives and come across ProofHub, and it looks like a great alternative to the ‘bigger’ players mentioned. Especially due to their clean interface (pleasing to a designer), and a distinct pricing model – charing a flat monthly fee, regardless of the users you have.

Pomello

This nifty little app for your Mac or PC will help you reclaim those hours ‘surfing the web’, or hours you don’t even remember how/where you lost. Pomello is essentially a time-tracking device, that uses the Pomodoro Technique – helping you split your day into more productive time slots. It’s useful for making sure you don’t go over the hours quoted to your client, or for having clarity around how much time each particular project takes. But what it’s most useful for is keeping you accountable for your time. The timer clearly tells you when it’s time to work (usually in 90 min sprints of focused work). And when it’s time to take a break and stretch. Something many of us ‘workaholics’ and creatives tend to forget.

WeTransfer

If you work in the creative industries, chances are, you need to share large files with your clients, collaborators, and suppliers. And I haven’t been able to find a better, easier, and more nicely designed file transfer system (not that I’d looked very hard, once I’d discovered WeTransfer). You can send files of up to 2GB with a free account, and get notifications for when your files get downloaded. As you might have guessed, the premium version has better storage capacity, longer file holding and expiry limits, and more. Of course, if you’d rather support a larger corporation, you can always opt for the Google Workspace (Google Drive, custom domain emails, and more) – but I always liked an underdog.

Wise (referral link)

Naturally, once you’ve completed your client projects, you need to be able to get paid. If your clients are all local, it’s easy to transfer funds from their bank account to yours. But, if like me, you work with businesses from different countries, Wise (formerly TransferWise) is a great way to accept payments. Comparatively to PayPal, the transaction fees, and the currency conversion fees are much lower. And the payee can choose many different ways to pay, once they signup.

Grammarly (referral link)

I started actively creating content for my website (and Medium) over two years ago. Originally, it was a way to share what I know. But it also became a creative outlet and a way to improve my writing. Putting in my 10,000 hours, and so forth. And you shouldn’t underestimate the benefits of improving your writing either! A consistent writing habit can help you become a better communicator, meaning you can ‘sell in’ your ideas easier. Grammarly picks up on ways to improve your writing, with prompts on correctness, clarity, and more. And the best thing about it is that you can install plugins to help you write better emails, social media content, or anything else where you’d like to sound as smart as you feel.

Otter.ai (referral link)

I’d always considered myself as someone with a good memory (at least short-term memory). So remembering the key points of a short 1hr discovery meeting with a client was relatively easy and error-free. However, once I’d started running workshops, many of which would easily surpass 3 hours, and often with multiple participants, remembering things became more challenging. Otter.ai is a tool I opted for to record and then transcribe the meetings. I’d found it especially useful for strategic brand workshops, as I can assign several ‘speakers’ to each bit of dialogue that you can then sort through. When reviewing the transcriptions I tend to find one or two golden nuggets that I’d overlooked in the meetings.

Miro

Speaking of running workshops. The days of setting up live, face-to-face workshops, and brainstorms might be over. Or they might return. But what I can tell you for sure, is that remote, online workshops can at times be even more efficient and productive. Everyone can participate from the comfort of their living room, coffee shop, co-working space, or wherever. And I’d found Miro to be a perfect online environment to collaborate with clients and partners. It’s essentially a digital whiteboard where multiple people can engage with each other. Completing exercises. Brainstorming. Ideating. The possibilities are endless. Other similar products are out there, but being a designer, I was drawn to Miro’s pleasing User Interface and overall ‘feel’.

Skillshare (referral link)

While not technically a productivity app, is something that can improve your productivity, your output, and efficacy. They offer great, bite-sized classes to super-power you as a business owner. Whether that’s setting up your finances better, improving your marketing efforts, or learning how to code, design, animate, illustrate, or any other number of creative skills. Ultimately, the most successful entrepreneurs and leaders are those who know about a lot of different aspects of their business and they continue to improve complementary skills and expertise. Their monthly subscription pricing model means you can watch as many classes as you have time for. Here’s a challenge: how many new skills can you learn during your complimentary trial month?

NordVPN (referral link)

As we all become more remote, we need more tools to make us more productive, connected, and safe. If you’re not familiar with a VPN system, in the simplest terms, it allows your device to act as if you’re accessing the internet from a different location. Essentially, it masks where you are. And this has a range of benefits. When I temporarily relocated to Russia I still needed a way to access my professional network on LinkedIn. A platform that is banned in the country. With a VPN I can still access it securely. Another benefit is your online security – a VPN makes it harder for anyone to steal your personal data and files – especially if you tend to hop on those unprotected cafe wifi’s. NordVPN was my choice after my initial comparisons, as the price is good, and it has a ton of other supplementary products like the password manager, for example.

Anchor.fm

If you’re the kind of entrepreneur who’s looking to build a better personal brand with a higher reach, launching a podcast might be worth considering. When I decided to launch my own podcast in 2020, I’d had no idea of what was involved. Naturally, I’d asked around for a recommendation. I’d spoken to my fellow creators, and of course, Google. Unfortunately, the majority of the options to host and distribute your podcast were costly. And I wasn’t prepared to invest in something I was only ‘trying out’. Luckily, Spotify’s Anchor is free (at the time of writing). Easy to set up and distribute your podcast to the world.

Mailchimp (referral link)

Again, as a builder of a brand (personal or otherwise), you need to have easy access to people whom you serve. You can’t rely on your social media followings or your Facebook group members forever. As they say – you’re on rented land. And say what you will, but building an email list is still one of the most efficient ways to communicate with your customers and have direct access to them when you want to share your offers. I’m a bit biased when it comes to email marketing tools, as I’d been using (and loving) Mailchimp for years. As a designer, you can’t go past their beautiful and easy-to-use email builder and the user-friendliness of the overall tool.

Veed.io

An awesome video creation tool, whether you need to create social media content to grow your audience. Although initially I was less concerned about their video editing tools and was first sold on it because of their awesome automatic subtitle generator. There’s nothing worse than watching an Instagram Story, or an IGTV that has no subtitles. Many of us watch these on mute, meaning that your message is lost. Creating captions/subtitles manually by hand is a hassle. You need to automate the process (and increase your productivity). And this is what Veed.io does best. Nowadays, they have lots of other supplementary tools, like animated GIF conversion, and branded videos.

Special mentions

Here are a few other tools that are worth a mention. Some are nice-to-have, and others are good alternatives to the apps above.

SkyFonts lets you install fonts without the need to manually download and install them yourself, which also keeps the fonts synchronized with any updates. I find it especially handy for installing Google Fonts.

Slack is a great tool to keep your communication productive and efficient, and with a tagline like ‘be less busy’ you can tell why over 10 million people have jumped on.

InVideo is another great platform for creating video content, with ready-made templates and stock footage, it offers plenty of tools for a busy brand builder. Use Coupon ILYA25 to get 25% off your paid plan.

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So if a logo is an amuse-bouche, a brand name is then the manner in which a person greets you by the entry, the atmosphere of the restaurant, and the architecture and interior design. 

On a subconscious level, creating a brand name is essentially setting certain expectations about the rest of the experience for the customer, which will either be met or they won’t. And the name will forever become a mental shortcut for the customer’s brain to remember those experiences, as well as the main course. 

So in many ways, if the customer service you provide, or your products are flawed, creating an amazing brand name won’t save your business. But on the flip side, if your name sends the wrong message, you might not have any customers (or the right kind of customers) show up in the first place.

15 years ago, I got to create my first brand name for a Modular Building company, called Kubik Modular, or just Kubik. It was one of those projects like ‘you’re building our website, oh by the way, and can you create our brand name as well?’. It was the kind lack of pressure combined with the lack of knowledge of the importance that a brand name can make, that caused me to perhaps spend much, much less time on trying to find a perfect name than I do today.

And ever since then, the more I got into brand naming, the more I realised how hard it can be to create something that can stand the test of time. And something that means something. And secure the domain name. And not always in that order.

Naming is a creative process. But its success depends on using proven strategies for creating a brand name that works.

Why a brand name is important

As I mentioned, naming helps humans to instantly attach meaning to something through associations we’d had with those things. 

We can simply tell our friend let’s discuss fast food or artificial intelligence, or McDonald’s, or Google, and straight away we both have an opinion, an idea, and some level of knowledge on the topic.

Without names, we wouldn’t be able to collaborate effectively. We’d waste hours describing an entire concept to our friends before they even know what we are talking about.

This is especially important for naming businesses or products.

When naming is done well—it opens up a story and a conversation, and hopefully creates a good first impression for potential customers and partners. 

But when naming goes wrong, as it did for plenty of companies, it can become a funny meme on the internet, making a laughing stock of that company and an invitation for Twitter shaming.

When naming goes wrong

A few years ago, an American company, Tribune Publishing rebranded itself to tronc Inc. It has sparked ongoing ridicule of the name on the internet with some hilarious reactions.

Online magazine The Verge wrote Tronc ‘is the sound of a millennial falling down the stairs’. And it didn’t stop there, eventually forcing the brand to revert to the original name. 

So despite these types of stories, I still find that much too often naming can be an afterthought. 

An informal exercise where business owners or startup founders who spend months developing brilliant products or companies go with a name that is ‘fine’.

Often without even bothering to examine cultural contexts, competitive landscapes, or ease of spelling.

If you’re not a customer-facing company, translating your key service into Latin and calling that a day, might be fine for a brand name. But, if you’re like most companies, needing to market yourself to attract new customers, then you need a brand name you’re not ashamed of, and one that doesn’t give potential customers the wrong impression.

So when and how to create a brand name?

My initial advice is: don’t rush into naming.  

If you’re still exploring and finding ground for your business or product perhaps naming this early on might not be the right time. It might be sufficient to give your project a code name until you solidify your business plan and concept. 

Otherwise, you risk the common startup issue of the concept evolving and the name no longer having relevance. 

When you are ready to create a brand name, use these tips to help:

Generate your word bank

Before you can dive into creating a brand name you need some foundational words that can inform the name. To extend the cooking analogy at the top of the article, think about these as ingredients for a dish you’re about to prepare. You can’t cook something without ingredients, right?

Your word bank can include things like brand values, keywords from your positioning, mission, vision statements, as well as words related to the customer’s transformation and benefits, your USP, and anything else that might be relevant to your brand and how you conduct your business.

Keep this in a list, categorising the names under each of those aforementioned buckets, we will use them to get cooking.

Brainstorm more word associations

Based on the words you have listed, you can now start using some blue-sky thinking and generate associations. A few good tools you can use for this are either the Mind Map tool or the Morphological Matrix. If you have a larger group responsible for making the final decision on the brand name, you can brainstorm these association words, together.

The idea here is that based on your ‘standard’ words (most of which will not make for a unique and distinct brand name), you want to generate some words that are somewhat outside regular thinking.

That means words like Talented or Inventive might make you think of Mozart or Da Vinci, or perhaps Nikola Tesla. You can sort of see how Tesla got the inspiration for their brand name.

Think in terms of analogies

General Motors or Electronic Arts do what it says on the box. However while that approach may provide a certain immediate relevance to the client in terms of keywords, it’s not particularly emotive or memorable. 

And the more businesses populate that particular niche with similar keywords, the more your business will get lost in the noise.

One of my favourite approaches to naming is to call on analogies. 

I love analogies. I’ve often said that my wife makes fun of me because I’m always trying to squeeze out an analogy for practically every notable situation in our lives. I read about using analogies as a Creative Thinking tool in Edward de Bono’s book over a decade ago, and have been using them in my creative process ever since.

Let’s say you’re creating a brand name for a banking service, investment app, or something for a financial planner. You might compare the process of saving and accumulating money to a snowball, that gets bigger as it rolls down the hill. You’ll be able to pull out words such as snowball, rolling, compounding, and perhaps, momentum. All great words for you to play with for coming up with an interesting name.

Analogy’s cousins, metaphors, and similes can work just as well.

Their strength lies in being able to convey existing characteristics through a mental image we already have. A good example would be the British car brand Jaguar, which chose the animal to evoke the shared characteristics of fast and powerful. 

Or Amazon – piggy-backing on the metaphorical volume of one of the largest rivers. Which sure as hell beats Cadabra or Relentless, two of the previous name ideas for Jeff Bezos’ business.

Mashup your words together

Now that you have your word bank filled, start mashing words together for interesting combinations. Things like adding suffixes and prefixes can work, and so can combining words together.

Some common prefixes are re- as in rebuild, or un- as in unkind. And some of the common suffixes are things like adding -ly or -ing on the end. 

Facebook, PayPal, and YouTube are basic combination names. And then we also have less recognisable mashups that make for interesting combinations, like Spotify (combining spot and identify), or Vodafone (voice, data, telephone).

For more ways to generate name ideas, try the SCRIPT method I’ve devised for problem-solving and idea generation: Simplify, Compare, Restrict, Imagine, Provoke, and Transform.

Look at these tools as outside help that can enable you to see beyond your immediate circle of knowledge and idea pool. A selection of exotic, previously unknown ingredients to add to your main dish, if you will.

Once you have at least 50–100 different brand name options you can start to pick those that sound best and shortlist them down to your best 20-30 options. 

How do you pick the final name?

After all the creative thinking you need to ground yourself back down again and validate the name options. A checklist is a good place to start.

There are lots of qualities a good name can have, and not necessarily all at once, but here are some questions to ask. 

• Is the name distinct from what’s already out there? 
• Can the name work not just for your current offering but future aspirations?
• Will it mean anything to your customers or employees?
• Does the name allude to the customer benefits?
• Or the promise you are making to the market? 
• Does it open the conversation about what you do differently?
• How about your brand personality, or your brand story?
• Does the name sound nice on the tongue and easy to pronounce?
• Are there any international issues that the name could cause?

You want to rate all the ‘top runners’, scoring the names in each category out of 10, by the end of which you should hopefully have 3-5 top shortlisted names.

Also, think about it in terms of the possible future for a name – could it work as a verb, like Google, Photoshop, or Skype? Or could it easily lend itself to an extended brand vocabulary (Twitter, tweet, retweet, fleets)?

Don’t be stuck with a .com name

Nowadays, just about anything that is recognisable is already registered. Or at the very least, parked. I’m talking about the coveted dot com domain name, of course.

There’s a huge debate about these things, many claiming that an exact dot com is a must. And I get that the allure of securing that exact .com domain name is high.

However, insisting on an exact dot com domain will likely cause you to come up with a name that’s too hard to spell, or remember, just because you’re trying to ‘please the algorithm’ of availability.

In the early days, companies like Tesla and Dropbox, had to find creative ways to register a domain name: teslamotors.com and getdropbox.com

They knew that customers either Google the name or the brand’s keywords, rather than trying to guess the domain name – meaning that the right customers will reach you regardless.

So if you feel that all other factors in terms of the name being relevant, distinct and memorable are on-point, my suggestion to you is to not reject a name idea based on an unavailable dot com. Consider another creative domain name that can work instead.

Final words of creating a brand name

Anyone can generate a great brand name with a little research, brainstorming, and lateral thinking. But it certainly is hard work— it’s not unusual to generate over a hundred, if not thousands of options in the search for a name!

According to sources, an advertising agency proposed over 6,000 possibilities to Henry Ford when he was looking to name the eventually coined Ford Edsel.

But at the end of the day, a name is not the entire full-course meal of your business. It’s only a small introduction to it – so if you can’t find the perfect brand name right away please don’t let it make you lose your enthusiasm for launching (or re-launching) a business. Lots of well-known businesses we know today had started with less than desirable brand names.

It might also be worth running some surveys with a select customer group to see which of the shortlisted names resonate with them the most. And don’t forget to reach out to a trademarking lawyer to check the theoretical availability of name registration in your country for your top 3-4 names. 

My promise to you is that you will be that much closer to your perfect name if you use the tactics and tools I’ve listed above. And if you need a little outside help, there are many naming services and consultants who can help.

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Having said that, one of the most frequent requests I get from designers wanting to dive deeper into brand strategy and strategic design is book recommendations.

I’m all about empowering you with additional insights. And books have been a huge resource in my own journey to becoming the (strategic) designer I am today. So I’m creating this list with the aspiration that it will help you to upskill as well. Plus also it will be an easier place to send people to whenever I get yet another book recommendation question.

I’ll preface this list by saying that not all books mentioned here are ‘brand strategy’ specific. And there’s a reason for that. To me, to think more strategically means having the ability to see the bigger picture. To be able to see the bigger picture often means having just enough knowledge about lots of different areas. That enables you to spot the gaps better when you’re talking to clients.

It’s much the same when you work as a creative director or another leader responsible for a cross-disciplined team. The shoes of that role can be much better filled by someone with a deep generalist makeup rather than a specialist. Hence why lots of books here are not JUST on brand strategy. Some are on building a business in general, others on marketing, a few on influence and communication skills, and more.

Let’s begin.

1 How to win Friends & Influence People

What?! A self-help book?!? Hear me out – Dale Carnegie’s books have made a massive impact on my development as a human being in general and as a creative. Many of the concepts in How to win Friends & Influence People were somewhat obvious and yet enlightening at the same time. I often return to the many notes and scribbles I’ve left in my copy, reminding myself of those timeless concepts taught. Although on the surface this particular book has very little to do with branding, the mindset shifts in interacting with others have enabled me to nurture better empathy, communication, negotiation, and influence skills. All crucial if you want to have your ideas be heard and implemented by clients, partners, and peers.

2 The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

As authors, Al Ries and Jack Trout argue, everything in nature has laws that most things adhere to, so why not marketing. Although I can’t say I agree with every idea in the book (a few things have changed since 1993), The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing does provide a great snapshot of how marketing works. And if you want to get more into the world of brand strategy as a designer, you will definitely need to get fluent in marketing. That is if you want to be able to influence marketing managers and key decision-makers of a business. Not to mention, having the added insights to base your strategic recommendations on.

3 Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind 

Since I’d already brought up Al Ries and Jack Trout, I might as well mention their other behemoth contribution to marketing – their book on Positioning. Many brand strategists I’ve spoken to who worked for the larger marketing and branding consultancies like Interbrand and Landor still use the ideas from the book as the foundation for their frameworks. The book is all about uncovering, defining, and communicating that one place that you can ‘own’ in consumers’ minds – positioning. A crucial skill to master for brand strategists, and one of the most critical components of my own brand strategy framework.

4 This is Marketing

While we are still on the topic of marketing (I wonder how many of you designer friends out there are rolling your eyes by now), we need to consider more up-to-date views on marketing as well. Like Seth Godin’s book, This is Marketing. Seth Godin’s concept of permission marketing is one of the reasons I started getting more interested in marketing in the first place. Up until that point, I’ve looked at marketing, on par with sales, as a sleazy one-to-many series of bombardments, ramming products down people’s throats. This is Marketing opened up a different perspective for me of how marketing can be a force for good and how it can be made more customer-centric.

5 Company of One

Paul Jarvis, the author of Company of One, is an entrepreneur with whom I really resonate. The premise of this book is that while many businesses tend to focus on quick growth, expansion, and revenue, there is an alternative way to business building. And that’s to create a more automated and profitable business that enables you to have more freedom and autonomy for the things that you love doing outside of your business. Staying intentionally small or finding ways to outsource, in order to keep business simple. This kind of perspective is what’s helped me to embrace concepts like MVP in launching my own business initiatives, products, and campaigns, as well as those of my clients.

6 The E-Myth Revisited

If you want to do a better job of getting into the shoes of your clients and understanding the challenges that many entrepreneurs and business owners face, whatever stage of a business they are at, then you’ll find The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber really insightful. The book draws the distinction between working on your business and working in your business, showing how systems and processes can improve the businesses’ productivity and effectiveness. This kind of perspective can help you uncover and recommend solutions and opportunities beyond just logo and colours, once you have the chance to quiz your clients and experience how they run their businesses.

7 Designing Brand Identity

While I have mixed views on concepts like deliberate differentiation for brands (I think there’s a time and a place for that, but not a hard-set rule), I do think that Alina Wheeler’s Designing Brand Identity provides some great structure and process to follow for designing cohesive overarching brand identities. It also offers some very helpful perspectives on helping you change your mindset from ‘I’m just creating visuals’ to ‘how do I help create more value for my clients’ – something many designers I’ve spoken to still struggle with.

8 Good Strategy/Bad Strategy

Finally, a strategy book! Were you wondering if I’ll ever get to one in this list?! I’m always trying to see multiple perspectives in whatever I tackle, and the title of Richard Rumelt’s book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy immediately drew me in. I resonated with many concepts in the book, like needing to approach strategy in a more holistic way. Larger organisations and businesses tend to operate in silos and are managed in a chain-link manner, meaning that they can get stuck in a ‘low-effectiveness gear’. So if you’re dealing with a business like this, it will be difficult to have them implement and adopt your strategic recommendations if you’re a branding professional. Unless you find a way to address that with your client early.

9 Creative Strategy and the Business of Design

Another book that I knew was my kind of resource, directly from the title. In my own content here, as well as over on Instagram, I always talk about the importance for designers to develop their soft skills. Design skills will only get you so far. That’s mostly due to the fact that I see myself as an average designer, so I try to overcompensate by developing additional skills like negotiation, communication, and others so it balances out. Now imagine if you’re already an ace designer, who’s got the creativity part covered. What Douglas Davis will teach you in Creative Strategy and the Business of Design will empower you to gain the business skills and insight needed to be seen as a valued partner, not just a creative service provider.

10 Branding: In Five and a Half Steps

In Branding: In Five and a Half Steps Michael Johnson offers probably the most simplified branding process I have seen. And that’s great, actually. The thing is, there is a darker side to some brand strategists – overinflated egos. Hence the 75page strategy decks that are designed to stroke it, rather than provide something genuinely usable for their clients. Those decks tend to be filled with a lot of jargon, aspirational and ambiguous terminology, and language that’s hard to translate into anything actionable. And I think that’s largely because those strategists need those bulky processes, dozens of diagrams to illustrate the client’s brand values, and expensive-sounding terminology to justify their hefty fees. Instead, Michael Johnson offers a refreshingly simple take on branding, a field that is unfortunately full of pseudo-science.

Now over to you

If you enjoyed reading this article, consider signing up for the Studeo Insider, and receive more insights like this one. If you know someone who might enjoy this article, please share it. If you have any questions or would like a chat, please reach out via email or on Instagram, I’d love to hear from you!

The post Books on Brand Building Every Designer Should Read appeared first on Studeo.

But have you considered how audio branding might improve the effectiveness of your brand?

Yes, it’s true that to build a memorable and strong brand that customers will flock to, your brand visuals need to be professional and engaging. And most importantly they have to be appealing to your specific target audience.

However, the visual aspect of a brand is one of many other touchpoints in which your customers can experience your brand.

Customers Have Many Touchpoints with Your Brand

When it comes to customer experience, there are many other, equally important brand aspects such as:

• Brand personality (also known as an archetype)
• Tone of voice
• Core messaging framework
• Tagline/s and service descriptors
• And many other non-visual brand elements
• Audio Branding is Becoming More Prevalent

More and more businesses are seeing the value in creating strong, engaging visuals for their brand. And this is equally exciting, as it is an overwhelming time.

With more businesses worthy of our attention with great looking brands, it’s only natural that we will start to develop ‘noise-immunity’, just like we have learnt to tune out advertising on Facebook and co.

Needless to say, brands will need to find additional ways to differentiate and grab our attention. The answer could lie in audio branding, aka sound logos aka sound trademarking.

What is it? Look at it as an additional layer to your many existing brand layers. A supplementary sensory experience that can help you hook your customers. Like the close cousin, scent marketing, audio branding can be an additional advantage to become more sticky in your customers’ minds.

Audio Branding is Popular Again

Back in the noughties, jingles were all the rage. They are still loosely used by some brands but have been falling out of favour with the public for the last 20 years, because of sheer saturation.

However, with the rise of virtual home assistants and smart homes, the audio branding component has quickly become super relevant again.

According to an auditory study, over 80 percent of people can successfully identify a correct pitch for a brand sound or audio logo. This is for the nonmusician test group. As you can imagine, musically inclined participants scored much higher.

This statistic means that adopting a meaningful, relevant and memorable sound logo for your business could prove to be beneficial and might be worth considering.

Increase Brand Recognition and Customer Trust

Sound logos are about to become especially important for lifestyle and e-commerce brands.

A lot of our purchases will be completed via our virtual assistants. And hearing a reassuring ‘ding’ after purchase would be the expected customer experience. Mastercard has already jumped on this (sound) wave by tailoring a custom Sonic Brand, along with a library of sounds that include everything from contactless payment transaction sounds to on-hold music and others.

If your brand shares any video content, podcasts or educational courses, audio branding could hold the same importance. Hearing a familiar jingle or sound logo during your content will deepen your brand recognition with that customer.

One thing is clear – voice-first technologies bring with them a new requirement for an audio brand strategy. A Branding Agency with the know-how can consider this requirement as part of your overall Brand Strategy, helping you to identify whether audio branding is a relevant touchpoint for your business.

Recommendations for Business Owners

As a business owner, it’s important to consider whether audio branding can add any benefit to your customers or your brand.

It will depend on the industry you operate in, your target market and demographic, as well as the overall Customer Journey (more on how to create your Customer Journey Map in a later post).

The key is to recognise that times are changing, and your brand needs to be flexible so that it can grow and evolve with the times. Sometimes, the early adopters who jump on a new development quickly, before it becomes a trend, do tend to have an advantage over those who don’t.

After you’ve carefully considered the application of sound branding in your business, reach out to your preferred branding agency to see if they can help you strategise and execute something truly memorable that can serve you for decades to come.

Now Over To You

I want to hear about your experiences with sound branding, jingles and sound trademarking  – reach out via email or on Instagram and let’s get a discussion going!

If you enjoyed reading this article, consider signing up to the Studeo Insider and receive more insights like this one. If you know someone who might enjoy this article, please share it.

The post Audio Branding: Do You Want to Make (Sound) Waves with Your Brand? appeared first on Studeo.

“Everyone is getting a website – so I need one too” was a terrible reason then, and it’s still a pretty poor answer now. However, you can’t deny that today as a business, not having a website can be a pretty poor decision or plain stubbornness. “Internet is just a fad, guys!”

It’s true, even some creatives are demoting a website as a necessity and adopting other platforms to promote themselves. But unless you’ve successfully embraced social media as your main ‘landing page’, your website is still your best bet at controlling how you narrate your brand story to your audience.

Your prospects are constantly searching the interwebs to solve their problems. You are hoping that when your homepage pops up, they’ll feel like they’ve found their answers.

The tips described below are not intended to be a ‘quick fix’ or a ‘magic pill’ to miraculously transform your website homepage into a lead-attracting machine. It will, however, help you to tell a more coherent brand story – which will be more engaging to your audiences that do visit. It will help you improve your website effectiveness.

Be clear about your offer (and value) within seconds

Over 90% of your website visitors will leave within 6-10 seconds. Best practice to combat this short attention span is to answer your prospect’s question very quickly – ”Do you actually have what I need?” Crafting a Strong Value Proposition is key – this is not your tagline but a short statement targeted at your audience.

Here is an indicative checklist for crafting a solid value proposition:

• Make sure it’s tailored at your core audience, with their needs and desires in mind
• Make it unique and cover why your solution is different from your competition
• Keep it succinct and stick to simple language over jargon
• Is it memorable or generic? Lean towards the former
• Keep it specific – describe exactly what you will do, rather than speak in concepts
• Make it desirable – think about why would someone want what you have

To ensure you are creating your Value Proposition that is informed by your target audience, you can utilise the Build Better Brands Worksheet.

Carefully plan your Call To Action

Preferably straight after your Value Proposition you should insert a relevant call to action. This is not just for those clairvoyant and savvy visitors who are convinced about your excellence through your Value Proposition alone. It will also serve as a trigger of what you expect your prospects to do after they get familiar with your business – for those who are still on the fence.

I also suggest you consider placing this key CTA button in your global header –which is preferably sticky (stays visible when the page is scrolled).

Reinforce it with Social Proof

People are social creatures. Okay – some are may be more than others. But we are all influenced in one way or another by recommendations from our friends or by what a particular community thinks. So somewhere towards the top of the homepage you need to show visitors they can trust you.

These can include testimonials, logos of your high-key clients or case studies demonstrating results you’ve achieved for others.

Show Benefits, not Features

Does the widget you sell help to clean shoes quickly? That’s great. But what customers really care about is going to a business meeting in sparkly shoes and or impressing their date. People don’t care about the features, but they do care about solving their problems. Show them how you can help do the latter.

Features can be introduced further down a page by explaining how they make those benefits possible.

Be responsive – become mobile-friendly

The simple fact we all have to accept is that website visitors can be on a desktop or a mobile device. More and more leaning towards the latter. So if your website (and especially your homepage) isn’t mobile-friendly, your visitors might be going elsewhere to find a more optimal experience.

What’s even more troubling is that Google has started penalising websites that are not mobile responsive – which is bad for SEO and your search rankings.

Lucky for you there are plenty of tools to help you review your site. Registering an account with  Google’s own Search Console can help you track and receive reports of any mobile-specific issues on your site. You can also do the work yourself and use this free tool which simulates what your site looks on different devices.

I hope these tips have given you some ideas on how you can transform your website in small ways to become more effective with attracting and retaining customers.

If you need some help with implementing any of the above,  please reach out.

Now go forth and make your website the best that it can be

Over to you now. Are there any other things you want to learn about? Please let me know! Sign up to the Studeo Insider to receive more articles like this one. And finally, if you know someone who might enjoy this article please share it.

The post 5 Incredibly Simple Tips To Improve Website Effectiveness appeared first on Studeo.

The other day I was chatting with a fellow designer about branding, and we got talking about local real estate brands.

Brand names and links of inspiration were shared and looked up. Some real estate businesses were presenting themselves as your friendly family provider, while others focused on appearing luxurious.

There was one particular local business that stood out to me. And not for the right reasons.

It has recently gone through a rebranding process. A surface review of their new marketing, website and instagram revealed that a huge part of their visual identity revolved around really over-the-top imagery. In the majority of photographs the business owner was pictured on yachts, in fancy multi-million dollar homes. Self-admiration dripping from every orifice.

Having worked with this business owner before, my colleague casually remarked that it summed him up to a tee.

And it got me thinking – how many businesses are still making their branding all about them?

How customers go through a buying journey

Each of us goes through a purchasing journey when deciding to buy.

Without going through each step, there is usually an awareness stage. You know about your problem and are casually thinking about something that could solve it.

Then it’s a process of consideration and comparison of different competitors offering a similar product or service, which then leads to purchase.

When considering a decision such as buying a house a customer may wonder:

• Will I get a return on investment or lose money?
• Is it a convenient location to live in?
• Will it accommodate my current needs and integrate into my existing way of life?
• Is it close to schools, hospitals and shopping?
• Do I feel a connection to this particular house?

The above questions are all about the customer’s needs and desires.

The customer won’t care less if you cover yourself in red paint and call yourself Silly Suzy. Provided you have a trusted track record and can answer most of their needs. Whether that’s through a phone conversation, a FAQ section on your website or through marketing efforts.

Ultimately they will buy from any agent.

Avoiding branding mistakes – new branding is customer-centric

Our fancy real estate agent above has taken the ‘all about me’ branding approach.

Don’t misunderstand me. Having a brand personality and unique tone of voice is great. In fact, it’s one of the key parts of branding.

However, failing to consider the customers needs means that they are likely missing out on a large share of new business.

Yes, their target market is probably a very specific type of customer. And yes, those customers probably have a need and a question about whether it will increase their social status.

But for every customer like that you can find a handful of other real estate agents selling ‘luxurious properties’ with just as much swagger.

Brand personality alone is no longer enough to attract new business and clients, and it’s one of the most common branding mistakes I see today.

As a business, you have to flip the conversation, and make it about your customers instead.

Agree or disagree – let me know.

If you know someone who might benefit from this article please share it. If you ever need someone to talk to about business branding and customer needs, please contact me.

The post Risky Business: Branding Mistakes That Are Holding You Back appeared first on Studeo.

Let’s talk about science. Specifically neuroscience, and how our subconscious makes buying decisions (as well as making other vital choices). Often without us even realising.

Jung and Freud had theories about the impact of our subconscious. However speculative, they were surprisingly accurate in places. Now though, with our technological advancements there is a sea of scientific studies showing just how much influence the subconscious has over our behaviour, and subsequently our buying decisions.

All businesses strive to acquire loyal customers who are happy to pay a premium price. And the good news is that every business can leverage the power of branding to achieve this.

As you’ll find out, branding has major effects on our subconscious buying decisions.

Our Decisions Are Rational, or Are They?

Most of us, myself included, like to think of ourselves as rational and logical. After all, we’ve been trained to think in an organised manner since we were little nippers. Way back at our first school assembly we’d been told to line up in a specific order, according to class, age, gender or other factors.

Rationality permeates our daily lives and is highly encouraged. So it’s only natural to assume that all of our decisions are based in logic and reason.

In a business context, many economic leaders advocate that consumers will buy when the benefits outweigh the costs. Because they assume that people make rational decisions.

In reality however, human behaviour is influenced by a stream of external factors. Our feelings, perceptions and thoughts, memories and personal experiences all contribute to our decision making. On both conscious and subconscious levels. As it turns out, our subconscious influences our decisions (without our knowledge) much more than we like to believe.

And the idea that we are not consciously in control of all of our decisions can be difficult to accept.

Branding Alters Buyer Choices

Imagine two products with a similar performance and features. One is of a known brand, the other is not. Which one would you choose? If you are dissatisfied or disenchanted with the known product and brand, you might opt to try the new one. Otherwise, the chances are you’ll stick with the brand that you know and love.

A brand is not just a logo, it comes with a brand story. You have fond memories and associations with the brand through your previous experiences with them. You recognise their logo and name, and ultimately there is an element of trust between you and the brand.

The same can be said about two known brands with a similar product. Your preference and allegiance will likely remain with the brand you have subconsciously chosen somewhere along the line. Their brand and their brand image happens to be the one that resonates the most with your subconscious.

Why do some people choose Jack Daniel’s, while others choose other whisky brands?

“Give people a taste of Old Crow, and tell them it’s Old Crow. Then give them another taste of Old Crow, but tell them it’s Jack Daniel’s. Ask them which they prefer. They’ll think the two drinks are quite different. They are tasting images.”

— David Ogilvy

Brand Wars Over Your Purchasing Decisions

The Pepsi paradox has been widely documented, and it provides an indication of how our subconscious can overrule our decisions.

In multiple blind tests, observations show that Pepsi is preferred to Coke. Even despite Coke being regarded as the more successful brand. When not blind folded however, the same people seem to prefer Coke when they know what they are drinking. Strange much?

I don’t think I have to tell you that the brand effect is at play here.

In fact, new brain-imaging studies found evidence of a part of the brain responsible for generating those warm and fuzzy feelings specifically when contemplating a familiar brand or product.

We think that enjoyment of a product is based on the qualities and features of a product. When in reality our experience is also very much based on the product’s branding and marketing.

We judge products by their box, books by their covers and companies by their logo, website and their annual reports.

Tap Into The Consumer Subconscious

Sadly, many businesses take a passive approach to branding. Many business owners are unaware of the power that branding has on influencing consumer buying decisions.

Consequently, they can struggle to achieve the level of success that is attainable within their market.

Humans don’t like thinking too hard, and we’ve found ways of automating the process. Our automated system works without us even being aware of its existence, making suggestions and decisions for what to eat, do, and buy.

Many business owners are often unaware of (or refuse to acknowledge) how “that airy-fairy branding stuff” can bring value to the health of their business.  Smart businesses however find ways to tap into branding strategies and tactics, to help appeal to the consumer subconscious.

Branding has been proven to be one of the most effective strategies available to business, and it’s the smart businesses that make the investment in branding and put it to very good use.

3 Tips For Business Owners

1. Work out what value you can bring to your customers and clearly communicate that in your marketing messages
2. Live and breathe through your brand mission, creating a consistent brand experience. From your customer services, to your employees and your products
3. Engage with your customers, be human, authentic and true to your brand!

If you know someone who might benefit from this article please share it. If you ever need someone to talk to about branding and how it can impact consumer buying decisions, contact me here.

The post Psychology Truths: How Brands Influence Consumer Buying Decisions appeared first on Studeo.

While for a lot of department stores and businesses this often disingenuous approach worked for a while, today customers are much more savvy. Customers need and crave authenticity. In a recent survey, more than 90 percent of millennials indicated that authenticity is a determining factor in helping them choose which brand to support.

Some businesses are struggling to keep up and stay relevant.

In fact, fewer than half (49%) of the 4,100 marketing leaders across B2C and B2B brands surveyed, believe they are providing an experience completely aligned with their customers’ expectations.

So if you’re ready to gain an unfair advantage in your industry, keep on reading. I will show you a relatively simple method for aligning to your customer needs.

Understand Why Customers Need Are Important

Believe it or not, each of your customers has a human need. We all do. In fact, think about your own experiences – a visit to your favourite restaurant, your barber or your wealth advisor. Chances are, besides the expected great service they provide you, there is also a particular way they make you feel. And this is precisely why you keep coming back.

Sure, every provider and business is there to exchange a service for currency. But the reason you choose one provider over the competition is the connection, empowerment, control or independence you experience after dealing with them.

As Peter Drucker said, “profit is not the purpose of a business, but rather a test of its validity.” So how do you gain relevance with your customers?

Choose a Customer-Centric Approach

By now it’s understood that identifying and aligning with your customers is equally as important as being clear on what your brand stands for.

So how can your business align with your customer needs?

Firstly you need to consider and identify the subconscious human needs your customers could have. Then show them how your business will help them answer that need, or in other words, solve that problem.

Some of you may be familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid

More recently we have also come to understand that needs support each other and are not mutually exclusive. At the end of the day, we all hope to have met the basic physiological needs of food, water and shelter. 

For that reason, while I think the above pyramid is important, I tend to lean more towards Manfred Max-Neef Fundamental Needs Model, or at least a list with categories which I adapted from it.

Manfred Max-Neef Fundamental Needs Model

I group various human needs under four distinct categories – Freedom, Control, Connection, and Meaning. This list is by no means exhaustive, but I find it to be a great preliminary tool to discover and explore customer’s authentic experiences. You can download the worksheet I use when working with clients to identify these, which also includes other valuable branding exercises.

Start By Putting Yourself In Your Customer’s Shoes

I want you to really picture your customer/s and ask:

• What do they look like?
• What keeps them up at night?
• Define their challenges?
• What do they like?
• Something that makes them feel good?
• How do they define success?
• What role does your brand play in creating that success for them?

Then from your customers perspective, think about what is the subconscious human need they could have. Reference the table above and list 3-4 of those main human needs which you strongly feel your customers seek to experience from your brand or service.

Granted these are somewhat speculative and subjective. Once you feel that your business is ready to implement a customer-centric approach in a more strategic and measured way, you will need to employ marketing research tools like surveys and focus groups. It always helps to validate your assumptions in order to make more informed business decisions down the track.

However even this simple practice of exploring and discovering your customer needs will still give you a tremendous advantage over any business that doesn’t consider them.

Make Customer Needs Work For You

When exploring the needs and wants your customer may have, avoid the expected needs. For example for a medical service, it’s a given that your customers will have a need for ‘care’.

Discovering your customer needs is a useful exercise to run as a workshop with key stakeholders and/or partners. You can do this on your own or enlist the help of a consultancy/branding agency.

Once you have established your top 3-4 customer needs, the next step is to identify the ways in which your business can help answer each need by bringing value. Implementing actionable and measurable processes with your employees and team for fulfilling those needs in each interaction, will make a real difference to your business success.

Ultimately, the customer may not always be right, but they always have the right to choose. And as we’ve learned, customers will always choose a brand that cares about them, answering their human needs.

Did you like this article? Know someone it could help? Don’t forget to share it with them! And, once you’ve completed this process, don’t forget to share your wins by dropping me a line at studio@studeo.com.au

The post Want To Win In Business? Target Your Customer Needs appeared first on Studeo.