I had a client come to me because she knew she needed to take her marketing to the next level, but she wasn’t sure what steps to take. She was doing some social media and considering starting a YouTube channel, but wasn’t sure her target audience would be interested.
After listening to her talk about her goals for her business, what she was currently doing to get the word out about her services, and what she was considering doing, I decided what she really needed was a brand guide.
Because marketing is a lot.
There’s a reason I call myself a content marketer. Does everyone know what that means? No. But if I just say I’m a marketer, the next question is always “What kind of marketing?” because everyone knows there are almost as many different types of marketing as there are marketers.
Table of Contents
- What Is Marketing?
- How Does a Brand Guide Help?
- Putting It All Together
- Bringing Clarity to Your Marketing
What Is Marketing?
The marketing umbrella includes:
- Branding
- Graphic design
- Website design
- Website development
- Search Engine Optimization/SEO/Making sure people can find you when they look for you online
- Website content and blogging
- Email marketing
- Social media marketing
- Advertising
- Video production and editing
- Podcast production and editing
Then there’s public relations (PR), which isn’t quite marketing, but it’s very closely related to marketing because the goal is to get the word out about your business. It’s just that PR gets the word out by convincing other people to cover your business activities on their platform rather than creating content on a platform you own (such as your website) or control (such as your social media accounts).
It’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the options you have for getting the word out about your business, especially when it seems like there’s a new social media channel every day. Now we have AI in the mix, and we’re being told we should use it all the time for everything, but we’re also being told it’s overhyped and there’s an AI bubble.
How are we supposed to know what to do amid all this noise?
How Does a Brand Guide Help?
A brand guide helps you define where you want to go and how you’re going to get there.
The benefits of a brand guide include:
How to Zero in on What Sets You Apart
You’re not the only one who provides the services you provide, so the first question you need to answer is, “What sets you apart from everyone else providing the same services?”
In Marketing Speak, we call this your Unique Selling Proposition, or USP. It’s the aspect of your offerings that only you can offer.
Your USP can fall into a few different categories:
Your Services
Sometimes it’s a matter of the services you provide being slightly different than any other service anyone provides.
For example, there are a ton of writers out there who can write your website content, but very few writers who have an understanding of SEO. That’s one of the things that sets me apart from all the other content marketers out there.
If there’s a service you provide you haven’t seen anyone else providing, or a way you work that you don’t see other people doing when they provide the same or similar services, that could be your USP (or at least part of it.)
How You Work
Other times, your services might be fairly standard, but how you work with your clients, or your approach to your work, is unique.
For example, as a content marketer who also works in the SEO space, my take on SEO has always been that, if you create high-quality content that answers the questions your audience is asking, the robots will eventually figure out you’re the real deal and start showing you off to their users when they come looking for the answers you provide.
A lot of SEO professionals are out there selling the latest SEO tactic, only to be surprised when Google rolls out another core algorithm update that eliminates their search rankings.
I also believe SEO is pretty easy to understand, once you grasp the basics. One of the things that drives me crazy is the tendency for SEO professionals to treat SEO like it’s rocket science and only the chosen few can understand it.
That’s ridiculous, and the fact that I talk about SEO in plain English is one of the things that sets me apart from many of the SEO professionals out there.
Your Ideal Clients
This is one of my favorite ways to set yourself apart: who is your favorite type of client?
It could be a certain industry you work with, or someone who makes a certain income level.
For example, I’m active in a networking group with a lot of financial planners, and most of their elevator pitches sound the same.
One woman has positioned herself as the financial planner who helps divorced women emerge from the dissolution of their marriage in a strong financial position.
She also works with men, but by being clear about who her ideal client is and the pickle they find themselves in when they reach out to her, she’s made it very easy for people to send her referrals, both for potential clients and referral partners. That’s how she has set herself apart from the many, many other financial planners we all encounter, and it’s been working for her.
Putting It All Together
Regardless of whether your ideal clients are part of your USP, identifying and fleshing out your ideal clients is an essential part of the branding process.
When I say “fleshing out” your ideal clients, I mean you need to go much deeper than their demographics.
You need to understand:
- What problem can you solve for them for which they’re desperately looking for a solution?
- How long has it been a problem?
- What made them take action?
- What steps did they take to solve the problem?
- What language do they use to talk about the problem?
- How are they thinking about the problem?
- Where do they hang out online?
- What communities are they a part of (both online and in person)?
- What types of content do they tend to consume?
Only once you have a thorough understanding of your ideal clients can you create content that resonates with them by ensuring it uses the language they use when talking about their problem.
Then you need to make sure it gets in front of them by publishing it on the platforms where they’re hanging out and in formats (article, video, podcast, etc.) they’re most likely to consume.
Bringing Clarity to Your Marketing
With your USP and ideal client profile (ICP) in hand, navigating the marketing waters becomes much easier, because you now have a clear idea of where you’re going and how you’re going to get there.
No more wondering which tactics you should be using to market your business.
Should you hop on that hot trend everyone is talking about?
You can spend months (years!) debating the pros and cons of that shiny new object that looks so tempting, afraid to make a move in case it’s the wrong move.
OR
You can refer to your brand guide and ask yourself a few, simple questions:
- Does this align with my overall goals for my business?
- Does this align with my brand?
- Does this align with my ICP?
If it checks all those boxes, then it’s probably a good idea and you should go for it.
But if it misses one or more of those important marks, then you can confidently say that shiny object is nothing more than a distraction. You can wave at it as you let it fly by while you focus on working toward your goals.
But all this is easier said than done, so if you need help putting together your brand guide, let’s talk.
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