Welcome to the Small Business big mindset Podcast, where we dive into tactical strategies to grow your business and make an impact on this world. A huge part of success is keeping your mindset and vision on track. So this is a major part of our process, and this podcast. Let's do this. Welcome back to the Small Business big mindset podcast. I'm Erin Geiger. This week we're discussing establishing and maintaining a successful brand identity. Having a strong brand can make the difference between a successful business and one that falls prey to the growing competition. Some might think that your brand identity is simply your logo and design of your website. However, as you can imagine, it goes far further than that. Your brand identity is what makes you unique. What makes you stand out. It's how your audience finds you and missed all the noise of the competition around you. Understanding your audience and your goals is key to creating your brand identity. building connections that last is core to this. Branding starts with knowing who your customer is, is combining this knowledge with the visual elements to zero in on the audience you're trying to reach. Yes, that includes logos and a color scheme, but also content such as blog posts, email marketing, social media posts, customer service, etc. building out these areas is a gradual process defining your brand identity does not happen overnight. Take a look at your favorite brands and see what tactics they use to stand out. outline your audience hear this you must niche down. If you're trying to help everyone you are most likely helping no one be as specific as possible. I know I know I hear all the time that you feel like if you a niche niche or niche or niche, everybody's has a different down too much that maybe you're making your client base too small, you're missing out on other business, I can tell you that can't be further from the truth. The more detail you get of who you are serving, the more you're going to see success in your business. So look at what your product or service serves Be as specific as possible. What hole Are you filling? what problem are you helping to solve? How are you making their lives easier? You must create your ideal customer avatar. We've mentioned this in other episodes go further than their age range their gender and location demographics. What makes them tick? Where do they shop? What are their hobbies, kids they travel? If so, where? What do they do for employment dig deep to really get to know the audience you are targeting. A mission statement. A mission statement should define what you stand for why your company is here in the first place. It's also a good place to start. As you grow. You will use your mission statement as a yardstick when you bring employees on board. And your employees will come back to this mission statement time and again, when making decisions within their role, per Forbes articulating what your company does, how you do what you do, who your audience is, and your value are the four things to clearly define. To help you create your mission statement. Take a look at the mission statements of companies you admire to get an idea of how these are formed. visuals are many this is where it gets really fun, you'll most likely want to invest in a designer at this point, you can collaborate when creating a style guide. This usually includes your logo, color palette, fonts, and image styles. Take a look at visual elements that align with a mission statement you created. You want to all to tie in together. This will also help you to form your voice. You want your voice to be unique, of course but also take a look around. Do some research as to other outlets your audience gravitates toward what tone? What voice do they use within their content? Does it resonate in a positive way to your target audience? be transparent and true to what your brand stands for? stand for something. Another thing we cannot stress enough, be consistent. Once you have found your identity, your voice stay in your lane. Will you evolve? Absolutely. Should you twist and turn and reinvent yourself at after every shiny object? Do you see? Please don't evolving over time and growing into your own skin is great. Following the suppose the next big thing isn't? Remember, you are connecting with your audience and want them to know like and trust you. How can they feel as though they have a relationship with your brand if you're constantly morphing into something else. This consistency goes for social media as well. In addition to leverage a constant consistent tone and voice when creating your social media posts, it's better to post on a consistent schedule as well. Avoid posting a ton all of a sudden due to a special promotion. Or because you realize oh shoot I haven't posted in a while. I should put Something up, create a schedule you can stick to throughout the year. Make sure that you respond to those that engage with your social media posts as well. You want to ensure that your audience knows they are heard and are an integral part of your company's mission. The founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos says even better your brand is what other people say about you when you're not in the room. Your brand is your reputation and must be consistent in communication and experience across the board, whether that's within an office, on print collateral website, online ads content, or within your sales and customer service efforts. This is a process be patient and have fun with it. We'll dive deeper into the concepts mentioned here to help you form your most authentic voice in other episodes. Thanks for tuning in to the Small Business big mindset podcast. Be authentic, bring an insane amount of value and keep crushing it