Brandmerry Blog Archives
3 Simple Steps to Choose Your Brand Colors
Choosing your personal brand colors can be the biggest headache of your life, trust me I know! I spent months, and this is not an exaggeration, trying to decide on my brand colors. Turns out I was doing it wrong, now I teach female entrepreneurs how to choose brand colors.
3 Simple Steps to Choose Your Brand Colors
BY MICHELLE KNIGHT
Choosing your personal brand colors can be the biggest headache of your life, trust me I know!
I spent months, and this is not an exaggeration, trying to decide on my brand colors. Turns out I was doing it wrong, by looking at others in my industry first and not following this simple 3-step process I quickly found myself with a brand that didn’t light me up.
Why Branding Colors Are Important
The power of the aesthetics of your brand are based on first impressions. As an online entrepreneur, you’re most likely using social media to build your community, spread brand awareness and make sales.
Well, in case you haven’t noticed, the social media space is crowded and first impressions matter. This is where the aesthetics of your brand come into play and color is front and center.
If you want to stand out on social media, rather than blend in, it’s important to understand how to choose your brand colors and the psychology behind color as it relates to your audience.
1. Brand Color Tip #1: Look at Your Daily Inspiration
The idea of personal branding is that you are the center of your brand and use your own personality traits, authentic voice and stories to create a brand that resonates with your ideal audience. If you don’t already know my stance on personal branding, be sure to check out this article here.
So with that in mind, why don’t we start with the things you already love?
When starting to create the aesthetics of your brand it can be really easy to get lost in what other people are doing, other professionals and other brands. The result is a loss of personal brand identity and blending in with others in your industry.
Rather than first looking outside yourself for inspiration, I recommend taking a look at two areas in your life: your closet and your home.
We buy things that inspire us and often that is associated with the psychology of color (more on that later), so why not use this personal color inspiration as a tool to choose your branding colors?
Start by looking at your closet and making a list of the top five colors you see most prominent.
Then repeat the process, by walking around your home.
Do you see an overlap in the specific colors, tone of color or color palette you tend to gravitate towards? This is where you should start when thinking of your branding colors.
2. Brand Color Tip #2: Identify Your Brand Emotions (Emotional Branding)
Just like with all things branding, after you’ve connected with the purpose and story behind your brand (aka you), it’s time to think of your audience.
We never want to create a brand that only takes our taste or style into consideration and we never want to create a brand solely for others that doesn’t connect deeply to ourselves.
So, after you’ve identified the colors you enjoy most, it’s important to think of how you want your audience to feel.
This is referred to as Emotional Branding and is something I teach my clients in my signature programs. You can learn more about Emotional Branding and the process here.
When thinking of your brand colors, you need to know your ideal client very well, the reason for this is if you don’t understand their pain and pleasure points you won’t be able to use the power of psychology to choose your colors.
For instance, if I know my ideal client is feeling overwhelmed, is highly-stressed and struggles with time management, I won’t choose a color that tends to elicit a feeling of anger.
On the flip side, if I know my client is driving to feel pleasure in her home and her health and loves the eco-lifestyle, then I would choose a color like green, which gives a feeling or serenity and organic.
In order to choose the right colors based on psychology, you need to know your audience and use that information to decide how you want your audience to feel when coming in contact with your brand.
So, before moving on to step three, it’s important to identify 5-7 brand emotions to relay to your audience.
If you need support with understanding market research and why it’s important, be sure to catch my Free masterclass on The Build a Better Brand Method. Sign up here.
3. Brand Color Tips #3: Choosing Your Brand Colors Based on Psychology
Ok, no the REALLY fun part and the part I seriously geek out on. This is why emotional branding is so important, because everything that relates to the aesthetics of your brand: colors, fonts, logo design, website layout, brand photos, etc… can be built on the fundamentals of psychology.
To overview here are the basic emotions associated with each of the main colors:
RED: Dynamic, powerful, love, strength, passion, excitement, anger
ORANGE: Energy, vibrant, fun, playful, friendly, warm, inviting
YELLOW: Bright, happy, cheerful, positive, spontaneous, warm
PINK: Pretty, feminine, soft, playful, sweet, sincerity, gentle, romance
GREEN: Fresh, balance, earthy, calming, envy, organic, healing, wealth
BLUE: Masculine, dependable, corporate, tranquil, calming, peaceful
PURPLE: Creativity, authority, sophisticated, abundance, spiritual, vibrant
GRAY: Calming, sleek, natural, modern, conservative, neutral
BLACK: Power, elegance, formal, bold, classic, dramatic, expensive, fear, boldness
I’ve even created a fun image you can Pin or save for future reference (see below).
PIN THIS
I recommend choosing three brand colors as your main colors and explore complimentary colors to play around with on social media.
Conclusion
Choosing your brand colors can be simple when you follow this 3-step process.
If you go into choosing your brand colors blindly you’ll feel overwhelmed and waste a lot of time trying to decide what “looks good” rather than choosing colors that will make a bigger impact.
It’s a very similar process to choosing your fonts for your brand.
At the core of branding, you must remember it’s really not about the aesthetics or look of your brand.
Seth Godin defines branding as, “...the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.”
And of course choosing your brand colors plays a role in that, but it isn’t the only piece.
If you’re ready to create a strong foundation for your business and create a brand that truly stands out on social media and builds a community of true fans, then be sure to watch my free training on The Build a Better Brand Method. I’m sharing my 3-step method to create an authentic and revenue-generating brand. Sign up here.
Tell me in the comments, what is your favorite tip from above?
P.S. Are we connected on Instagram? No? Well lady what’s happening here we’ve got to fix that. Come hang out with me on my favorite social media platform. Follow for inspiration and send me a DM to know we’re connected.
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MEET MICHELLE
Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.
I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.
I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.
This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.
3 Things You Are Probably Doing Wrong With Your Brand and How to Fix Them
3 Things You Are Probably Doing Wrong With Your Brand and How to Fix Them
I'm really excited about today's content because I freaking love branding. Whether you are in a place where you already created your brand or a place where you haven't even started yet - this is for you. And all of the things I'm talking about today I've done, and that's why I'm sharing them with you. I thought "if I'm having a hard time doing this, and I understand branding, I'm sure others are struggling as well."
1. You Don't Believe It
You don't believe that your brand, your business, what you have to offer, is actually worth it. This is a big deal. If you're going to go through all the effort of building a brand and doing all the things, you have to believe in what you have to offer, and I mean really believe. If you don't see that what you have to offer is worth it, your "ideal" client isn't going to see it either.
The first thing I want you to do is look at your brand or the brand you want to create and ask yourself "do I really believe it?" I like to say that branding is the heart of your business and the logo and aesthetic is just the cherry on top. This is why I focus a lot on niche work because it is through your niche work where you really discover what you have to offer and why what you have to offer is the best. It's about really loving everything your doing with your brand and being excited to share it.
2. Believing if you build it they will come
Just because you build something does not mean people will begin pouring in. Just because you build a website does not mean you'll start getting clients. How do they even know about it? This is where visibility comes in. This is also why the website and the aesthetic stuff isn't the most important thing that you do or the first thing you should do. I like to say a website is the home base of your brand. If you don't know what you do and who you serve and your niche and all of those pieces then a website doesn't matter at all because you are going to have to redo it all once you have all that figured out. You need to be focused on visibility first and having all of those key pieces in place.
I would even suggest that one of the first aesthetic pieces of your brand be branded photos. When I got a photoshoot, everything changed. The posts were now getting comments and likes and people saying "I love what you're doing!"
3. You're boring
You're not making people feel anything. It's like having a conversation with someone who is watching TV. There's no depth or feeling with your brand. Your brand should make people feel something. It's not enough to just look pretty or sound pretty. You want people to read your copy, look at your site, look at a photo and think "I get this. I need this." You need to have an emotional component with your brand and this starts with your story. What do you want your audience to feel and think and do?
I want you to go look at your brand and ask yourself "what do I want people to feel? What do I want people to associate me with?" Make people feel something.
Want to flip the switch and create a captivating and money making brand? Join me in You! Branded.
You can watch the whole video for a more in-depth version of this and several bonus tips below!
Head over to my Facebook Page and be sure to like and comment on the video while you are over there to help more people see this information ↠ https://www.facebook.com/brandmerrycoaching/videos/vl.671457719709362/1521842731185391/?type=1
And as always please share and comment on this blog post, I love connecting with you!
Michelle Knight is a Branding and Business coach for female entrepreneurs who are struggling to gain visibility and traction to take their business to the next level. She works with her clients to dive deep into their story so they can create a brand and message that positions them as an expert and allows them to create their desired income to free up time in their schedule for what matters most. Learn more >>
Personal Branded Website: 3 Must-Have Pieces to Grow Your Audience
Personal Branded Website: 3 Must-Have Pieces to Grow Your Audience
Today I'm gonna talk to you about your home base, also known as your website. One thing that I wanna get out of the way in the very beginning is that, you do not need website to start selling. You do not need a website right off the bat. Too many entrepreneurs spend hours and days and weeks and months (if you're like me) building this beautiful website, doing this beautiful launch, and then you're just expecting people to come. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work out that way.
However, when the time does come of you to create your website, when you're feeling really grounded in your story and your messaging and your ideal client, I wanted to give you three things that are definitely needed on your home base.
1. Your Story
This is not going to come as a shock. I literally want your story on every single page of your website. So, on my website, you can find out more about my story on my homepage. I have a whole entire page dedicated to my story. On every single product or course page, you know a little bit about me. It's also integrated into my blog, as well as all the different moving parts of my website. There's a reason for that. It's because as online entrepreneurs, we want to build trust. We want to make friends with our ideal client. There's no faster way to do that, than sharing your story, sharing your truth, so that people feel like they already know you and get you and understand you right away.
There are so many different ways to do it. I always recommend having a solid page dedicated to your story, and I don't hold back with my story. I love going into beautiful, beautiful detail and taking my clients on a journey, which I think is very very important. But sharing it on other pages can be very small. You don't have to go into great, great detail, but it's really important to always have something about you, who you are, your truth on the different pages of your website.
2. Consistency
So, we're building on this whole trust factor, right? We want our audience to trust us from the get go, that is what allows them to invest. Not only in themselves, but also in our businesses. Consistency is really important, because nothing breaks trust than inconsistency. In the online entrepreneur world, if you're a service-based entrepreneur, you probably know about lead magnets, which we're gonna be talking about in just a second.
One of the key things we talk about is, if you're running a Facebook ad, and you're sending people to a landing page, you want the ad and the landing page to be consistent. You don't wanna break that trust. Well the same goes with your website. If someone lands on your homepage, and then they go to a work with me page, it needs to be consistent. And then they head over to the blog, continuing that consistency. So, you're taking your ideal client on a seamless journey around your website. Leaning more and more about who you are, what you have to offer, all of the fun little resources and things that you put together for your audience.
A couple key ways to do that are through choosing your fonts, being consistent with your colors, being consistent with your photos, and being consistent with your emotions, which I talked to you about in the last video. If you haven't watched that yet, go ahead and watch it right here. You will understand a lot more about emotion after watching that video. But that is going to help you choose these pieces that allow your brand to be consistent. The other piece that people sometimes miss out on, is their messaging and their copy. So, making sure that your language and your voice is very consistent on the different pages all through your website. And a little bonus tip, do yourself a favor and just carry over that consistency onto social media as well.
3. Call to Action
Some sort of engagement. We often miss out on this on our websites. With the way social media is working today, if you were utilizing Pinterest, you're getting traffic onto your website, people are finding you via Google, maybe they're finding you through your Facebook group, a Podcast that you recently did, right? People are finding us all different ways online, that we really wanna give them the opportunity to continue learning from us, to continue building that trust and that connection with each other.
I always recommend on every page, yes, I said every page, there is some sort of call to action on your website. I'll give you a couple of examples that I absolutely love. On my homepage, brandmerry.com, I have two of my top free resources, and a way that people can connect with me in Authentic Brand Builders. So, they can join my email list, and join my private community. On my story page at the very bottom, we have a call to action for a freebie. One of my top freebies, and to work with me.
Obviously, on a work with me page, the call to action is work with me. And on my blog, on every single page, I even have some sort of free offer. So, I am giving my audience tons and tons of value and giving them the opportunity to continue building this relationship off of the website. You wanna have a way to capture your audience, keep and build their trust, and then carry on that relationship so it can lead to future sales. It's really really important. It could be something as simple as a workbook or a PDF. Here's a video I recorded on finding the right free offer for you.
But what I highly recommended you do, is give away a gift. Give something of value, something that is totally on brand for you, but don't just ask for an email address. I really believe gone are the days of saying, "Sign up for our newsletter." People want an email with value, right? If they're gonna give away their email address, which we all know is like writing someone a check, right? Our emails are very important to us, we want to give them something in return. Do yourself a really quick favor, put together a PDF or video or something that's really on brand, plaster it on your website, giving them the opportunity to continue to learn from you, and build that relationship and connection.
IF YOU WANT TO WATCH THE ENTIRE VIDEO WITH SOME BONUS TIPS WORKED IN YOU CAN DO SO BELOW!
Head over to Youtube and be sure to like and comment on the video while you are over on Youtube to help more people see this information ↠ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZtt2PM4GbI&feature=youtu.be
And as always please share and comment on this blog post, I love connecting with you!
Michelle Knight is a Branding and Business coach for female entrepreneurs who are struggling to gain visibility and traction to take their business to the next level. She works with her clients to dive deep into their story so they can create a brand and message that positions them as an expert and allows them to create their desired income to free up time in their schedule for what matters most. Learn more >>
How to Attract Your Dream Clients Through Emotional Branding
Learn how to attract your dream clients through emotional branding. Emotions are the reason we buy and are the difference between a scroll past your brand and a life-time client. Something as simple as the emotion of your brand can change everything. Learn why it’s so important AND how to choose your brand emotions here!
Today I'm going to teach you the single thing that has to be present in your branding in order to attract those amazing dream clients and to make money in your business.
I'm talking about emotion.
WHY IS EMOTIONAL BRANDING SO IMPORTANT?
People buy based on emotion. In fact, a Harvard study reported that, “Emotion is what really drives the purchasing behaviors, and also, decision making in general.”
Emotion is the #1 decision-maker when it comes to making a purchase decision, so if you’re solely focused on the logistics of your offer and aren’t going a level deeper to connect with your audience you’ll miss out every single time.
If your social media posts are falling flat, look at emotion.
If your offers aren’t selling, look at emotion.
If your sales calls aren’t ending in a sale, look at emotion.
It plays a role in everything you create so the first thing you need to do is identify which emotions you want to portray through your brand.
Because by having a strong emotional component to your marketing and selling efforts (i.e. your brand overall) you’ll be able to attract the right people and repel the wrong ones - leading to better conversions and brand loyalty overall.
So how do you attract your dream client through emotional branding?
With these steps of course!
LEAD WITH EMOTION
In a recent Youtube video (which you can watch below), I shared how to sell in your business without being salesy and how an important key to sales was based on trust and connections with your community. One of the top ways to do that is to always lead with emotion.
Think about the last time you cried, you were happy, you were sad. We are drawn to emotions. So we want to play on this and pull people to our brand by making them feel something.
Now maybe you're like, "Okay, how's my brand suppose to make people feel something?" I get that question a lot. But it's really easy. And what's really fun is that most of the time it comes from the aesthetics.
Your aesthetics are like the sprinkles on top of a solid foundation (aka the branding cake)! This is what instantly pulls your audience to you, stops them mid-scroll and hooks them in a sea of information.
You have 15 seconds to do just this and that’s why emotional branding is so important.
**If you want some help setting a strong brand foundation, you need to watch my free on-demand training where I’ll teach you my signature Build a Better Brand Method! I’m sharing the exact steps needed to build a strong foundation for your revenue-generating business.
IDENTIFY THE EMOTIONS
I love to pull emotion through the aesthetics.. It's probably my number one place; through the type of font that you choose, through your colors, through the type of messaging that you have on your website, through the type of videos that you create.
There are all kinds of different ways that you can really get this emotion across in your branding. But before you can get there, you have to first identify what those emotions are.
Start with your story. You always have to look inward when you're creating your brand.
After you've really looked inward at your story, start to think about your audience.
How do you want to connect your story to your audience?
What do you want to make your audience feel when they see or hear your brand?
This is really important. How do you want to make them feel?
ACTION STEP: Choose at least five words that can be used as your brand emotions. These brand emotions can help you again create your entire brand, all of the aesthetics, the colors, even the fonts.
When you start focusing on what your audience fells, everything inside your business changes!
WHY THIS IS SO IMPORTANT
Every day we're scrolling and scrolling and scrolling online. The average time someone spends on a website is 15 seconds. So imagine, if you don't grab their attention within 15 seconds, they're gone.
Potential clients, money, right? Gone in what could be 15 seconds. Probably even faster, if we're scrolling through our phones, so you really want to capture them by making them feel something. Great photos capture them, but copy is what converts!
So I love to carry those emotional feelings over into my copy. When I write a piece of copy, I want my audience to say, "Oh, man. That made me really think."
Or, "Oh, that really inspires me."
Or, "I want that too."
Start identifying how you want your audience to feel. Not necessarily just the action you want them to take, although important, but getting down to the root of how you want them to feel.
Something we're all really good at is saying, "Hey, buy this program. This is doing this. Sign up here. Join me here." But what we miss out on is why your audience should care, why your audience should join you. How will that make them feel? Why your audience should tap to learn more? What will they learn? How will that better them? How will that make them feel?
Start really thinking of your people as people and start carrying that over into your branding. I promise you when you start incorporating the emotional aspect to your branding you are going to start seeing consistent clients coming in.
You become irresistible to your audience. I like to say bold and captivating.
A bold, captivating and money-making brand sounds really good to me.
And it all starts with the emotional side of your business.
NEXT STEPS
Another layer of Emotional Branding is the use of story in every single piece of your business. From your brand mission to brand aesthetics to the content you create and the programs you offer, story is the key.
Story allows you to continuously connect with your audience, making them feel seen, heard and understood - which is so important.
And to top it all off, posts with story are 22x more memorable than ones without.
If you’re ready to take the next steps in building a brand that stands out on social media, creates high-value content for your audience and build a community that leads to a revenue-generating business…
…I’ve got a free class just for you!
Inside this free class you’ll learn The Build a Better Brand Method.
P.S. Have you tuned into The Brandmerry Podcast? Every week, I’m releasing new episodes with my top tips for branding and marketing your business. You can find it now on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
If you prefer to watch this content, you can do so below!
- READ THE LATEST POSTS -
MEET MICHELLE
Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.
I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.
I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.
This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.
How to Connect Your Brand to Your Audience
HOW TO CONNECT YOUR BRAND TO YOUR AUDIENCE
Something I'm really good at is identifying the brand story in female entrepreneurs, and what I've been hearing a lot from my community is, "Okay, well, once I identify that brand story, how do I then connect my brand to my audience?" So today I wanted to talk to you about two simple steps that need to happen in order to do that. I love simple, so let's break this down, shall we.
#1 FEEL ROOTED IN YOUR STORY
Number one, is you've really gotta feel rooted and grounded in your story, and I love to actually give my brand story kind of a persona, and for a lot of us, it's us. We are our brand. But if for someone reason you don't have a personal brand, then go ahead and give your brand a personality.
I encourage you to identify the purpose, mission and value of your brand. For example, my brand values freedom, authenticity, honesty and transparency. Those are some of the core values of myself and of my brand, and I love to get that through in everything that I do in my business.
Now, the purpose of my brand is to really empower women to share their story through authentic branding, to show up as they are, and share their voice, their message with those that need to hear it most. Then we could say that my mission is really, again, to not only empower women to uncover their story but also own their story so that we can create a ripple effect of women just owning their shit and getting shit done.
So, that's really my brand, and you can see that when you give those pieces, the values, the purpose, the mission; then your brand becomes so much more. That's what I really want you to take away from anything I talk about in regards to branding. Your brand should be so much more than just what we typically think about when we think about branding, right, logo, color, font.
So, number one is to really identify the values, your purpose, the mission, any other key pieces that you want to throw in there as well, so you feel really solid in who your brand is. Not just what, but who your brand is.
#2 Know Your Audience
Now, the second piece of the puzzle, because we're talking about how do we connect our brand to our audience, is knowing your audience. You can't begin to connect with your audience if you don't actually know what your audience values, what your audience is struggling with, what your audience is really looking for and what inspires your audience. These are all really important pieces, and honestly allow you to not only connect your brand, but to come up with amazing content effortlessly, as well.
So, you want to start thinking about your audience at this point and time. Once you feel rooted in your brand and you've looked inward, then it's time to kind of look outward and do the market research. But after you've done that, it's about really identifying what your audience needs in this moment.
So, what are they struggling with?
What pieces of your story will connect with your audience?
And it's not always everything in that moment. When I started my business, I shared very little about the birth of my son. I talked a lot about struggling with my 9:00 to 5:00. I talked about my son being present, but I didn't necessarily go into all the details of the vulnerability and the mindset and all that stuff because it just didn't resonate with my audience at the time. As my audience has grown and my mission has grown, now I openly talk about vulnerability and dealing with perfectionism, and how that resulted in an 80-hour labor. Yes, an 80 hour labor.
So, you can see that this is going to change. It's not saying that you can't share every piece of your story, but it's identifying which pieces to share in that moment, how best to connect with your audience, how best to inspire them to take action, because no matter what it is that you have a business around, whether it's health and wellness, life coaching, business coaching, branding, maybe you're an accountant, maybe you're into marketing, you're a virtual assistant, it doesn't matter. You really want to be able to connect with your audience, and ultimately you want your audience to take action.
Don't be afraid to ask. You will be surprised how much amazing content you can get from your audience, which will only allow you to better connect your brand to what they really need most, and as a result, they will take action.
If you want to watch the entire video WITH SOME BONUS TIPS WORKED IN YOU CAN DO SO BELOW!
Head over to Youtube and be sure to like and comment on the video while you are over on Youtube to help more people see this information ↠ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iFcZX2BqDY&t=3s
And as always please share and comment on this blog post, I love connecting with you!
Michelle Knight is a Branding and Business coach for female entrepreneurs who are struggling to gain visibility and traction to take their business to the next level. She works with her clients to dive deep into their story so they can create a brand and message that positions them as an expert and allows them to create their desired income to free up time in their schedule for what matters most. Learn more >>