How Brand Storytelling Increases Revenue [Case Study]

How Brand Storytelling Increases Revenue [Case Study]

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

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Today, on the blog we are bringing it back to storytelling. Our focus at Brandmerry is on branding and marketing and how storytelling plays a crucial role in every single aspect of running your online business.

In some recent episodes of the Brandmerry Podcast, we've started to dive in and talk about the principles of storytelling.

In fact, episode five was all about the three key factors for telling better stories in your marketing. 

Then in episode six, we talked about writing your ‘About Me’ page, which is one of the first pages that I recommend my audience write because it's a really great practice in writing your brand story. 

Today I want to share with you a case study that just so happens to be my story. 

They often say that sometimes you are the best example, right? That sometimes your story is the best connection piece. 

My intention in sharing this with you is that you can look in with your marketing lens and listen to the story, pay attention to how I'm structuring the story, pay attention to where I'm connecting with my audience, offering value, offering education, and offering inspiration.

You're going to get an opportunity to hear my story and then you're also going to have an opportunity to dissect it and figure out how you can improve yours when it comes to your marketing. 

Now, this particular example is pulled from my free on-demand training, the Build a Better Brand Method. 

In this free training, I share multiple facets of the branding process. I talk about the six phases of what I call the Better Brand Method. This is the same method I teach inside of my program You! Branded. We also dissect storytelling, and I offer up this case study, which we’ll get to in just a minute. 

We talk about your ideal customer. I offer advice for getting core information about your ideal customer that will improve your branding and ultimately your marketing, and we jump into messaging. 

So this is a small piece of that on-demand training. If you haven't listened to that training yet, you could head to betterbrandmethod.com and get signed up after you listen in to this. 

Brand Storytelling: Case Study

I want to share with you how I've used storytelling from the very beginning of my business, once I figured out this whole branding thing, and how I've used that to create over half a million dollars in cash revenue and become a digital nomad.

I spent eight months building a website and a “brand”.

 In the beginning, I honestly didn't do the work. I struggled for eight months to brand myself and to sign a single client. 

It's not that I wasn't doing things. I was doing things. Many of you are also doing things, but not the branding work. 

I spent a lot of time building a website. I had a logo, I chose my colors. I chose my font. I had a Facebook group back in the day. I had all the backend ready to go. My client onboarding, my emails, all of those different things.

I was also showing up online. I was on Facebook almost daily. I was slowly trying to grow my email list. I was showing up in other people's groups. I was posting on social media. I was doing “the things.” 

But as you guessed it, I was not profitable. 

I didn't make any money. Then right when I was getting ready to leave my 9 to 5, I had a moment where I was like “I'm going to scrap the whole thing and I'm going to rebuild it.” And that's when I accidentally implemented what is now my six-part framework. 

All of that started from my story, every single piece.

So let's take a glimpse into what that process actually looked like with storytelling. 

So at first, my story allowed me to rediscover my strengths and my mission, my values and my authentic voice. So I already had some good content to start showing up with because I could start sharing these things with my audience. It was a small audience of like 15 people, but you know what? There were 15 people!!!

Then storytelling helped me get to know my ideal customer on a more intimate level. This was very important because I was able to then create stories that would resonate with them and where they were on their journey. 

From this, I was able to determine how I wanted my audience to feel, tie in that emotional piece, because I knew who they were and I knew who I was. 

Then I rebuilt my website. I rewrote all my copy. I updated all of my visuals. Redid the entire website that took me eight months in just one week because of these pieces that I had already implemented with my story. 

Then I worked on really refining my message. 

I didn't have testimonials at the time. 

I hadn't had a client. 

So I used my story to connect more deeply with my small audience. I started showing up, I started sharing more about the things that were happening in my life. I started talking about the power of storytelling. I started to share my mistakes with branding. 

I just kept showing up, but I knew who my audience was this time. Before I was guessing. Now I had done the work and I knew who they were so I could craft my messages for them.

People started to notice.

The same audience I had before began to take action and the only thing that changed was what happened on my end. 

My clarity on who I was, who I was serving, and the connection. 

Within three months of having my new solid brand built, I made $15,000 in my business. 

Then I booked out my one-on-one. 

Then I made $100k within a year. 

Now here's what I want you to notice. My email list size did not change. 

I still had about 15 people on my email list. In fact, the first $20,000 that I made in my business, $15,000 was within those first three months, and then I signed another client at the beginning of January the next year. 

That first $20,000 in my business came from those initial 15 people. 

They weren't new people. 

I was showing up in a different way. 
I was connecting more deeply. 
I understood who they were. 
My offer didn't change either. I could just message it better.

All that changed was my brand clarity and my approach to communicating with them. 

Sometimes it's as simple as one sentence that they just hear differently.

I was able to do that because I had taken the time to really get in touch, not just only with my story, but their story.

Who the heck were they?
What were the struggles?
What were those desires?
What was standing in their way? 

Storytelling plays a role in everything.

It plays a role in your specific niche and your selling position, and ultimately what you offer to solve your audience's problem. 

It plays a role in how you communicate the benefit of your offer with your audience through brand messaging. 

It plays a role in building a deeper, emotional connection with your audience, leading to more conversions.

It plays a role in showcasing your authenticity.  86% of consumers say that authenticity is a key factor when deciding what brands they like and support. Storytelling will help you stand out in a saturated or crowded market. It is in fact, the only thing that will. 

Because again, you can have the exact same offer as somebody else. What makes you different? 

Your story. 
Your connection. 

And storytelling will give you content to share when you are just starting out, that won't be a waste of time or energy, because it will be focused on building.

CONCLUSION

Your next step, to gain more information on the exact branding process I used and now teach my clients is to watch the Build a Better Brand Method training.

This on-demand training will give you the signature six-part framework, a look into the ideal client process, and my step-by-step process for building core brand messages in your business.

Watch it now at betterbrandmethod.com.

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

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- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

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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.

How to Boost Your Confidence and Increase Brand Awareness

How to Boost Your Confidence and Increase Brand Awareness

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

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As I wrap up creating 90 days of content both for Youtube and the Brandmerry Podcast, I started to think more about visibility and showing up online.

You can watch an entire vlog I created about the process here.

The thing with visibility and creating content is it’s not easy, and it took me months to build up the confidence to even show up online to promote my business.

But, this confidence is absolutely essential if you want to not only build an online community of warm leads, but also lead your audience through the buying process so they become a paying customer.

Today, I want to talk about getting visible, and how you build up the confidence to show up. 

I've been doing this long enough and I work with a lot of new entrepreneurs, people who aren't super familiar with social media or don't feel comfortable with social media or afraid to use video or don't want to look stupid in a reel or don't want to send an email because it's not perfect. 

There are so many things that are keeping us from showing up and growing our audience, but more importantly, nurturing our audience and making the sale, that we can move through.

However, I know you can move through those beliefs and I’m sharing five ways to do that with you today. 

5 WAYS TO BOOST YOUR CONFIDENCE AND GET VISIBLE

I made a list of five things to share with you on how to boost your confidence and start getting visible online so you can make that money. 

Make the money, make the impact, go out and get it, because visibility is a non-negotiable. 

You’ve got to show up.

Number One: It's Bigger Than You

When it comes to visibility and showing up in marketing in general, you have to understand that it's bigger than you.

When I was first starting, I kept asking myself, "But why do people care? What if I sound like an idiot? What if this is not correct? What if nobody shows up?" 

I kept saying all these different things like, "What if, what if, what if, what if?" 

Then one time, when creating content, I sat down and thought to myself, What if this is not actually about me?

It was at this moment that my branding shifted, because for a long time I thought branding was 100% about me and what I did, and we know now that it's not. It is about your audience. It has to be about your audience. 

You are in this to make money. You are in this to make an impact. If you're just talking about yourself all damn day, your audience isn't going to be able to resonate with you. There's going to be no connection. 

Everything you share, even when you're sharing stories about yourself, you must ask yourself the following questions:

• Who is this for?

• What will my ideal customer get from this?

• How is this going to support them?

Otherwise, you're just showing up to show up and talk about yourself and that won’t move your business forward.

So one of the first things that I started to ask myself was, "What is the bigger picture?" and that, I think really ties into your mission. In the first episode of the Brandmerry Podcast, I shared with you a mission-driven business.

You can go back and listen to that episode and get really clear on what the mission is behind your business. It's always bigger than you. It's the impact that you are ultimately going to make. So the first step is identifying the mission. 

The second step is really switching your focus, switching your thinking when it comes to visibility. Remove you from the equation. 

You are the vessel, right? 
You are the one that is delivering the information, carrying out the mission.

That's it. 

When we start to recognize that it's so much bigger than just us showing up, and it's about the message and the mission and the impact that we are going to make, that will give you the motivation to show up and increase your visibility. 

That's number one, big picture. 

Number Two: Have a Plan

Now, notice I didn't say be prepared because I think this whole idea of being prepared fluctuates and can be different for every single person. 

For those of us, who are recovering perfectionists, working on it every damn day, you're never prepared. You're never prepared because of perfection. It's a vicious cycle, so it's not about being prepared and having all your ducks in a row. 

You can never have everything perfectly lined up and perfectly ready to go. You need to record videos, and you're like, "Ooh, I need this perfect background, and I gotta paint my wall, and I gotta have wallpaper, and I’ve got to get the perfect outfit, and I have to have this perfect boom mic and this perfect ring." 

No, you don't need to have any of those things, so it's not about being prepared because your ratio of what is prepared could be crazy compared to what is actually required. 

But it is about having a plan. You’ve got to know how you're going to show up and when you're going to show up.

This is going to allow you to actually do the damn thing because you will keep postponing it over and over and over and over again if you don't plan for it. Something will always come up. It always does. There will always be an obstacle or an objection or something that you're like, "Oh, can't do it today. No, today's not the day. No, I'm not ready."

Create a plan. 

When are you going to post your first blog post? 
When are you going to create your first video? 
Have you been thinking about reels? 
Have you been saving reels to your phone and you just keep waiting and you're like, "Oh, I don't know"?

Put it on the damn calendar. 

Create a plan of action. If you’re in your first year of business it feels like you’re throwing spaghetti at a wall. Shit, I'd argue your first, second, and third year, too! It kind of feels like that. 

It's like we're just throwing stuff and seeing if it sticks, but even though that's like a really good analogy, there still has to be a plan in place. 

What the hell are you throwing on the wall?

What are you wanting to stick? 

You've got to know these things. Otherwise, you really are just mindlessly floating around the internet. So having a plan will actually support you in getting visible and being confident in showing up. 

Knowing what you're going to talk about on a video before you hit live or record, will take the pressure off. It doesn't mean you have to have the perfect script, it doesn't mean you have to have the perfect microphone, but have a game plan and get it scheduled.

If you’re looking for my tips to create a plan for your content calendar, watch this video here.

Number Three: Choose Your Platformu

When it comes to visibility, showing up, and nurturing your audience, you want to choose one platform and one medium to start. 

We know with niching down, especially the more specific you are, the more streamlined you are, same with your offers, the more specific you are, the less you have when you're starting out, the faster you will grow. Because your attention is not pulled in a million different directions. 

When you're just starting out and you're really struggling to just get started and just get the confidence to go do something, don't stretch yourself so thin. Start with one area.

When I was first starting, Facebook was super comfortable for me because I spent all my time on Facebook back in the day. I'd never run a business there, I never had a business page, but I was comfortable with the platform. That's why I decided to start there. 

I also love video so I decided to just create a lot of live videos as this was something new Facebook was offering at the time. 

I did frequent challenges. I would do multiple videos a week sometimes, and that is what I focused on, and that is how I signed most of my clients. 

Then, I started to get a little bit more confident and decided to venture to Instagram. I hated it at first, it felt like a lot of pressure, but I was also excited about it and knew I had the capacity to take it on. So, I practiced, I refined, and I figured out what worked for me. I got good at writing captions and so on and so forth. 

You don't have to do it all at once. A visibility plan doesn't mean that you're showing up everywhere under the damn sun.

If you're really struggling to gain confidence, then pick a platform where you know your ideal customer is, pick a medium, and really focus on that. Now, as you start to expand, of course, there are ways that you can repurpose your content, which is still something that I do today. It's a huge staple inside of Brandmerry Academy. 

With a repurposing plan, you can start to find your main core medium, and then kind of push your content out from there. 

For me, it's still video, all these years later, so I really encourage you to simplify, strip it down, think about the main platform and the main medium that your audience is on. Practice. Get yourself out there. Do the work.

Find what works. Find what doesn't work. Really dedicate your time and energy to it, because you're going to get confident as you do it. That's the secret. You get confident the more you do it, so why not laser in and focus on one thing, get really confident on that, and then watch that snowball?

I used to tell my clients that it is literally like a snowball rolling down a hill, right? It starts really, really small, and then it starts to get bigger, and the momentum picks up, and that's essentially what visibility is. 

You're going to start small, it's going to feel really, really slow, it's going to feel insignificant, and you're going to start to pick up momentum the more that you do it and the more that you focus on where your reach is going to expand.

Number Four: Identify the Value

This kind of circles back to number one, where we discussed the point of showing up. Why are you doing this in the first place?

This particular point is about each individual piece of content. So before I record a live video, I always sit down and identify what I want my audience to walk away with.

Before I record a podcast, I sit down and identify what I want my audience to walk away with.

Before I create a social media post, I'm like, "What the hell is in it for my audience?" 

If you can identify the value before delivering the content, it's going to take the pressure off of you. 

Your mindset starts to shift and you start to realize…
...This isn't 100% about me. It doesn't matter how I look. It doesn't matter exactly what I say. As long as I deliver the value piece, we’re golden. 

So make sure that you're taking the time to identify that. 

Now, I recommend that a lot of my clients do that in the content planning process, but you can absolutely just sit down right before you hit record or right before you write the post and connect back to the value and what you want to provide with that piece of content.

I'm telling you, it seems incredibly simple, but it's a game-changer.

Number Five: Practice

That leads us to number five, which I already kind of told you, but we can still hang out here and talk about it a little bit more...practice. 

If you listen to any entrepreneur, public figure, athlete, they will tell you that they boost their confidence and skill set by continuing to do it over and over and over again.

I had an amazing client inside of Brandmerry Academy the other day and she asked, "How did you get so confident on camera? How are you able to just speak really fluidly?" 

My response was that I’ve done so many videos. That was the medium I chose in the beginning and I wanted to do it as much as possible to become incredibly confident at it.

I remember when I recorded my first podcast episode, and my husband can probably attest to this, I re-recorded it over and over and over again because it just didn’t feel like enough.

Now, I've recorded a lot of episodes and I just sit down and record it. Mistakes and all, I'm here for it. 

The confidence comes by doing, and I think that's the irony of the entire thing. People wait, and maybe you're waiting, to be confident to get started, but you're only going to get confident by getting started.

 Think about it.

Your confidence will grow the more you do it, and that's why all these things build on each other. 

CONCLUSION

I know there is something you’ve been waiting to do, or holding off on until you’re ready. YOU ARE READY NOW.

Go through this process and tips I’ve just outlined, because visibility is non-negotiable as a business owner, and it's so fun to connect with people as you grow your business. 

Show up, share your value, and connect with your audience. That's the fun part for me about content creation. 

Yes, I love new leads. I love when people discover me and my brand, and that's part of the equation, but more than anything I love when people are like, "Watched last week's video and loved it."

"Watched this week's video and it was amazing. Love listening to your podcasts."

That's why I'm doing it, and because we're business owners, you're also going to make more money. Let's not sugar-coat it. 

We want to see you. 
We want to hear your message. 

One of the things that I said really early on, on a podcast just by accident, and it has stuck with me ever since, is “Someone, somewhere needs to hear your message!” 

So just remember that. You're just speaking to someone, just one person, that's it. If one person gets your story, gets in touch with you, you did your job.

If you’re looking for more support with your marketing, I suggest you check out my free training. I’m teaching you how to master your marketing without social media and you can sign up here to access it. 

---

- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

---

- 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.

What is Branding and How To Build A Personal Brand

What is Branding and How To Build A Personal Brand

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

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If you didn’t already know, at Brandmerry, we focus on two key elements for building a business, both branding and marketing. And today I want to share with you a snippet from my free on-demand training called the Build a Better Brand Method. 

Inside of this free video training, I share with you the signature framework that I have used to support hundreds of entrepreneurs in building a scalable brand that just feels really f*cking good. 

It feels like them. 
It's a strong personal brand. 
They get to show up and do their thing online in a way that feels amazing.

This free on-demand training is available for you to watch if you go to betterbrandmethod.com, but I thought it would be really fun to give you a little teaser. 

I'm going to share with you what personal branding is. 

I'm also going to break down my signature branding framework. This is the six-part framework that I teach inside of my program You Branded. Inside of the training, you are getting the entire framework step-by-step, plus what happens at each level and how each level builds to the next. 

After you dive into this blog (or listen to the audio above), I encourage you to go to betterbrandmethod.com to sign up for this on-demand training because in addition to what you're hearing today, you are also going to get some amazing content on the training around storytelling, writing your brand messages, doing ideal client work and more. 

WHAT IS A BRAND

I want you to start thinking about the brand as the ultimate experience that you are creating for your potential customers. 

It's made up of the feeling and the connection that someone has about the experience that you've given them online. 

It's made up of the stories, the emotional connection, and different experiences as a whole. 

If they watch a video from you, if they see an Instagram post from you, if you have a business, then personal branding allows you to create a deeper, personal connection with your audience that will build trust. 

It ultimately goes deeper than just a product or service. Yet, so many people make the mistake of branding around a product or service when they start. 

I don't want you to do that because things are going to change within your business over time and you don’t want to have to shift your branding as a result.

Your product or service is not a brand. 

A brand needs to be about the business as a whole, the company as a whole, you as a whole showing up as your true self because as we'll learn, purchase decisions are made based on human connection. 

They're not made because of that product that you're selling, because I bet you, someone else has the exact same thing. 

We all know it's true. 
We know what our industry looks like. 

But you can stand out and you can become profitable when you focus on building your personal brand. 

Think about your brand as the beating heart of your business. 
Without it, you won't have anything. 

In fact, Richard Branson said, “The way a company brands itself is everything. It will ultimately decide whether or not your business survives.” 

So, remember it's essential.

WHY YOUR PERSONAL BRAND IS IMPORTANT

So why is your personal brand important? 

We've talked a little bit about it, but let's break down some of the key pieces. 

REASON #1 TO CREATE A PERSONAL BRAND FOR YOUR BUSINESS

Your ideal customer is shopping around, right? We all know that. Let's not pretend it's not happening. 

It is part of the client buying process. 

So why would they choose your product or service over someone else that offers the same thing? 

Your brand. 

There was a study done by Harvard University that found that we make purchase decisions based on an emotional connection that we feel. So, although we think it is because we list out how many modules are in something, or how many videos they get, or how many calls, someone's made a decision by that point. 

That logistical information might help them to commit today, but they've already decided based on a connection. 

That's why creating a personal brand is so essential. It allows you to share more story, it allows you to build connections, and they ultimately will move through the buying process faster.

REASON #2 TO CREATE A PERSONAL BRAND FOR YOUR BUSINESS

Branding also impacts every single element of your business. 

You cannot have a website without a solid brand. 
You cannot show up on social media without a solid brand. You won't know what to say. 
You won't know what aesthetics to choose. 
You won't know what you're ultimately leading people to. 

You can't have a solid marketing strategy without a solid brand, because so much of your marketing strategy relies on your ideal customer and your messaging. 

You can't advertise without a solid brand because you won’t know who to target or how best to communicate with them. 

Your copy will suck if you don't have a solid brand because your messaging will be less than mediocre and you will not stand out and will not convert. Your content creation will fall flat.

In fact, many entrepreneurs who have had their business for a while come to me because they're having trouble staying consistent with their content. 

When we fill the holes in their brand, suddenly it all works and makes sense again. Your brand impacts every element of your business.

WHY DO YOU NEED BRAND STORYTELLING?

So what role does storytelling play in branding? 

I've talked about storytelling a lot on the Brandmerry Blog. 

When you integrate story into your content, it is 22 times more likely to be remembered. This includes copy on your homepage, email, advertisement copy, social media, all of it. 

That is because storytelling has major effects on the brain. Inside of your audience’s brain, there's dopamine firing, there's neuro coupling happening. 

I think just this stat in and of itself as an entrepreneur always spoke to me because if I'm going to take the time and the energy to create content, which we all are because it's important when you're building an online business, I want to make sure that people actually remember it.

In addition to the power of storytelling, 86% of consumers say that authenticity is a key factor when deciding what brands they like and support. 

Now, this comes down to being your true self online and building a brand around that rather than something you think people might want. 

81% of consumers said that they need to be able to trust a brand in order to buy from them. 

This again is where storytelling and personal branding comes into play. Storytelling is such a great way to build connections so that people feel like they know you and they can trust you. And as we mentioned before, it's oftentimes the reason someone will make a decision between two very similar products.

If you Google photographers near you, you're going to have a lot of options. 
Why are your ideal customers ultimately going to choose one over the other?

It's going to come down to trust and an emotional connection. 

And to close out my statistical rant, 64% of consumers around the world said that they would buy from a brand or boycott it solely because of its position on a social or political issue. 

Your story, your values, and your mission are the foundation of your brand and will help you communicate these things with your audience, stand your ground, and speak up on the things that your audience cares about most.

BRANDMERRY 6-PART BRAND FRAMEWORK (STEP-BY-STEP)

All right. Let's dive into this six-part framework, that we call the Build a Better Brand Method. 

Phase One: Story

At this stage, the emphasis is on identifying your strengths, your transitions, things that you've gone through in your life, different paths that you've taken, and experiences to ultimately define your niche and create your profitable brand story. 

This is when you're really getting in touch with who you are as a person and the different things that you want to provide, the mission, and your values so that you can ultimately carve out your little pocket inside of your industry. 

Remember, a lot of us are offering the same exact thing. 

I'm not oblivious to the fact that there are other people offering branding work and supporting people with their branding but I found based on my story and my experiences, my little pocket, and then from that am able to create a really profitable brand story.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

Profitability comes from your specific niche and by using your story from the get-go to define your expertise and your strengths, you'll easily incorporate it into your brand as a whole. Many people make the mistake of saying this is my niche, because they're like this is the product that I want to sell, and then that's their niche. 

You can niche down based on your credentials, your expertise, your experiences to give you a leg up in your industry. It's one of the things that I did when I was starting out as well. 

So this is the first stage. You need to understand and get super clear on your story before you can move on to the next piece and at the end of this phase, you're ultimately going to know your specific niche and how you're really going to use your superpowers to stand out in your industry.

Phase TWO: Your Customer

That leads us to the second phase. Phase two is all about your customer. 

Once you've identified who you are, your strengths, your story, and those experiences that you want to share, now we move into who you're talking to. 

Who do you ultimately want to attract to your brand? 

Now at this stage, the emphasis is on identifying deeper layers of your ideal customer. This is ultimately who your brand will be supporting and doing the research to better understand who they really are is essential. 

Too many people skip this step. You might be one of them. I was. I did it. I skipped the step in the beginning and guess what? I didn't make any money. 

So when you get back down to the customer market research, you are able to really know your ideal customer, which is going to play a role in everything that you are going to create moving forward. And yes, it's going to take a little bit of time, but I promise it's going to be worth it in the end. 

In fact, the knowledge that comes from deep ideal client market research will impact your overall messaging, your overall copywriting, the words that you are going to use on your website and social media and your overall marketing strategy. 

Because how do you know where to show up and market if you don't know who you're trying to attract? 

The second phase is going deeper into really understanding who your customers are. I'll give you a little hint on this one. It's not just the demographics that everybody stresses about. 
What is their age? 
Are they married? 
Do they have kids? 

No. We're going deeper than that. We're thinking about what their struggles are. 
What are their weaknesses? 
What are their strengths? 
What keeps them up at night? 
What do they ultimately want? 
Why do they want it? 
What's standing in their way?

Those are just some examples of the questions that we need to be asking ourselves when it comes to phase two of the branding framework. 

Phase Three: Your Messaging

Phase three is your messaging. How do you communicate and tie those pieces together to bring in and attract your ideal customer? 

At this stage, the emphasis is on consistency. It's one of my favorite words. 

Crafting messages that really represent your brand as a whole, not just the individual offer. 

You will notice, I haven't talked about a single product or offer yet. Because we're talking about the brand as a whole, we're talking about the experience. How are you ultimately supporting your ideal customer to go from where they are to where they want to be? 

This is important because a consistent presentation of a brand has seen to increase revenue by 33%. Look, we can all get every little bit that we can, right? 

The messaging consistency will make sure that your overall brand message never gets confusing and is super clear to your ideal customer, meaning that the brand as a whole solves the problem and then the individual products or services go into the logistics of how you do that. 

Phase three is focused on communicating your strengths, your expertise, the experience that you're providing with what you know about your ideal customer, what they want, what's standing in their way, all of those things and crafting it into messaging for your brand as a whole.

Phase Four: The Offer

That leads us to four, which is crafting your signature offer. 

Now at this stage, the emphasis is on building your core offer and signature framework. I know it's really tempting to start off with a million offers out of the gate. If you're just starting off or you're having trouble selling what you currently have, strip it back, become known for something, build a reputation around something, get results around something, and then add more offers down the line. 

So inside of You! Branded, I specifically tell my clients, we are focused on one thing right now. Let's get good at that one thing and then scale. 

At this stage, you want to determine the pillars, the phases of your offer, much like the one that you're seeing right now. And that will allow you to monetize more consistently. This is really important because part of the branding process is figuring out what you're going to monetize. 

But many people either do it too early and then they've got nothing to back it up, or they figure out their brand and then they create their offer and then their brand and the offer aren't connected. 

It only makes sense to craft a signature offer that can scale with your brand over time. Don't do it backwards or you're going to find yourself very confused with communicating your offer and your brand and all the different things. 

Phase Five: Your Voice

We cannot create a personal brand without talking about your voice, the voice of the brand, the voice of the company, how you're going to show up.

So at this stage, the emphasis is on defining the authentic voice of the brand, of the characteristics to make sure that your true personality is coming through online. Many of you are most likely starting out as solopreneurs, meaning it's you with a business idea and a plan in place and you're going forward with it. 

Showing up and sharing your story and building that trust is going to be incredibly helpful. That's how I started as well. 

Even though my company Brandmerry isn't my name Michelle Knight, I'm still able to build a personal brand because again, we're focused on personal connection. I know that someone is ultimately going to decide to work with me or maybe purchase my services because they have felt a connection to me over somebody else that may offer the same thing. 

This is the stage where you want to identify your brand values as we talked about in the beginning. How you want to be perceived and your mission.

Then you'll be able to use those to communicate with your audience, not just through your copy in your messaging, but also with your aesthetics. This is important because authenticity matters. 

81% of survey consumers said that they need to be able to trust a brand in order to buy from them. That's a pretty big number. 

Defining your authenticity from the start will allow you to show up 100% as yourself online and maintain and build deeper trust with your audience. 

Phase Six: Connection

And that leads us to phase six, which is all about connection. Now in this stage, the emphasis is on building an emotional connection with your audience. Studies show that we make purchase decisions based on an emotional connection. So you want to determine this while branding so that it flows not only through your copy, not only through your aesthetics, the visuals, the photos, the colors, the fonts but also in your marketing efforts as well. 

This is a very, very, very important part of the process. 

Many branding mentors, coaches, educators, course creators do not teach the importance of emotional branding. This is something that I have become known for in my industry. And as we know, purchase decisions are based on an emotional connection so it is important. 

It's not enough to have a great product. It's not going to lead to consistent revenue. Your audience needs to feel something from you.

There are a lot of different ways to do that. Through understanding color psychology, to choosing the right fonts for your brand, to choosing photos that build better brand affinity. These are all pieces that when someone lands on your website, boom, they know what you're about and they know how they feel in that moment. 

So again, this is important because choosing colors, choosing fonts, choosing photos, and choosing elements can feel really overwhelming. In fact, many of you are probably sitting in that right now where you'll pick out a bunch of colors and then two days later, you're like, “Oh, actually I want this color instead.” And you're spinning your wheels for a really long time. 

But all of those pieces are rooted in emotion and when you start with the emotional piece first, then you can choose your branding aesthetics. 

Conclusion

So this is the six-part framework that I teach my clients called the Build a Better Brand Method. 

Think of it as building a new building. In order to add stories and increase the height of the building, you need to take the time to construct a solid foundation. If you don't, the building will not stand.

The same is true for your business. If you do not have a solid foundation, you're going to notice you can't go very high. Things start to crumble. Things start to slip. Things won’t fit and you’ll always feel like something is missing.

So now you know. This is the brand roadmap in this exact order. Now, you should be able to look at this and identify what you’re missing or where you need to start.

You know I'm all about the action so make sure you sign up for the Build a Better Brand Method. 

This might have been a small sample of that free training, but there’s more in-depth information on storytelling, ideal customer and messaging within the class. 

This is a free on-demand training teaching you how to completely elevate your brand and business. You can learn more at betterbrandmethod.com.

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

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- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

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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.

6 Tips For Finding New Clients Online

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

Here at Brandmerry, we focus on personal branding and marketing strategies to help you create more income and impact. 

And one of the ways to create more income and impact is serving more clients. 

So I thought what better way to support you in doing that than to share six of my favorite ways that you can start implementing to sign new consistent clients in your business.

Before I dive into the six tips, I have two little disclaimers that I need to share with you. 

These tips are not going to work if you don't know who your ideal customer is. In fact, you're going to have a really hard time signing clients if you don't know who you really want to work with. 

So it's incredibly important that you do the ideal customer work so that you know how you're showing up and what you're saying to those clients. 

In addition to that, your messaging needs to be very clear. 

Ideal customer and messaging are both core parts of the personal branding process. In fact, they are just two of the elements that I teach inside of my course You! Branded. 

And if you want to get a sneak peek, you can watch the Build a Better Brand Method on-demand training all about personal branding. Sign up at betterbrandmethod.com to watch it on demand. 

So make sure you take the time to learn more about your ideal customer and messaging. 

6 WAYS TO SIGN NEW CLIENTS

METHOD #1 TO SIGN NEW CLIENTS:
Create High-Value Content

My number one way to attract new service-based clients is to create high-value educational content. 

Now, educational content can be a slew of different things depending on what you sell in your business. But if you're a service-based business owner, chances are you’ve got a lot of cool information up your sleeve that you can teach your audience. 

Now, why do I say high value? 

Because if you can really position yourself as an expert from the start, from that initial piece of content that they consume from you, whether that is on a blog or a video on YouTube or a live stream or a freaking Instagram Reel, then you're going to build that trust right from the beginning, and that is really important.

Create high-value content, put it out there, show up, invite individuals to join your community, join your email list, sign up for your service, and watch as you build momentum and brand awareness and those clients keep coming in. 

So again, I'm going to stress here, it's not just about consistent content, it's not just about posting to post on social media. It's high-value, quality content. 

What is your audience searching for? 
What questions are keeping them up at night? 
Why are they coming to you to solve their problem? 

Help them through that process and watch as your gap between the new ideal customer and signing that customer gets a lot shorter.

METHOD #2 TO SIGN NEW CLIENTS:
Host a Live Event

This is one of my favorite ways to sign new clients. With a product launch, a course, and a group program, but specifically for one-on-one service-based clients. 

Sometimes we think, “All right, I've got this one-on-one service and it's always available, someone can sign up at any time.” Well, that might actually be hurting you. 

And I'm not suggesting that you're constantly opening and closing and opening and closing the doors or changing things around, but adding in frequent live events, maybe quarterly, maybe monthly, where you get to share your expertise, give incredible value, and then ultimately pitch your service can be incredibly helpful.

So these live events could look like a video series on social media, you could host a challenge inside of a pop-up Facebook group, you could host a webinar or a workshop, some sort of training for your audience. 

Essentially you have something that everyone signs up for about a topic that is super important to your audience and then you get to pitch your products and service as a solution to that problem. 

If you have a service that's always open, you're always accepting new clients, it can sometimes cause your audience to say, “I'll sign up later, I'll do this later.” 

Having these live events can be incredibly helpful and moving your ideal customer through the buying process, getting them really excited, helping them solve a problem, and then offering up your service as the solution.

METHOD #3 TO SIGN NEW CLIENTS:
Share Your Free Gift with your Community

Now, tip number three might not work for all of you, but I think it's important to know. Because I'm hoping that we'll also get the juices flowing in your brain around growing your community. 

Tip number three is all about sharing your free gift with your network. In the beginning, you might not have a huge network to tap into. I didn't have anybody in my network that I could sell my services. 

But I have a lot of clients who do. And by realizing that they have this network, we have to get really creative with how we tell them about our new venture. 

How do we tell them about our services without feeling like we're bombarding them or overwhelming them? 

One of the best ways to do that is to create some sort of freebie or lead magnet for your audience. You need this anyways, you need this regardless because it's a great way to build your email list, which is going to help you sign consistent clients.

When you create that, a great thing to do if you have the network available to you is to share it with them. 

Reach out to them and say, "Hey, I have this new freebie. If you're interested, this is what it does." Or, "I know that you have a network of people who might be interested in this, would you mind sharing this?" 

If you have a connection with other people in your industry that maybe have a similar audience or maybe they've changed gears and now they work with a different audience, reach out to them and say, "Hey, I know that you used to do this, I know you used to be in career coaching and you're not anymore. Would you mind sharing my new freebie that I have on resume building with your existing audience?" 

Tying into those connections that you already have and those networks can be incredibly helpful. But this is my favorite way to do it from a really authentic place so it doesn't feel like you're like, "Oh, I got this new offer, here's where you click to buy."

It will get people on your email list where they will hear about your services.

METHOD #4 TO SIGN NEW CLIENTS:
Build Brand Authority

Tip number four, and one of my other favorite ways, is to build brand authority. 

Now, we talked in tip number one about high-value content, about how it's important to build your expertise and showcase your expertise from the beginning. 

Because, the reality is there are going to be people who are looking for your products and services online that may be further along in the buying process and they're looking for that moment of trust, of “this is my person.” 

So having that high-value content is incredibly helpful. 

But another thing that's going to help you sign consistent clients is going to be your brand authority. People want to know that you know what you're talking about. 

A few great ways to do this, and two of my favorites, are through pitching your personal brand and through the power of search engine optimization.

When it comes to pitching your personal brand, this is a fantastic way to get in front of a new audience. I have my degree in public relations and it is one of the trainings that we teach inside of Brandmerry Academy, my marketing membership because we understand that it's a fantastic way to get all eyes on your brand. 

When you do this, you're getting invited to come onto a platform with credibility. Now, maybe you're not going to get into Forbes the very first time you pitch but think about those smaller podcasts that your audience loves, that they listen to regularly, that they have a lot of trust and respect for the host. 

That host is inviting you in to share your expertise. Your authority level is already elevated. 

So rather than shooting a paper airplane in the dark of social media and hoping it lands on your ideal customer, you're getting in front of your ideal customer already elevating your brand authority through the power of pitching your expertise.

On the other side of that, we've got SEO. Now, this isn't an “or” situation, this is an “and” situation. Because pitching and getting featured in publications, on podcasts, on TV will also help you boost your SEO because it helps drive traffic to your website.

SEO is an incredible way to increase your brand authority because of your ranking on Google.

So I'll give you an example. If you go to Google and type in brand coach, I am going to show up at the very top, if not in the top three. If I'm a consumer and I'm looking for a brand coach and I go to Google and I see that the top person without paid ads is Brandmerry, immediately the authority is high. 

So using the power of SEO, and site-wide SEO specifically to rank for your industry can also help increase your brand authority. 

SEO, search engine optimization, is something that we teach again inside of Brandmerry Academy, which is my marketing membership. And you can learn more at brandmerryacademy.com.

METHOD #5 TO SIGN NEW CLIENTS:
Offer Assessments

Tip number five is all about offering assessments. 

Now, I wanted to make sure that in covering these six ways, that you had something that would work for you no matter where you're at in your business. So the assessment works really well if you have a small audience or you're just getting started. 

You could absolutely do it if you're further along in your business and you've got a huge email list, but just know that you're going to need a lot more time blocked off to handle all of these assessments. 

Now, assessments do require your time and energy, but in the beginning, it's incredibly worth it if you are looking to create consistent income through your service-based business.

So what an assessment essentially is, is honing in on one area of your expertise, offering free assessments by application for someone to get your knowledge dumped into their lap. So I'll give you an example of what I did in the beginning of my business. 

I offered brand messaging assessments. 

I would promote them on social media, I would promote them in my email list, I would promote them on my website and my blog, and back in the day when I used Facebook groups, I would promote them there as well. 

Essentially, in conjunction with awesome benefit-driven messaging, I would say…

I'm offering five of these this week, here's the link to sign up. When you sign up, you are going to fill out a short questionnaire, we're going to hop on the phone for 20 minutes, you're going to share a little bit about your business with me, and then I'm going to give you three ways to improve your brand messaging at the end of the 20 minutes.

So super actionable, they knew exactly what they were getting, it was focusing on one specific area. 

I found that the assessments really served me better than offering a free call or a discovery call. Because those are incredibly vague and someone might not know exactly what they're going to get on that call so they might be hesitant to sign up for it. 

Think about two to three things that you could really focus on that are key to your entire framework as a service-based entrepreneur, create really strong marketing materials to promote those assessments, and offer a limited-time opportunity to get in the door.

Don't always have these assessments open. Say you're offering two or three a week, maybe you do this every month, maybe you have it on the back end of your freebie or in your email funnel. 

No matter how you want to work it in or promote it, these can be incredibly helpful with getting your customer on the phone with you showcasing your expertise, solving a problem, and then at the end of the assessment you can say something along the lines of, “If this was helpful for you, do you want to have a conversation on how we can continue to work together?”

Then you can move into the sales conversation - and just for the record I never had someone tell me no!

METHOD #6 TO SIGN NEW CLIENTS:
Storytelling

If you don't already know, my expertise over here at Brandmerry is serving my clients through personal branding and marketing strategies, but it's all based on the art of storytelling. 

If you're not familiar with the art of storytelling, you can watch this video right here, where I share more about the importance of storytelling and some of my top tips. Ultimately, if you want to show up, you want to build connections, you want to build trust, get in the habit of sharing your story.

When I first started out and I wasn't signing any clients in my business, I was doing all the things. I was showing up, I was even at the beginning offering some assessments, but nothing was really registering with my audience. 

I had a small list of about 10 people that grew from 20 to 30 to 40 or 50, and still, I wasn't signing consistent clients. 

When I started to focus on emotional branding and the connection with my audience and showing up and sharing stories about why I do what I do, my values, my mission, those same people started buying from me. 

And they weren't new to me, I'd been showing up, I had been delivering value, but suddenly there was that connection piece. So one of the best things that you can do for your business, especially as service-based entrepreneurs, especially as someone who's building a personal brand, is getting into the habit of sharing stories.

Now, I talk about the art of storytelling all the time on my podcast, The Brandmerry Podcast. 

You can also check out the Brand Storytelling Guide on the Brandmerry Blog.

Storytelling truly is an art. And you want to make sure that when you're sharing these stories, that you're not just talking to a wall or talking to anyone, that you're speaking directly to your ideal customer, the same ideal customer that's going to buy your one-on-one package or the custom package that you are offering. 

So get in the habit of incorporating a story into everything that you create, and that includes your emails and your social media posts and your blogs and on your website and in your videos because it's going to help you sign consistent clients in your business.

All right, there you have it, six ways to sign new clients as service-based entrepreneurs.

Don't forget to catch the free on-demand training, the Build a Better Brand Method.
You can go to betterbrandmethod.com to learn more about my signature six-part method.

You're going to learn more about elevating your messaging. I've got a trick in there on doing the ideal customer research that you're not going to want to miss where I’m talking about telling your brand story. 

You can also check out youbrandedcourse.com to learn more about my paid branding course. This is truly where you get the step-by-step system for building a strong brand foundation rooted in story, understanding your ideal customer and mastering your messaging.

---

- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

---

- 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 Build Your Personal Brand

How to Build Your Personal Brand

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

Today’s episode is all about personal branding.

As a Personal Branding Consultant and Marketing Strategist, it's one of my favorite topics and something I support my clients with daily. I have spent the last five years teaching entrepreneurs how to personally brand themselves online so that they can build scalable businesses. 

The information that I'm sharing with you today isn't just based on my experience. It's based on my clients, which includes hundreds who have gone through my program, You! Branded, or worked with me as a 1:1 VIP client.

What I’m teaching you today will shift the way you think about branding forever and fill in some of the gaps in your personal brand as well.

WHAT IS PERSONAL BRANDING

In this context, I am talking about personal branding as it applies to business owners. So, you're looking to receive money and funds for your products or your services online.

With this in mind, how does personal branding impact that?

Personal branding is based on the experience that you are creating for your ideal customer, with you being the person behind the brand. 

Whether you sell a product or a service, personal branding can help you create more connections with your audience. We've also found that personal branding helps with client retention. 

When a customer shares a connection with a brand, connects with shared values, is on board with their mission, feels taken care of, is connected to their story, we know that client retention improves. This is why personal branding is so important no matter what you sell online.

At the end of the day, if you're not leading the charge with your personal brand, if you aren't choosing what messages are being shared and what is being said, other people will create the narrative for you. 

We don't really want that. 

So, it is important that as a business owner you are focused on the person, or the people if there's more than one, behind the brand, and sharing that through the art of personal branding.

When we watch videos or read most blogs on personal branding, they’re typically focused on social media only. I want you to think of that as an avenue for sharing your personal brand, but keep in mind you can also share your personal brand through video, blogging, or email marketing. 

There are a lot of different ways to showcase your personal brand online.

For our purpose I want to dive deeper into what personal branding is made up of, not just how you share your personal brand.

How do you actually figure out what your personal brand is, so you can use those marketing avenues to attract your ideal customers, promote your products and services, and build a deeper connection?

To figure out what our personal brand is, we've got to start at the very, very first step, which is understanding who you are.

PERSONAL BRANDING STEP 1: UNDERSTANDING WHO YOU ARE

When it comes to figuring out who you are, the person behind the brand, it's important to start thinking about your story. 

Now, story work is something that I specialize in, over here at Brandmerry. No matter if you work with me on branding or marketing, we're always focused on the art of storytelling. 

I talked about storytelling in this video right here. If you want to check it out, that is going to be really helpful for you in understanding why story is so important.

But some of the things that you want to identify in the beginning is:

• Who the heck are you (or the people behind the brand)?

• What has ultimately led you to create this product or this service?

• Why do you want to solve this problem for your ideal customer? 

We know that to be successful as a business owner, we need to solve a problem. 
If there's no problem, people won't pay for a result. They won't pay for a solution. 

So, you want to get clear on why you chose to do that? What has ultimately led you here?

One of the elements that I teach inside of Module One of my program You! Branded is focusing on the three transitions. What are three pivotal moments in your life that have led you to this moment today? It’s also something I share in this recent podcast episode here.

This is also incredibly helpful in writing your brand's story, which is often one of the things that we do when we are first launching our business out into the world. Also, at this phase, you want to pay attention to identifying your brand values and your brand mission. 

If you need additional help with this, episode one and four on the Brandmerry Podcast talks about both of these pieces, so you can dive into the logistics on each of those over on iTunes or Spotify.

The goal at this stage is to be super clear on the person/people behind the brand, otherwise, it's going to be really hard to communicate who the person behind the brand is, which is the art of personal branding in a nutshell.

PERSONAL BRANDING STEP #2: WHO IS YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER

The second thing that you want to do is get super clear on who you want to attract to your brand. 

There are two sides to branding. There's you, the personal brand. The stories that you're ultimately going to share. 

Then we also have to understand who the brand is designed for because it's not for you (you can’t buy your own services and products and keep your business afloat). You are the person behind the brand, the person building the connection. But who are you wanting to attract?

This is where understanding who your ideal customer is is incredibly important. 

You need to not only get very specific on who your product and your service are ultimately for, but also get down to the nitty-gritty details around who they are. 

This is going to help you tremendously as you start to show up on social media, as you start to enhance your email marketing, and as you venture into blogging or creating video. 

Who are these pieces of content for? This is going to make the entire process of showing up and marketing your business so much easier. 

It's also going to play a role in the types of stories that you share online and the types of photos that you create because you're doing it to attract an ideal customer. You want to make sure that you take the time to identify who that person is.

Here are two little things, and three questions, that I want to share with you on ideal client work.

IDEAL CLIENT WORK: TIP #1

Get super clear on specifically who this person is. This is where some of those demographic pieces come into play. I'm not going to tell you that you can only work with women, or you can only work with men, or you can only work with business owners. 

But start to think about those demographics that they identify with most, because that's really going to help you when you are writing copy, creating messaging, and choosing those visual pieces for your brand.

IDEAL CLIENT WORK: TIP #2

The second thing that you want to be able to answer are these three questions:

•  Where are they at currently? 

• What are their struggles? 

• And what is standing in their way? 

This is kind of like a two-for-one. Struggles and obstacles. 

If someone has a problem, they can clearly tell you, "This is my problem. This is what I'm currently experiencing in my day-to-day life. This is what I'm trying to move away from." 

But if they haven't moved away from that yet, what is standing in their way? That can be where you really get clear on the obstacles. 

The last piece is where do they ultimately want to go? If you solve their problems if they have a solution, what will that allow them to do? 

Now again, I want to be super clear, this plays a role whether you have a product or a service. I actually teach a little secret sauce to ideal client work in my free class, Build a Better Brand Method. Visit betterbrandmethod.com to sign up for free.

PERSONAL BRANDING STEP 3: UNDERSTANDING WHO YOU ARE

The third step in the personal branding process is your messaging. 

Let's just recap to see how this fits in.

We know who you are, right? You are the person behind the brand. You're the one that's ultimately showing up on these platforms, sharing your expertise, sharing your knowledge. 

We understand who you're speaking to and who you want to attract. That's your ideal customer. 

Now how do we do this in a very consistent and fluid way? That is where messaging comes into play. 

I teach a strategy called Core Brand Messages, which you can watch in this video right here, where I recommend that my clients get super clear on their brand messages for their brand as a whole, not about a specific product. 

In fact, I think a lot of entrepreneurs limit themselves because they brand a specific product or a service rather than focusing on the overall personal branding from the beginning. 

This looks like identifying some of the obstacles your audience is facing, sharing the struggles that you fix or solve, sharing the desires of your ideal customer and how you, and your brand, ultimately get them from struggle to desire using your techniques.

This is where creating those messages right from the start can really help with consistency in showing up on social media and in the content that you're creating on the different pages on your website. 

When it comes to messaging you want to make sure that you're incredibly focused on consistency. 

We know that if someone, a consumer, has a break in consistency, they have a break in trust.

So, it's important that if you're showing up on Instagram, and you're showing up on Pinterest, and you have your website (what platforms you ultimately choose), that you are really consistent with your messaging, with the aesthetics, with all those pieces on every single platform. 

Don’t break trust with your audience, it's an incredibly bad thing to do as a business owner because we know that people buy based on trust. 

Zig Ziglar once said, "If someone likes you, they'll listen to you. If they trust you, they'll do business with you." So, don't break that trust.

PERSONAL BRANDING STEP #4: EMOTIONAL BRANDING

Tip number four is my specialty and it is called emotional branding. 

Sometimes when we're thinking about showing up online, we get super logistical. We're always thinking about what we offer and why it’s helpful. And while those are VERY important pieces of information to identify, we know that people make purchase decisions based on an emotional connection. 

So, emotional branding is incredibly powerful, and it's the focus of Module Six inside of my course You! Branded. We know that when you're super clear on how you ultimately want your ideal customer to feel, then you can create messaging, and you can create the aesthetics, and the visual components and the overall experience to make them feel that way.

I created a video for you right here. It's one of my most popular videos, all about emotional branding. 

When thinking about your personal brand make sure that you focus on building a connection because that is what personal branding truly is about. It's about sharing these stories and creating an experience for your audience so that they purchase from the brand and stay loyal to the brand for years to come.

PERSONAL BRANDING STEP 5: BUILD A COMMUNITY

Tip number five is all about your ideal customer yet again. 

I know we initially think about personal branding as just the person behind the brand, but I hope you realize that that's a small portion of it. To improve your personal brand online, you want to get in front of the right people. 

So, this step is all about making sure that you're consistently increasing brand awareness and attracting your ideal customer.

One of the best things that you can do when creating your business is building a community around your brand. This is also going to play a huge role as you expand your brand down the line, maybe offering live events, a podcast, or releasing a book. 

My favorite way to build community is through email marketing. Making sure that you are growing your email list so you have a way to stay in contact with your brand community members, to share stories with them, to share educational content, to share knowledge, to share your products and your offers. 

Not only is having this online community really going to help with the evolution of your brand, but it's also going to help you make money. 

So, as a business owner, it's important that if someone is intrigued by what you're saying, that they are interested in your products and your services, that you get them into your inner circle, that you capture their name and their email address so you can continue to nurture that relationship.

You can read more about growing your email list in this blog.

PERSONAL BRANDING STEP 6: CUSTOMER SERVICE

The last tip that I have for you is all about that connection piece. It's what we talked about in the very beginning. Personal branding really is about the experience. It's about building a connection with your audience. It's about sustainability and longevity. 

So, my last tip for you is to take care of your customers. Take care of your clients. 

We put too much emphasis on getting people in the door, getting people on our email list. But I challenge you to put the same amount of emphasis, if not more, on taking care of the customers and clients once they're in the door. 

This is what is going to lead to your recurring clients, to your referrals, to your word-of-mouth. Some of the most powerful pieces in building a strong personal brand online.

I am really incredibly proud of my client retention rate because I make it a goal to make my clients a top priority. 

These are the people who have invested in your products and services. Show up for them, take care of them, and they can be the best advocates for your personal brand.

This looks like making sure you have a clear client onboarding system so they feel taken care of from the moment that they invest. It can look like making sure that you're checking in with them, that you have ways for them to provide feedback, and you're honoring that feedback as well. 

One of the things that we have done inside of my course, You! Branded, is to receive feedback from clients on why they purchased, and feedback on obstacles that they've run into as they've gone through the course, or if they would have liked something changed. 

We take that feedback to heart and we improve the program for all.

At this point, it's not a guessing game anymore. People will ultimately tell you how you can care for them the best. And if you listen to that, I promise you that they will be the best advocates for your personal brand.

CONCLUSION

I hope that these six steps to improve your personal brand were really helpful for you. 

If you want to dive into personal branding and building a better brand, I invite you to watch my free class, the Build a Better Brand Method. 

You can check it out with the link below, or go to betterbrandmethod.com to sign up for this on-demand class. 

You're going to learn my six-part framework for building a better brand. I talk a little bit more about building those core brand messages, your ideal customer, and the power of story. 

You also will have a chance to join us inside of my course You! Branded when you are ready to join us. This course will completely give you everything that you need to build a strong personal brand online.

And, if you want to read a bit more on the blog about personal branding, check out my Personal Branding Guide here.

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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.