How to Uncover the Brand Stories Your Ideal Clients Need to Hear

How to Uncover the Brand Stories Your Ideal Clients Need to Hear

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

Today we’re going to talk about uncovering the stories that are going to be the perfect fit and exactly what your ideal customer needs to hear. 

Last week, I shared with you three categories to group your stories into to then work into your marketing strategy so you make sure that you're constantly sharing stories through your content creation.

And it occurred to me that you might need a little bit more of a deep dive on how you choose some of those stories. So I want to dive into that today and share with you some of the steps that I walk my clients through so that you can feel really good about the stories that you're sharing with your audience.

Today, we are going to talk about how to uncover those brand stories that your ideal customer needs to hear. Now, before I jump into my little process, we've got to talk about one very important piece of the storytelling process, it's actually not about you. 

I know, it can feel like, "It's my story, Michelle. I'm the one creating the content. This is my brand." 

But at the end of the day, you are running a business, and your business story needs to contribute to the revenue of your business, i.e. the people who hear and see your stories. We want to ultimately lead them to actually purchasing from you.

So your stories can't just be you sharing cool things that happened in your life and talking at your ideal customer. They need to be very, very specific for your ideal customer, as well as give value to them. 

That's why I like to say your stories aren't actually about you or for you, they are for your ideal customer. 

So you're going to notice that, as I'm sharing this process with you, that we've really got to know who your ideal customer is. Otherwise, brand storytelling and, honestly, marketing and content creation overall is going to fall flat.

If you find that you don't get a lot of engagement or you post about an offer and nobody seems to care about it, or you're not getting those consistent leads coming in, it's probably because you don't know your ideal customer enough.

STEP ONE: YOU HAVE TO KNOW YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER

So that leads me to the very first step that I recommend all of my clients go through when trying to think of stories that are going to be perfect for their ideal customer, and that is you have to know your ideal customer.

I don't just mean knowing the demographics.
I don't just mean know if they're a mom or not a mom, or any of those things. 

Those are cool, they're definitely part of my ideal client process, but they're not the realness of it. They're not the meat of it. 

What we really need to understand first and foremost, at the bare minimum, is what your ideal customer is currently experiencing. Your business needs to solve a problem that your audience is experiencing, that’s how you create a brand and business people consistently buy from.

To have a problem solved is why we invest in things, and it doesn't matter what you sell, at the end of the day, whatever you sell needs to solve a problem.

So your ideal customer is currently experiencing something that is a problem for them. You need to understand what that is. We often refer to that as the struggle or the pain that our ideal customer is going through or experiencing. Knowing specifically what that is is going to help you connect with them on a deeper level. 

Then, at the bare minimum, you also need to understand what they want. 

When they solve this problem, what will happen for them? What will their life be like? What pleasure and desires will they experience? What are some of their goals? 

That's going to help you really communicate to your ideal customer not only the fact that your product, your service, your brand, will help them solve that problem and get closer to those desires, but you can also craft and share stories and messaging that connects with what they ultimately want. 

This is the bare minimum process, and if you're not crystal clear on what those are for your ideal customer, you have to start there. This is where all amazing copy and content and messaging lives.

And if you find that you're struggling with those pieces, it's pretty obvious that you have an ideal client problem, meaning you don't actually understand who they are. So make sure you take the time to identify those pieces. I truly cannot stress that enough. 

After you've followed this first step of getting to know your ideal customer at the bare minimum, you'll have some ideas for stories to share. There might be stories that you have from your own life that you can connect with the pain or the pleasure. That happens for a lot of my customers. 

Maybe you can use something that I like to call future casting, where you can paint a picture of what is possible for your ideal customer when they invest in your product or your service. 

So this is already going to give you a lot of ideas for stories that you can share as well as ways to create emotionally charged copy that makes your audience feel something because that's the key.

STEP TWO: GO DEEPER

Remember, you need to understand who your ideal customer is at the bare minimum: struggle and desire. 

Then great storytelling, great marketing, and great messaging go deeper than that. 

This is really about understanding what is standing in their way. 
What are those obstacles? 
If your audience knows where they're at and what they're struggling with, and they also are pretty clear on what they ultimately want, then why haven't they gotten it yet? 
What is standing in their way?

Being able to address those obstacles in your content and specifically your storytelling is really, really important. Then it's also key to understand the objections that your audience is facing. What are their mindset beliefs? 
What are the things that are happening in their day to day that they might object to actually investing in solving that problem?

These are those next layer pieces of ideal client work that are going to help you actually sell your product or your service. Now, I'm not going to lie, this step gets easier as you grow your business because you have more data, more clients, more customers, a bigger audience. 

You can survey them and ask them these questions and sometimes they'll just tell you, which is really nice. 

So you'll have a little bit more of that. If you're just starting out, this is going to take a little bit of work. You're going to have to take some time to really think, what are the internal stressors? What are those internal problems that my audience is facing? And how can I highlight those?

What I want you to think about is that the external things that they would say to you, they would like maybe say to an acquaintance, "Oh yeah, this is something that I'm experiencing and I would really love to have this." 

The internal is what they're writing in their journal and the thoughts that are going through their head.

This is the stuff that we tend to Google because we think no one can see our Google history so we Google this stuff. That's why one of my favorite tools is actually called Answer The Public. 

It's a free tool with a limited amount of searches every day, but I promise you it's plenty. You can use that to find forums and questions people are really asking in your industry as it relates to what your ideal customer is struggling with or what they ultimately want. 

That can tell you those very, very specific things that we would consider more internal, that people are sharing in these forums and discussions and Googling, that you can then use in your marketing. 

So this is a really great tool to use. 

I actually love using it in the ideal client and market research process. But I also love to check in with Answer The Public and my growing audience, all of the time to say, "What's really going on here?"

This is where you can start to present stories around the mindset shifts that need to happen, or different beliefs that they need to take on, or things that they need to let go of. 

For instance, I know that my ideal customer really struggles with time, and that's an external problem that they have and they will tell me, "I don't have enough time in the day." 

But the internal is that they're not using their time efficiently. And one of the things that I love to talk about is setting boundaries and having clear schedules and understanding your priorities. 

I can create stories around that, that connect with my audience and move them along the buying process so that the time management thing isn't an objection when I then present my offer, because I've already addressed that in my content. 

This is something that I can openly talk about and share my story and share the stories of my ideal customers as well.

This is that next layer, if we're really thinking about market research, going a step deeper and really focusing on those internal problems, those internal stressors that we can then carry through into our content.

STEP THREE: THINK OF YOUR STORIES

So those are the two first steps of the process really focused on your ideal customer. Once you have that piece of the puzzle then you can move into step three, which is identifying your stories. 

You are the brand so you are the one telling the stories, but at the end of the day, they have to be valuable for your audience. So once you have the information in front of you for step one and step two, then you can look at your own story and say, "This happened in my journey," or, "This is something that I experienced at the grocery store the other day." 

I'm telling you, there are stories everywhere. "This is something that I experienced. This is something that I'm seeing online." And then you can clearly say, "And this is why it's valuable to my audience."

In the beginning, you really only have your story. Maybe even before you have client testimonials. But I promise you, I was there too. I didn't have a bunch of testimonials on all my pages. I hadn't worked with anyone before. 

But I had my story and I had my own experience and I could share that as a way to build that know, like, trust factor with my audience and highlight those internal stressors and highlight those struggles and those desires, those obstacles and those objections so that my audience really knew that I understood who they are. 

That's what it's about, really communicating with your audience that you understand who they are, where they are, and what they ultimately want, and then presenting your offer as a way to help them solve that problem. So using your own stories is a great place to start. I still do it in my business five years later. 

I share a lot of client testimonials, a lot of client stories. But I always share my story as well because there are always new people finding me who don't know me, don't know the fact that I started my business with a one-month-old baby, and that entire journey. 

It's important that I share those stories to keep connecting with my audience and the different stages that they are going through in their life and their journey. 

So this three-step process, repeating this process over and over and over again, will really contribute to helping you create what I call a story bank, which is just a list of stories that you can share, and then making sure that every single story connects to the value. 

So if I'm thinking about sharing a story about that first month in business, before I even write that story, I better say, "And this is why it's valuable to my audience." 

Again, you're able to do that when you've done the ideal client research, which is why it's so freaking important.

CONCLUSION

So there you have it, it's a simple three-step process for you to come up with stories that your audience needs to hear. But I promise you, when you really focus on these core pieces, the struggle, the desire, the obstacle, and the objection, as well as that connection piece with who you are and your story, then you are moving your clients so effortlessly through the buying process.

You will find that people are just messaging you and saying, "All right, I need to buy from you. I absolutely need to work with you," so on and so forth. 

So I hope this was super valuable for you in helping you to really understand how to come up with stories that are going to be beneficial for your audience. Remember, it really comes down to the takeaway of your audience. Every story that you share has to connect to your audience in some way, whether that's education, inspiration, a mindset shift, so on and so forth. 

That truly is the key to creating stories in business.

If you haven’t already, make sure that you sign up for the Tell Better Stories Workshop. It's happening on March 3rd.

Go to brandmerry.com/stories to get signed up.

Watch the full video below!

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Beautiful Climb podcast? I release new episodes every other Friday on topics around productivity, motherhood, habits, goals and going after the life of your dreams! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at thebeautifulclimb.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.

3 Must-Have Categories for Organizing Story Content in Business

When I founded my business way back in 2016, I struggled for a really long time to figure out who I was, the impact that I wanted to make, how I wanted to support my clients and ultimately created a brand that wasn't a true representation of me and my personality. 

After a lot of discovery work and a lot of ups and downs, having a website, scraping the website, trying to sign clients, not being able to sign clients, literally all the things, I got back to my story.

I started doing story work around who I was and the impact that I wanted to carry out into the world. And that is what has led to the brand that you see today. 

Almost instantly from doing that work and making some small changes with my messaging and my copy and incorporating more storytelling into my actual content, I started to sign clients and have sustainably grown my business consistently over the past four, almost five years.

If you were to say there was a secret weapon to being a business owner, I truly believe that it is storytelling. 

Especially if you have a personal brand because this is how we build connections. And we build trust, which as we all know is why people buy, invest and continue coming back time after time, year after year, investing over and over in courses and programs and referring their friends and family.

SHARING STORIES IN BUSINESS

Many people create their brand story and think they're done. They don't think about storytelling anymore in their content and their videos and their blogs and their marketing. 

And if you're paying attention, I already shared a story with you! 

Storytelling in marketing is really powerful. And today, I want to share with you three categories that you can group your stories into and then recycle through as you share your content and your marketing in your business. 

Each of these three categories, as you will notice, will help not only in the client attraction process but also in moving your potential clients through the buying process.

Now storytelling really is about the effect that it has on your ideal customers' brain. The neural coupling, the dopamine, the connection that it creates.

As we know, this connection and ultimately trust is why people choose to invest. 

One of my favorite quotes from Zig Ziglar says, "If they like you, they'll listen. If they trust you, they'll do business with you," they'll ultimately buy from you. That really is the key and storytelling is one of the fastest ways to build trust with your community.

However, people tend to think that storytelling has to be this long-drawn-out process and that if you're going to share a story, then the whole entire social media post or the whole entire email has to be one great story. 

But that's not the case. One of the things that I teach my clients is called micro-stories. And I gave you an example of a micro-story at the beginning of this blog where I shared how I started my business just five years ago. And for the first eight months, I struggled to figure out who I was and what I wanted to offer.

I painted that picture for you, ultimately sharing with you that once I sat down and got back in touch with my story, I scraped my entire website, redid it, changed my messaging, started showing up, incorporating more story and then signed my very first client and continued to sign clients to create a multiple six-figure a year business over the past five years. 

That was just a tiny bit of story woven into a larger piece of content. 

So when we're thinking about storytelling and when we're starting to dive into these three categories of storytelling, I want you to remember that storytelling doesn’t have to be this long-drawn-out process. It can be presented in very, very small micro pieces that move the relationship along and build that know, like, trust factor.

BRAND AWARENESS STORIES

The first category is really focused on the brand awareness stage, attracting new people to your brand, which is key when it comes to marketing. 

In order to create a sustainable and profitable business, you’ve got to make sure new people are finding you regularly. And these brand awareness stories are a great way to not only bring in your ideal customer but then start building that trust right away, almost right out of the gate. 

This type of story is really powerful and tends to gravitate a little bit more towards educational content.

But it doesn't mean that we can't work storytelling into it. As I mentioned before, a story can be a single sentence and this post is actually a great example of a brand awareness story. 

I'm teaching you something. You probably clicked on this blog because you wanted to read about storytelling and business, and specifically, the three must-have categories. 

But of course, through this process, I've shared a story, I've connected with you and hopefully, you'll stick around for more. 

Think of cold audiences, people who aren't already aware of your brand, that might be seeing you for the first time. They're most likely searching for tips and tricks and tools, and you can support them in creating content around that. And then of course incorporating your authentic story into the process.

One example could be you sharing your top five resources and why. A great way to incorporate storytelling here is to not only share those resources that are going to benefit them but also share how you came to find those resources. And a need that might've been happening in your life or your business. A great opportunity for storytelling, and then ultimately giving them those resources as a key takeaway.

Another one that you could share is three myths about something that happens in your industry. I love this one, it's one of my favorite categories to talk about. I like to talk about the three myths that happened in branding and marketing and repurposing and content creation. 

Those are categories that I specialize in and I like to share three things that I truly believe are misconceptions or myths or beliefs that people have that aren't in alignment with my brand and my values. 

So this is a great opportunity to not only educate your audience because everyone wants to know what myths or mistakes they might be making in their business or in their life. Then you can interweave a story into that as well. 

So as you're sharing these three mistakes or myths, you could share that you've made them maybe, or when you first heard them or how avoiding making this mistake ultimately helped you in your business. Again, another opportunity for storytelling.

Finally, in this category, you could also share three lessons from your experience. This one's pretty much a no brainer, right? If you have three lessons, it's a great opportunity to share the story aspect of that. 

What happened and how you learned those lessons. People are always looking for other people's experiences and lessons learned that help them either avoid mistakes or really accelerate their growth or their progress based on what other people have experienced. 

Those are three examples that take more of an educational approach, but again are perfect for sharing a story.

BRAND AUTHORITY STORIES

Brand authority is kind of the next phase in the process of client onboarding. You think about a new client coming in, not knowing you, that's the whole brand awareness stage.

Then we're really focused on positioning you as the expert so that they know that they should invest in whatever it is that you're selling or you're offering. This is where brand authority comes into play. 

One of the key pieces of storytelling is making sure that you are positioning yourself as the authority or as the expert. 

Otherwise, people won't see why they should invest in you or how you're ultimately going to help guide them to their desire, to their pleasure point, to the finish line, whatever that might be for your ideal customer. 

So these stories are really important and can focus more on solving a specific problem as well as what I like to call an industry disrupt. As we mentioned before about those myths in the brand awareness stage, this is another opportunity to go deeper and really share why you do what you do in your business. The framework that you follow, how you support your clients and why you're different from somebody else.

So I'll give you a couple of examples of these stories as well. 

Number one is to expose a lie or a truth about something in your industry. Maybe you're catching on here. I really like these stories because there are a lot of people talking about the same thing in every industry. It doesn't matter what you're focused on. 

So your consumer has a lot of choices but they're going to gravitate to the people that resonate most with them, share the same values as them, as we'll talk about in the next category. One of the ways to really kind of separate yourself from others is offering this industry disrupt. 

If there's something that's happening in your industry that you believe is misleading people, or isn't in alignment with your values or your core framework, you can share that. It’s also a great opportunity to share a story.

One of the things that I love to talk about is how content creation is actually a branding problem. If you struggle with content creation, the odds of you missing key pieces of your brand is incredibly high. Not knowing who you are, not knowing who you want to attract, not understanding your offer, not understanding the emotional connection. Those are all part of the branding process. 

So I love to share this industry disrupt because we often think that content creation is like a copywriting issue or an engagement issue when really it could be a branding issue. Again, it's an opportunity to share more about why I have that belief and why I believe that this is something that is misleading to my ideal customer, a great opportunity for story. 

Another opportunity here is to share your brand story and your founder’s story. Everybody writes their brand story and then puts it on their About Me page, and then they forget about it.

But this is an opportunity for you to work that into your content, to share little pieces of it, little phases of it, to highlight very specific parts of your brand story, to highlight your mission. 

As a way to again, share with your ideal customer that you know what you're talking about and you've created this business to help solve this problem that they are ultimately experiencing. That's a great way to position yourself as the guide and as the authority in their journey. 

Finally, another way to build that brand authority is by sharing client stories and testimonials. 

The stories that we share in business are not just our stories. They are also the stories of our clients and our community members. And by sharing these client stories, you clearly are showing your expertise and your authority and your knowledge on the area in which you are supporting your clients. 

So this is a great way to not only share that but also again, incorporate storytelling.

CREATE BRAND AFFINITY

Brand affinity is the shared values between a brand and a consumer. This is that deep, deep stuff. This is that deep trust connection that many brands miss out on because they aren't sharing these key stories. 

I don't want that to be the case for you. 

This is the area where client retention lives and radiates. Because when you have brand affinity, you keep coming back for more. You keep referring your friends and your family and the people who trust you. You buy courses and programs and move up to one on one coaching and so on and so on, even though the investments get higher, because of the strong brand affinity.

This is a beautiful opportunity for you to start building that deeper connection with your audience. So some of the things that I love to share in this category are your brand values. 

Brand values are so important and in 2021 they are going to be more important than ever. People have said that they will buy based on a brand's values and they will also boycott or not buy because of those same values if they aren't in alignment with theirs.

So one of the best things that you can do is openly share your brand values with your audience. 

Now, this doesn't mean I want you to just create a post and list all your brand values, that's incredibly boring.

You could share a story about each of those values. Why are those valuable to you? Why are they values for your brand? Is there something that happened in your life? Share those through the art of storytelling. 

Another thing that you can do is share your mission. We did already talk about this in the brand authority section, but this is also something that can live in this area as well. You can not only build brand authority but brand affinity with your brand mission. 

Sharing the real purpose behind why you started your business, how you want to make a difference in the world, the impact that you want to make, and who you want to serve. That is a great thing to communicate to your audience, get them on board with what is happening, and build that brand affinity. 

Finally, you can also share some life lessons. In the lesson section that I shared before, when we were talking more about brand awareness, those might be lessons within your industry. And those are absolutely amazing as you can guess, but they're more educational. 

What I'm talking about here are life lessons. This section of brand affinity is a great place to share those more personal stories and those mistakes that you've made just in your life and what that's taught you, how you've transformed or transitioned through your life. The focus here is transformation or inspiration. 

One of the things I love sharing are these life lessons, things that you've learned just in your everyday life. Maybe they're not directly connected to what you offer, but they are connected to your brand because they're connected to your mission, to your values and who you are as a person. 

And again, it's just another opportunity to form that deeper level of connection with your audience.

CONCLUSION

So there you have it, there are three categories that you can start to put your brand stories into. I love creating these categories with my clients so that they always can just go back and cycle through and say, "Hey, I haven't shared a story on brand affinity in a while, let me go grab something from that category."

One of the coolest places to organize all of this could be a spreadsheet, or if you're visual like me, you can use Trello to actually create these columns with brand affinity at the top, brand authority, brand awareness. And as you think of stories, you can add them in there and then schedule them in your content for the next 30, 60, or 90 days. 

Remember every story, even your own, needs to connect with your audience. So Ideal Customer work is so important and is one of the core pieces taught in all of my programs.

It’s important to think outside of the box when it comes to storytelling in business. If you’re a business owner, don't forget to get signed up for the Tell Better Stories Workshop that's happening on March 3rd.

Tickets are now on sale and you can go to brandmerry.com/stories to grab yours.

This class only happens once, maybe twice a year. So don't miss it. 

You definitely want to jump into this class if you want to learn more about how to craft a better brand story, how to tell stories on social media, how to actually use storytelling to sell. And I'm going to be sharing more of these categories with you to make your content creation that much easier.

Get your ticket at brandmerry.com/stories.

Watch the full video below!

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Beautiful Climb podcast? I release new episodes every other Friday on topics around productivity, motherhood, habits, goals and going after the life of your dreams! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at thebeautifulclimb.com

---

- 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 Tell Your Brand Story Through Your Brand Identity

*This post was updated in 2022

Storytelling is my superpower. 

It is my specialty and I put the concept of storytelling into everything that I reach. 

And while I’ve shared so many blogs and videos on brand storytelling, today we’re going to dive into the concept of Brand Identity.

One of the reasons that I truly love storytelling and the role that it plays in building a successful business is that so much of making the impact you desire to make, comes down to understanding who you are, your mission, and the purpose that you have behind your business. 

And then sharing that in a way that deeply resonates with your audience and builds that trust. Storytelling does that, which is truly amazing.

Today, we’ll dive into the importance of storytelling, as it related to brand identity, and three action steps to help you in taking action on this process to share more of your brand story through your brand identity.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BRAND STORYTELLING

Before I get into this we need to talk about the power of storytelling. 

Storytelling is truly one of the most powerful things that you can use in your business because of how it allows you to connect with your audience. And there's a lot of cool stuff that happens when we share story through our content.

As a content creator myself, who spends time making that high-value content, I want to make sure that my audience actually remembers that content. So when you incorporate story into your content you are actually increasing the likelihood that your audience will remember it. 

In fact, you're increasing it by 22 times.

If you're going to take that time to create those posts don't you want people to actually remember them? Of course, you do. 

So incorporating storytelling into your content, even if it's just a single sentence, allows you to do that. It makes your content more memorable which is very, very important when you're building that know, like, and trust factor with your audience.

I hear people say a lot, "Well, my story doesn't connect with my audience or I don't have a shared experience." Here's the thing, it's not really about that.

It's not 100% about you and your audience having the same story or the same journey. It's just about the art of telling the story. 

By telling stories and by your audience reading and listening and ultimately receiving those stories, there's a lot going on inside of their brains and inside of their hearts, that is building that connection with you and with your brand.

Neural coupling is one of the things that's happening where the story is ultimately triggering, firing their brain, and connecting through the piece of content. Just because you're sharing a story. 

It's activating the brain and keeping them engaged which leads to them actually remembering your content. In addition to that, dopamine is released, which makes them feel good. 

So they're feeling good when they're reading your content, seeing your stories, hearing your stories on a podcast, or however you're sharing your content. And that is powerful. 

Those are just two examples of what's happening in your audience's brain that is really contributing to the growth of your business. Because this is how they become fans. 

Storytelling is very, very important. It can be incorporated into every single level of your business and you’ve just got to do it. The science is there, we just need to learn the strategies to actually do it.

What is THE Brand Identity?

When you think of your brand identity, I want you to think of the collective elements of your brand that make up its personality.

Much like your personal identity, it's who you are. So, when you're creating a personal brand it can and should have parts of your personal identity represented throughout. Now it's not a carbon copy, but the pieces you determine to integrate into your brand are what give it its personality.

This looks like:
+ Your story
+ Your mission
+ Your values
+ Your voice 
+ Your emotional connectors 
+ Your "superpower" (or as the industry likes to call it, your positioning)

It is the combination of these things that build your brand identity.

And much like your personal identity, when you've clearly stated these elements, it makes it a lot easier to show up in the world.

You're more confident in how you'll dress, how you'll speak, what you'll surround yourself with, etc...

And, the same goes for your brand: your colors, fonts, brand photos, etc... all stem from your brand identity.

When you're creating a personal brand it makes it a lot easier because you're front and center, you're sharing yourself, you're sharing your stories. So, that personality just naturally happens which is why personal branding is so powerful.

If you want to learn a little bit more about emotional branding and all these different elements make sure you check out my blog.

When you think of Brand Identity, I want you to think about the personality behind your brand and the overall experience you’re creating for your audience.

Effectively Write Your Brand Story

Now that we know what your brand identity is, let's talk about how we use our story to share that brand identity and ultimately experience with the world

The first thing that you've got to do is figure out what your brand story is. So this will look different for different types of businesses. There are different ways and structures to actually create your brand story based on your personal story and based on your individual business. 

But really what I want you to focus on now is stripping away the, "How do I write this on my about me page?" And, "What does this look like on my bio, on my homepage?" Strip all that away and just focus solely on the story.

In fact, when you're writing this out I want you to think about actually telling this story to someone. 
Some of you might want to even record it and transcribe it. It might feel a little bit more natural to you. 

Ultimately, what you want to do is highlight and share the journey that has happened that led you to the creation of your brand.

Your brand is not a product, your brand is not a service specifically, it's the whole thing. 

It's that umbrella, it's the work that you're putting out into the world, it's your mission, it's who you ultimately want to impact all rolled into one. And you want to share the evolution of how that came to be. 

So I want you to strip away, “How is this structured?” and “How does this flow?” and really just allow yourself to tell the story. That's where all the goodness gets to go in. And then when we format, we can pull out the unnecessary pieces and clean it up a bit. 

But I want you to just deeply understand what has led you to this moment and think of really telling that story to your audience.

For example, when I talk about my brand story, one piece of that is this underlying feeling of not living a life based on other people's expectations or going against the status quo. 

And I know that that's important to my audience, that's important to you, that's something that you also believe in. I share that through my storytelling and I share that through my brand story to get that message across. 

You're probably already picking up on it, but your brand story is where that connection can really start for many of you. Because once we get to formatting it for an about me page, or we get to put it out there on social media, it might be one of the first things that people see and you have an opportunity to build that connection with them right out of the gate. 

Focus on taking your audience on this journey, write out your brand story and become really clear on what you ultimately want to share about your journey and what has led you to the brand that you are creating today.

Identify The Brand Emotions

Step two is to elevate the experience by focusing on the emotional connection.

And this is where we really take your story and spin it around to pull in your audience and build that trust. 

I call these brand emotions and I encourage you to identify five brand emotions for your brand as a whole. 

Don't get too obsessed with the number. It could be three, it could be six, it could be seven. Don't do 25 or something like that. I find five is the sweet spot.

But you really want to ask yourself, "How do I want my audience to feel?"

I mean, the reality is you've got eight seconds to make an impression. 

That's not a lot of time to read an entire message on a piece of content. It's not a lot of time to read a bunch of stuff on your homepage. 

You've got to make that first initial impression a good one and powerful, and that really comes down to that emotional connection. How do people feel when they land on your website, when they see a piece of your content?

In order to exude that, in order to allow people to feel that, you need to know what you want people to feel. 

Take the time to identify those brand emotions. 

I want to give you two examples, because I know sometimes you might be thinking, "What do I want people to feel, Michelle?"

I have a client who is in the mindset space, the spiritual mindset space specifically, and she supports women in moving through a very difficult period of their life. She does a lot of shadow work. Her clients are currently in a difficult time but they are moving towards the light. They want to understand how to get there, they want to feel supported through that process, and they want to do it in a way that feels good and not forced.

We know this about her audience and we also know from her brand story she's really good at it. So when we were thinking of her brand emotions we wanted to show the light. We wanted to show what was possible, the desire, and what her audience was wanting to move towards. 

Because her audience didn't want to neglect where they were and that was really, really important to communicate, we played with sharing that through messaging, through story, through brand colors, showing both the dark and the light. 

That's just one example but again it comes back to how do I want people to feel and ultimately what are they looking for? What are they searching for?

With my brand, I decided very early on, well actually after eight months of having a brand that was not me at all, I redid the whole thing and now it's great. But when I redid it, I got back to this core piece of storytelling and brand emotions and I asked myself, "How do I want people to feel?" 

And it kept coming up for me that I wanted people to feel safe and comfortable and that they could be their authentic selves. That there was this connection between the two of us, between my brand and between them and their story. That it almost felt like we were sitting cozied up by a fire on a fall day just having a really deep conversation and chat. 

I used that to motivate all of these different pieces that we're going to talk about in just a second.

Again, take the time to understand who you are and the journey that you've gone on to get to where you are, to have the brand, the mission, the values, the core beliefs and the impact that you want to make in your ideal customer's life. As well as understand how you want them to feel from the moment they come in contact with your brand, through all of those different pieces.

Now that brings us to, "Now how do we actually use this Michelle? How do we use this? This all sounds great, I love it, but how do we use it?" 

Let's talk about how we use that brand story and those brand emotions to enhance and communicate and have this wonderful experience also known as brand identity.

NOW, HOW DO YOU TELL THAT THROUGH YOUR IDENTITY?

Brand Identity Design: Incorporate your Brand Story into your visuals

One of the things that capture people's attention right away and has an opportunity to build that connection are the visual aspects. That's why a big part of branding is the colors, the fonts, the elements, and the photos that you choose to tell that story. 

So many people choose those randomly or just choose things they like and they're not actually telling the story of their brand or making their audience feel anything.

So when you're thinking about colors, fonts, elements, and brand photos think about how you want your audience to feel. 

This is that initial ding that gets people to say, "Yeah, I'll keep going, I'll keep reading, I'll stick around," or exit out and close out the screen.

So it's very important. It's like the subject line of an email. You really want to use this to pull your audience in.

If you are like, "Okay, great, love this Michelle, but what am I ultimately wanting to make them feel?" 

Maybe there's a little uncertainty around that. Here's a great starting point. Think about your audience's desires, their aspirations, and how they want to feel when you support them in solving the problem. 

Everyone's got a problem, that's why they're seeking out your brand in the first place. When that problem is solved, or even when you start the process of solving that problem, what are they working towards? 

That's a really great place to start when you think about your brand emotions. Then carry those through all the visuals that you create. Take time to learn about color psychology and the different meaning behind fonts and elements and all of that juicy stuff as well.

Create a clear brand message

The second thing that you can do in order to carry your brand story into your brand identity is to create a clear message. We've got the visual component that captures their attention, now we've got to keep them engaged. That is where your copy and your messaging come into play. 

You can use your values, your mission, your brand story, and your journey to communicate to your audience the purpose behind your brand.  

This is very, very important. In fact, in my program Brandmerry Academy, I have all of my clients write out their mission statement because that is the guiding light. 

That is why we do everything that we do, why we show up, and why we're ultimately wanting to create a brand that is of service and of impact to our ideal customer.

One of the best things that you can do is share that with your audience and build that connection right out of the gate. This goes miles when you are building that experience, sharing that personality, and elevating that brand identity. 

Because consumers want to know the values and the mission behind a brand. We saw this really accelerate in 2020 and we are going to see it continue to play a vital role in branding, consumer interactions, why people buy, and ultimately the success of businesses as we continue.

In fact, 77% of consumers say that they buy from brands that share the same values as they do. And 64% said that they would actually boycott a brand because of their values on political and social issues. 

It is important and many brands actually neglect sharing their values or even posting their mission or sharing their mission with their audience, so they never know. 

But it's one of the best things that you can do. If you want to build a revenue-generating business, you need to know this stuff and you need to clearly communicate it with your audience, it matters.

One of the ways that I love to do this is through the art of storytelling. Create stories and social content, incorporate them in your blogs, all over the place that show your values.

You don't just have to have a place on your website that says our company values. You totally can, that is absolutely fine. But in addition to that, I want you to also share that through your content and your storytelling. 

So if you're like, “What kind of stories can I start sharing?" 

Write out your brand values and then think of why that is a value for you. Why have you decided to incorporate that into your company? And share that through your content as a way to really build deep brand affinity with your audience; which is that connection between shared values of the brand and the consumer.

Brand Identity: Consistently create value and branded content

Number three is consistency, which is one of my favorite words and I think something every single business needs to be putting a lot of emphasis on. 

We talk about content creation a lot. It is a core piece of building an online business, of making sure that you're attracting your audience and showing up for them, nurturing them, and leading them through the buying process and ultimately to the sale. 

We talk about consistent content all the time but what about consistent messaging? That is very important because you can create a bunch of different content but if your audience doesn't clearly understand what you offer them, how it's going to support them and those brand values, that mission, your story, and build that trust. 

You're going to feel all over the place to your audience. And therefore there's going to be that break in trust and that's going to affect sales.

So when you are thinking about sharing your brand story as a way to amplify your brand identity, what you really want to focus on are those consistent messages. It comes back to what we talked about in the very beginning. Understanding your story, your values, and your mission and then consistently sharing that with your audience as well as creating this linear path on how you want your audience to feel with every single thing that you create. 

If they land on your website, they read a social media post, they watch a live video, they see you at an event, it all feels the same. It all feels like you, it all feels like your brand identity, that's very, very important. 

This is where the magic happens and this is really where you get to share these stories on your values to improve and create that brand affinity with your audience.

CONCLUSION

Don’t forget how crucial brand storytelling is to the success of your brand and business. To dive deeper into this topic, and learn my signature brand framework you can sign up for my free class at brandmerry.com/class.

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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.

3 Daily Marketing Actions to Grow a Sustainable Business in 2021

3 Daily Marketing Actions to Grow a Sustainable Business in 2021

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

People always ask me, "What should I do every day, Michelle?" 

Being an entrepreneur is fun, because your days do change, but if you're anything like me, you love a routine, you love habits, and you kind of want that check mark to just go through every single day.

I've learned while building my multiple six-figure business over the past five years that there are actually three things that you can do every single day to make sure you're advancing your business. 

And I think that's the big piece of the puzzle.

We want to make sure that the actions that we're taking are moving our business forward.

If you're at the beginning stages of running your business, you probably have a lot going on: you're building out a website, you're worried about your brand foundations, the list goes on.

Then as you start to scale your business, you might be creating more courses and products and serving your clients. Sometimes you end your day and you're like, "What did I actually do today?"

So when we focus in on these three things, no matter what your availability looks like in a day, whether you've got an entire eight hours because you're working from home building your business, or you're actually fitting your business in while you work your nine-to-five, if you focus on these three things, you will be golden when it comes to marketing your brand and your business.

For each of these action steps, I'm going to share a little bit more about why they're important, and then I'm going to give you some tips on how you can actually implement those in your business.

Some of these, you will notice that you have to be actively doing those every single day. But for the majority of them, we get systems in place, and you actually don't need to be posting or creating content every single day.

But I won't get too far ahead of myself, let's get into the very first thing that you want to focus on.

MARKETING DAILY ACTION #1: Grow Your Audience

Every single day, you want to make it a priority to grow your audience/community, whatever you like to refer to them as. Essentially, a big part of being an entrepreneur and creating consistent sales comes back to creating consistent brand awareness. Getting people into the top of your funnel. 

If you think of an upside-down triangle, we have your cold audience at the top, that's the most broad, and as the triangle gets a little bit more narrow, we go through warming them up, and ultimately leading to the sale.

Well, not everyone who comes in the top leads to a sale, and that's why it's important to consistently have that traffic coming in the top through your lead magnet, but also through your content. Then focus on warming them up through your value, through your authority, building that know, like, and trust factor, ultimately leading them to the sale. 

Growing your audience is an essential part of running a sustainable business, but so many entrepreneurs don't make it a priority every single day, but I really hope that you are here to change that in 2021.

So, what does this look like? 

Well, to kick it off, you need to have a way to build your email list. Having an email list is very, very important. We don't own social media, and if you're relying on Instagram or Facebook or another platform to build your community, sell, and stay in contact with your audience, we're going to have a problem.

If something were to happen on one of those platforms, you have no way of getting in contact with all of those people that were big fans of your brand, and that's why no matter what you sell, it's important that you have an email list.

So, in order to build that email list you want to have some sort of lead magnet.

So essentially someone lands on your website or landing page, you say, "I've got a free gift for you.” Maybe it's a PDF, a video series, a webinar, a quiz that they can take, a discount code, all of those things count. In exchange for that free gift, they give you their name and email address, so it's a win-win for everyone involved, and you grow your community.

It's also a way to make sure that you're building a community of the right people, meaning the right people for your brand, your message, and the work that you're putting out into the world. 

Whereas if you aren't specific with a freebie and you're just saying, "Hey, sign up for updates," anyone could really be joining your list. There's no way to know if it's the right fit for them. So having that very specific gift or freebie or lead magnet is very important.

Then we focus on making sure that every single day, you are growing your email community, even if it's just by one subscriber. 

So how do we do that? 

Well, the old school way was to rely on Instagram and Facebook, which required you to post every single day. You don't want to post about your freebie every single day, so you were maybe talking about your freebie or your free gift every other day. 

And what’s worse, you would spend all this time to create this content and then it would disappear within five hours, so not everyone was seeing it anyways.

I know that sounds a little stressful, and some of you are still using those platforms, but the good news is, you don't have to do that. We really believe in simplified marketing over here at Brandmerry, and I have mastered some of these evergreen strategies, and I want to share those with you today.

The idea is that "Evergreen" content is content that someone can find at any time and is relevant, there's no specific deadline. And the platform that really works best for this, and truly is my favorite, is Pinterest.

Pinterest is a search engine, meaning people go there to search for very specific things, they come across your pin, they come across your graphic, which leads them to your website, which of course, then they can join your email list.

YouTube, another great one. YouTube is also a search engine platform, obviously focused more on video content, but again, people are going to YouTube searching for very specific things, finding your content, watching your video and clicking a link to grab your freebie right in the description. 

Then there's the option that kind of combines all of them, and ultimately helps you stand out on Google, and that's blogging. So I'm a big fan of blogging over here, I recommend all of my clients have a blog.

Don't worry, that doesn't mean that you have to write two blogs every single week, and it doesn't mean that you necessarily have to always be creating new content, you can repurpose your content as well.

With blogging, you are able to create high-value content, which is very, very important, and that ultimately can help you rank on Google using the power of SEO, search engine optimization.

So people are going to Google, searching for things, which we all do, and finding your content. 

You can also, then use that same blog to push it out on Pinterest, which was the platform I shared before, and heck, you want to take it a step further? Use that blog framework to record a video and put it on YouTube!

These platforms are really powerful because your content is living longer. Your content is not disappearing after five hours, it's lasting for years. We have blog posts that are still performing that I wrote back in 2017, and they're still getting leads into my business. 

So when you're thinking about growing your email list every single day, I know it can feel really stressful if you're currently relying on social media, but it doesn't have to be. Once you put these pieces in place, you're really consistent with them, you will see that consistent traffic coming to your website, coming to your lead magnet, and growing your community.

These organic methods are the way to do it, and what I teach inside of my program, Brandmerry Academy, but if you are in a place to invest in ads, those are also a great thing to do as well.

If you're a little further along in your business and you're wanting to grow your community, advertising is a great substitute because you can create these highly-optimized ads, run them, and then every single day, you're getting leads.

That's more of a hands-off approach, although I still want you creating high-value content, all right? Because that's going to lead us into the second thing, and the second one is nurturing your audience.

Read my blog about Pinterest ads here.

MARKETING DAILY ACTION #2: Nurture Your Audience

Every day, you're growing your audience, and every day, you're taking a single action to nurture your growing audience as well. 

Now, this is really, really important, because this is where the trust forms. 

This is where they get to know more about you, this is where they get to learn more about your brand and how it's going to help them solve their problem, and ultimately building that brand connection and that brand affinity with you that leads them to becoming a paying and recurring client.

Now, the good news here is that I'm not asking you to come up with fresh, new content every single day to show up for your community. This is why I really love the art of repurposing.

Repurposing will allow you to take a single piece of content, let's use the blog for example, and expand that over the course of, let's say, a week. 

So if you have that single blog post, you could then:

• share it on Instagram one day

• email it to your list one day

• go on Instagram Live and recap the blog one day

• create a YouTube video about it 

There are all of these different things that you can do centered around one core piece of content. Which really takes the pressure and the stress off of constantly thinking of new things to talk about, and allows you to really become an expert in one area. It allows you to create that high-value content rather than a bunch of mediocre content that doesn't actually help your business.

So when you're thinking of serving, nurturing your audience, it really is about building that trust, and providing value.

Again, I'm not opposed to using social media. What I am opposed to is relying on it to grow your business and neglecting your email list when it comes to your nurture content. Don’t forget to email them about your blogs, videos and stories as well.

When you're thinking of your content, really think big picture: "How can I extend the life of this piece of content that I'm spending all my precious time creating, and show up for my audience multiple times a week no matter where they are?" 

Repurposing allows you to show up on multiple platforms without feeling super stressed out in the process, and meeting your audience exactly where they are with the content that they love.

MARKETING DAILY ACTION #3: Make a Sale

What's really cool about this third part, which is making a sale, is that the actions that you've already started taking are leading to the sale. So much of the selling process actually happens at the marketing level, meaning that your daily actions for showing up and creating high-value content, serving your audience, is moving them along in the buying process if you're doing it effectively.  

So when it comes time to actually having a sales conversation, or putting the offer out there and having them click a button to buy on your checkout page, it's a lot easier because you've already built that trust. 

I actually love to make it a goal, and encourage you, especially if you're just starting your business, to try and make a sale every single day. 

Will you make a sale every single day? 
Probably not, but you are putting yourself out there and you're talking about your offer, which is half the battle. 

Too many entrepreneurs don't actually tell their audience about their offer, and then their audience doesn't know about their offer, and they wonder why they haven't made any money.

Every day if you make it a goal to make a sale, you will notice that over time and over consistently doing that, more and more people will be reaching out to you saying, "I'm ready to invest," or hitting that "Buy now" button on your course, or reaching out to you for coaching or services.

A lot of the work around selling has already been done, that's the good news. But when it comes to selling and actively selling, you want to make sure that you're doing that every single day. 

Don't take a passive approach to selling, "Oh, I hope they find my website and hope it works out." Actively put it out there. 

This can include incorporating your CTA for your offer into your existing marketing strategy.

When you're emailing your list about your blog, put it in the footer or the P.S. line that you have availability for discovery calls. 

If you are putting a post out on social media that you're putting out there for your audience, put a P.S. line about your offer. 

Create a video that's specific about your promotion. 

Send an email specific about your promotion. 

If you take these daily actions not only are you getting better at actively selling, but your audience is now familiar with your offers. Because I’ve got to tell you, if you surveyed your audience, most of them probably wouldn't even know that you have a paid service, or what it is, because we really just don't talk about our paid offers enough.

Conclusion

So, those are three things that you have to do every single day. 

These can fit into a 15-minute window every single day, or of course, you can expand on them depending on the season of business.

I'm telling you, if every single day you're focused on these three core actions, you will advance your business, and you will contribute to building a sustainable business, which is truly, truly important.

If you are ready to master your marketing, and more specifically, simplify the process, then I want to invite you to learn more about Brandmerry Academy. 

Brandmerry Academy is, it is my marketing membership, which gives you a monthly marketing mini-course on an advanced strategy.

Inside of the membership, we are focused on creating core content, understanding the tools to write better copy, to improve your messaging, to move a customer through the buying process with your content and your copy and your messaging, to understand how to come up with high-value content ideas that people are actually searching for. 

And then I also share with you how to then take that content and extend the life of it using SEO. We teach you how to use SEO on your website, blogging, video, advanced email marketing, Pinterest, podcasting, and so much more.

There's so many things inside of the Academy that just aren't taught to entrepreneurs when they need them most.

I don't want you just spending all of your time on social media and then feeling really down on yourself because it's not working. Those platforms are not designed to bring in new people to your brand, they are designed to show up for the people who already know you, and as we talked about today, one piece of the puzzle is consistently gaining those leads.

So if you are ready to master that process in 2021, to rank on page one of Google, to create high-value, consistent blog content, to actually get daily traffic to your website that's probably just sitting there right now, and so much more, I want to invite you to join us inside of Brandmerry Academy.

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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 ↠

---

- 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 Run Pinterest Lead Ads for Just $2 a Day

I know spending money on advertising can be scary as a business owner, especially when you’re first starting out.

I remember sitting down with my first coach, who was a big fan of Facebook advertising and had used it to grow her million-dollar business, and her telling me it was time to invest in ads.

I understood the concept. Spend money on ads, send new people to a landing page, offer them a freebie, get their email address and build a relationship.

And it made sense.

But, forking out money that wasn’t yet consistent in my business at a minimum of $10 a day was so scary.

Hard to believe that today I spend close to a thousand a week, but that’s growth for you.

Throughout my journey with advertising in business, I’ve explored many options and by far my favorite and most profitable has been Pinterest.

I hope this post serves as a quick overview of Pinterest Advertising and gives you the confidence to get started today.

Because, having this consistent stream of traffic to your website, email list and offers is amazing when you’re looking to streamline your marketing and build a sustainable business.

THE TRUTH ABOUT AD SPEND

As I mentioned before I understand how it can feel to blindly invest in advertising, so I want you to look at it two different ways.

At the very minimum, you need a lead magnet, landing page and welcome sequence you’ll send new subscribers through.

This is where many entrepreneurs start as a way to build an email list to later make their offer too. This method doesn’t require as much money up front, but your ROI isn’t instant.

The way I look at it is you can spend money to gain consistent traffic to your website (more on this later) and/or landing page for your free offer every single day with advertising. This ROI is more about time in the beginning, not having to create content or worry about “showing up” and the money ROI comes inside the welcome email sequence or later during a launch.

The second method is an evergreen approach, where you have a course or offer that someone can buy within minutes, hours or days of joining your email list. This is obviously going to give you the best ROI right out of the gate with ad spend.

Full transparency I started with option one in the beginning and once I had my course I adjusted my funnel to the new offer. I still use the first from time to time when gearing up for a launch, inviting new subscribers to a live challenge or class.

There is also retargeting, which I’ll touch on later, but not the focus of this post.

No matter what you choose, think of it as a machine. 

You put in $2 and you make $5. 
You put in $5 and make $10. 

When you find the right rhythm for advertising it’s just a smart business move for scaling your business. 

I’ll spend $5 to make $10 any day, especially when it gives me my precious time back.

WHY PINTEREST ADVERTISEMENT IS AN ENTREPRENEUR DREAM

As I've mentioned before I love experimenting with advertising in business, but Pinterest, I believe is an entrepreneur dream.

REASON #1: Pinterest is a search engine platform, meaning people go to the platform with specific goals in mind. They are searching for something specific and through keyword targeting you’re able to show up in their search. 

This is a far difference from Facebook where you’re just throwing stuff on someone’s feed and “hoping” they click!

REASON #2: Pinterest ads are much easier to set up. One of the hardest things, in my opinion is writing copy, headlines and making graphics for ads. There are so many options and testing takes a lot of trial and error. 

With Pinterest, it’s mostly visual (or course titles and descriptions help with SEO, but let’s be honest here). Your focus can be on creating graphics that catch the eye of your target audience.

**more on strategy and my top tips below**

REASON #3: Pinterest ads keep going. This might be one of my favorite benefits of Pinterest advertisement. Because of the nature of the platform, even after you turn your ad spend off your traffic keeps increasing. The reason for this is as you were promoting your pin, it was being shared and saved. On Facebook you turn your ad off and it’s done.

This longevity makes Pinterest one of the best tools for sustainability in business! One of the strategies we love to use is promoting a few pins every month to give them the boost they need and then switching them off.

PINTEREST ADVERTISING STRATEGY

Alright, let’s use the $2 a day strategy from the title and get you started!

Step #1: I recommend all my clients get started with organic Pinterest strategies first. 

Of course, you can jump in and start ads, but having a Pinterest presence and strategy is just good for business. I teach my clients inside of The Brandmerry Academy exactly how to do this effectively because a lot of people just do Pinterest wrong.

So, after you’ve started your organic strategy you can see what’s working and what’s not. This will give you great insight into what people are gravitating towards within your content.

For instance, I would have never guessed years ago that this pin would be my most popular, but it was and today has led to well over $40,000 in cash in my business and over 5,000 website visitors.

We’ve since updated the original graphic multiple times and continue to optimize this popular topic that’s very unique to my business.

Remember, marketing always works when you focus on the data!

Step #2: Decide where you’ll send your traffic

I recommend having a combination of sending pin traffic directly to your freebie optin landing page, as well as to your blog.

Pinterest is originally a platform for bloggers and information, so it’s more familiar with your audience to send them to a blog post and may, in the long run, increase sales in your business because your audience is warmer.

You’re providing value to your customers before asking them to provide their email address or make a purchase. For this reason, we love having a combination of pins to the landing page for my freebie and to my popular blog posts.

Again, this is where the data comes in handy because you’ll be able to see which blog topics and pins are the most popular. 

Step #3: Set up your specifics

Choose your graphic, more than one if you want to test and don’t have a lot of data, and set up your ads. Again, this isn’t going to give you the ins and outs of doing so, I teach that inside of The Academy. 

Conversion is an option on Pinterest and a way for you to track your leads (i.e. people who take the next step from your ad and opt-in to your email list). However, I always suggest running Traffic campaigns. My contact at Pinterest told me conversion ads are for a larger ad spend and more data, so Traffic campaigns allow you to get started without the hassle.

To track accurate conversions you can just set up a separate form with your email provider for Pinterest traffic.

The most important step here is choosing your keywords and target audience. This is why ideal customer work is so important in the marketing process and why I recommend doing your research. 

Take some time to research keywords on Pinterest by using the search bar. Then include those keywords in your targeting.

Step #4: Starting with just $2 a day can make a HUGE difference in your website traffic.

It’s very common to pay around .10 cents for a click to your website (referred to as outbound clicks on Pinterest). Imagine spending just $2 a day and getting 20 clicks to your website every day. This might not seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things, but in a month that could mean 600 website visitors!

If you’re getting like 10 a month that’s a big difference. Now imagine you spent $60 to get those 600 website visitors and one person buys an offer for $197 - that’s a $137 profit and my guess is you’ll make even more.

As you make more you can increase your spend, but even today most of my graphics are only spending $5 a day.

THE IMPORTANCE OF YOUR WEBSITE

I feel like it goes without saying that your website is SUPER important here.

If you’re sending traffic to your website, specifically your blog post which is recommended, then you want to make sure you're providing high-quality content and multiple ways for them to take the next step and join your email list.

You can also experiment with selling a low-priced offer as well. 

Needless to say, your website setup matters and one of the things we teach inside of The Academy is how to increase conversions on your website through design, strategy, and copy.

Use this blog post as an example and look at all the places I give my audience the opportunity to opt-in and join my email community!

BONUS: RETARGETING WITH FACEBOOK AND PINTEREST ADVERTISEMENT

Quick word on retargeting and combining Pinterest and Facebook for an enhanced advertising strategy. Now, at the time of writing this there are a lot of questions around the new retargeting practices and limitations as part of the new IOS 14 roll out. It’s too early to tell, and I don’t like to freak out over marketing strategies over here, but just keep in mind retargeting might shift as we go through 2021.

With that being said, retargeting your website traffic on Facebook shouldn’t change too much! When you’re ready to add on to your existing Pinterest strategy you can retarget your website traffic on Facebook with your freebie to make sure your audience gets on your email list.

Your audience has already been on your website, thanks to Pinterest, and knows what you’re about, so you’ll find your Facebook retargeting ads are less expensive and more effective.

It’s a win win!

CONCLUSION

Pinterest is not only great for organically marketing your business, but adding in Pinterest Advertising practices is a no brainer in my opinion.

No matter where you are in your business journey, I highly encourage you to explore this option in order to streamline and automate your marketing efforts.

If you’re ready to stop guessing and learn advanced marketing strategies to grow your business then it’s time to check out Brandmerry Academy. Doors only open a few times a year, so click here to learn more.

P.S. Ready to build a revenue-generating brand? One that not only stands out online but also makes it easier than ever to create high-value content? Tune in to my free brand class and learn my Build a Better Brand Method. Watch now at brandmerry.com/class.

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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.