3 Simple Steps to Choose Your Brand Colors

3 Simple Steps to Choose Your Brand Colors

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

Choosing your personal brand colors can be the biggest headache of your life, trust me I know! 

I spent months, and this is not an exaggeration, trying to decide on my brand colors. Turns out I was doing it wrong, by looking at others in my industry first and not following this simple 3-step process I quickly found myself with a brand that didn’t light me up.

Why Branding Colors Are Important

The power of the aesthetics of your brand are based on first impressions. As an online entrepreneur, you’re most likely using social media to build your community, spread brand awareness and make sales.

Well, in case you haven’t noticed, the social media space is crowded and first impressions matter. This is where the aesthetics of your brand come into play and color is front and center.

If you want to stand out on social media, rather than blend in, it’s important to understand how to choose your brand colors and the psychology behind color as it relates to your audience.

1. Brand Color Tip #1: Look at Your Daily Inspiration

The idea of personal branding is that you are the center of your brand and use your own personality traits, authentic voice and stories to create a brand that resonates with your ideal audience. If you don’t already know my stance on personal branding, be sure to check out this article here.

So with that in mind, why don’t we start with the things you already love?

When starting to create the aesthetics of your brand it can be really easy to get lost in what other people are doing, other professionals and other brands. The result is a loss of personal brand identity and blending in with others in your industry.

Rather than first looking outside yourself for inspiration, I recommend taking a look at two areas in your life: your closet and your home.

We buy things that inspire us and often that is associated with the psychology of color (more on that later), so why not use this personal color inspiration as a tool to choose your branding colors?

Start by looking at your closet and making a list of the top five colors you see most prominent.

Then repeat the process, by walking around your home.

Do you see an overlap in the specific colors, tone of color or color palette you tend to gravitate towards? This is where you should start when thinking of your branding colors.

2. Brand Color Tip #2: Identify Your Brand Emotions (Emotional Branding)

Just like with all things branding, after you’ve connected with the purpose and story behind your brand (aka you), it’s time to think of your audience.

We never want to create a brand that only takes our taste or style into consideration and we never want to create a brand solely for others that doesn’t connect deeply to ourselves.

So, after you’ve identified the colors you enjoy most, it’s important to think of how you want your audience to feel.

This is referred to as Emotional Branding and is something I teach my clients in my signature programs. You can learn more about Emotional Branding and the process here.

When thinking of your brand colors, you need to know your ideal client very well, the reason for this is if you don’t understand their pain and pleasure points you won’t be able to use the power of psychology to choose your colors.

For instance, if I know my ideal client is feeling overwhelmed, is highly-stressed and struggles with time management, I won’t choose a color that tends to elicit a feeling of anger.

On the flip side, if I know my client is driving to feel pleasure in her home and her health and loves the eco-lifestyle, then I would choose a color like green, which gives a feeling or serenity and organic.

In order to choose the right colors based on psychology, you need to know your audience and use that information to decide how you want your audience to feel when coming in contact with your brand.

So, before moving on to step three, it’s important to identify 5-7 brand emotions to relay to your audience.

If you need support with understanding market research and why it’s important, be sure to catch my Free masterclass on The Build a Better Brand Method. Sign up here.

3. Brand Color Tips #3: Choosing Your Brand Colors Based on Psychology

Ok, no the REALLY fun part and the part I seriously geek out on. This is why emotional branding is so important, because everything that relates to the aesthetics of your brand: colors, fonts, logo design, website layout, brand photos, etc… can be built on the fundamentals of psychology. 

To overview here are the basic emotions associated with each of the main colors:

RED: Dynamic, powerful, love, strength, passion, excitement, anger

ORANGE: Energy, vibrant, fun, playful, friendly, warm, inviting

YELLOW: Bright, happy, cheerful, positive, spontaneous, warm

PINK: Pretty, feminine, soft, playful, sweet, sincerity, gentle, romance

GREEN: Fresh, balance, earthy, calming, envy, organic, healing, wealth

BLUE: Masculine, dependable, corporate, tranquil, calming, peaceful

PURPLE: Creativity, authority, sophisticated, abundance, spiritual, vibrant

GRAY: Calming, sleek, natural, modern, conservative, neutral

BLACK: Power, elegance, formal, bold, classic, dramatic, expensive, fear, boldness

I’ve even created a fun image you can Pin or save for future reference (see below).

PIN THIS

I recommend choosing three brand colors as your main colors and explore complimentary colors to play around with on social media.

Conclusion

Choosing your brand colors can be simple when you follow this 3-step process. 

If you go into choosing your brand colors blindly you’ll feel overwhelmed and waste a lot of time trying to decide what “looks good” rather than choosing colors that will make a bigger impact.

It’s a very similar process to choosing your fonts for your brand.

At the core of branding, you must remember it’s really not about the aesthetics or look of your brand. 

Seth Godin defines branding as, “...the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.”

And of course choosing your brand colors plays a role in that, but it isn’t the only piece.

If you’re ready to create a strong foundation for your business and create a brand that truly stands out on social media and builds a community of true fans, then be sure to watch my free training on The Build a Better Brand Method. I’m sharing my 3-step method to create an authentic and revenue-generating brand. Sign up here.

Tell me in the comments, what is your favorite tip from above?

P.S. Are we connected on Instagram? No? Well lady what’s happening here we’ve got to fix that. Come hang out with me on my favorite social media platform. Follow for inspiration and send me a DM to know we’re connected.

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

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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 Choose the Right Social Media Channels

How to Choose the Right Social Media Channels

August 23, 2019

PREFER TO WATCH, INSTEAD OF READ? I’VE GOT YOU BOO.
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Choosing the right social media platforms for your business can be overwhelming.

Understanding where you should be dedicating your time and energy online to attract the RIGHT people is definitely something that so many entrepreneurs struggle with. 

Should you be on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Youtube…? 

There are so many possibilities. I’ve worked with my clients to find the right platforms for them so they love showing up on social media and today I’m sharing that process with you.

The reality is you can’t be everywhere, especially in the beginning and trying to post mediocre content, on a bunch of different platforms is not helping you build a following or community. In fact, I recommend 1-2 platforms in the beginning and the questions I’m sharing are going to help you decide just what those platforms are for you! 

1. WHAT DO YOU ENJOY?

You've got to like where you are showing up. If you don’t like social media, now is not the time to tell me you don't like social media (I see you), you've got to choose at least three to start so go for it. Where do you like to spend your time on social media that would feel like the next step?

While we are here on this question, start thinking of how you like to show up. Do you enjoy video, audio, posting, photos (editing and curated), photos more natural, writing, etc.

2. WHERE IS YOUR AUDIENCE HANGING OUT ONLINE?

Ok now we need to figure out where your audience is. If you're showing up somewhere and your audience isn't there then you aren't going to have a great conversion rate. So we have to make sure to put you where your audience is going to see your content.

 If you've done Market Research great you should know this, if you haven't then now is the time to find out. Simply asking your community, ideal clients, existing clients or paying attention can all point you in the right direction.

3.  HOW WILL YOU SHOW UP?

How do you like to deliver content? Is it video, writing posts, blogging, live/ pre recorded, photos? This matters when choosing your platform. 

Let’s talk about what this means. Say you realize you like live video then Facebook and Instagram could be your jam. If you like writing long form content, then focusing on blogging and Pinterest would be a win. Prefer to pre-record video, then let’s think Youtube. Love the idea of recording audio, hello, let's start a podcast. You get it?!

4.  HOW OFTEN WILL YOU SHOW UP?

Listen we’ve all got different schedules and availability. 

Do I recommend you show up multiple times a week, absolutely. 

Is this realistic for everyone? No. 

Does it make you a bad business owner if you don’t? Absolutely not. 

What matters is consistency. 

So if you know you don’t want to show up more than once a week, then Instagram and Twitter probably aren’t the right move.. If you’re not a fan of picking photos as your main form, don’t choose Instagram. If you’re all about writing a post a week and optimizing the crap out of it, then let’s focus on blogging.

I want your content to do its job and consistency is part of that equation.

5. FOCUS ON SEARCH ENGINE TOOLS. 

I mentioned in the beginning to choose 1-2 platforms; one of those platforms should be focused on search engine. These are platforms like Google (Blog), Pinterest and Youtube. What happens with these platforms is that you’re attracting targeted leads, they are specifically searching for your specialty and you’ll set yourself up long term by choosing one of these platforms in the beginning and focusing on building it.

I recommend choosing one social media platform, like Facebook, and one search engine platform, like Google/Blog and using them multiple ways.

For instance, you could take a single piece of content written on your blog and send an email to your list, then post about the blog on Facebook. 

By focusing on two main platforms you’re going to see better results and not waste time. The reality is if you’re trying to be everywhere you’re going to feel stretched too thin - and that’s when we stop being consistent. 

Start with one to two and then add another one after you get a rhythm. The goal here is to snowball your platforms, until you’re on more than one and feeling dang good about it.

Want more insider tips on how to show up on social media and glimpse into repurposing? Watch the full video below.

Please share your biggest takeaways from this blog post and how you’re going to implement this information in your own business!

P.S. I’ve got a free masterclass where I’m sharing The Build a Better Brand Method. You’ll learn how to create a brand that stand out on social media, results in high-value content for your audience and builds a community that scales you to a revenue-generating brand. Sign up at brandmerry.com/brandmasterclass.

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5 Ways to Organically Grow Your Email List

5 Ways to Organically Grow Your Email List

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

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You absolutely need an email list if you are an online business owner, marketer and/or course creator. 

However, the question always comes up on HOW to actually grow your email list. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, be sure to check out this blog post where I talk more about the list building process.

Let’s break down our options for list building.

Option #1 - Paid traffic. This looks like paid Facebook, Pinterest, Youtube, LinkedIn and Instagram ads. You can also through in Google Advertising if you’re feeling ambitious.

Option #2 - Purely Organic. Relying on social media (primarily) to drive free traffic to your email list.

Option #3 - A combination of both!

Personally, I love using paid ads to grow my list, but not all the time. In fact, 6 months out of the year I turn off my ads and test organic (free) strategies. Organic list building STILL WORKS and if you’re just starting out it might be your only option.

I’m sharing 5 of my favorite ways to organically grow your list (+ 2 additional tips in the video below). Skip straight to the video to watch all seven right now!

1. USING INSTAGRAM STORIES TO GROW YOUR EMAIL LIST

500 million people a day are hanging out on IG Stories. I get it if you don’t love Instagram, I also have a love/hate relationship with the platform, but you can’t deny that it is an effective marketing tool for almost every single audience. The key is finding the right way to use Instagram and for me it’s all about Stories.

Make sure your consistently showing up for your community and work your freebie promotion into your content at least 2-3 times a week. I create specific images in Canva that I can post or sometimes I’ll make a video talking about the free give. To expand your reach outside of your existing community be sure to use hashtags and tagging specific locations. This allows your content to be seen by people not in your network.

P.S. Don’t allow the lack of the swipe up feature to keep you stuck. I don’t have the swipe up feature and my promotion still works like a charm. Just be super clear that you want them to grab their freebie with the link in your bio. 

2. USING YOUR WEBSITE TO GROW YOUR EMAIL LIST

Using your website and more specifically a pop up on your website is an amazing strategy. As your social media game expands and you harness resources like SEO and Pinterest you’re going to notice your traffic is increasing - the last thing you want to do is lose those possible leads. A pop is an immediate way to give a free gift to your community and in return get their name and email address to add to your list.

You can play with both a pop up that triggers when someone lands on your website (blog) or an exit-intent pop up which will trigger as they are about to leave. See which performs best for your audience and watch the subscribers come in.

3. CONTENT UPGRADES AND SEO TO GROW YOUR EMAIL LIST

Yes, I know we just chatted about websites, but we’re not done yet. I’m a big fan of using SEO, we started using it in the beginning of my business and as a result Google is our number one traffic provider to my website today. You’ll want to embrace blogging for this one and really focus on titles that are specific to your audience and what they are searching for. This will help drive more traffic to your website organically.

Then obviously, you followed step 2 above and have a pop up, but now we can increase your conversions with content upgrades. Content upgrades can be existing free offers or specific “next steps” you make for that blog post. I like to share my content upgrades as a banner, footer or even within the blog itself..

Example: If I’m writing a blog post on The Three Fundamentals of Creating a Strong Brand, within the blog I might have a call to action for them to watch my free masterclass where I’m sharing three must-know branding secrets.

4. USING GUEST FEATURES TO GROW YOUR EMAIL LIST

Getting featured on someone else’s platform is one of the coolest things you can do for your business because ultimately you’re increasing brand awareness. Let’s say I’m going on my friend Suzy’s podcast, well Suzy’s audience already trusts her and they will trust me by default. 

Now how do you use it to grow your email list? Always have a link to your freebie ready to rock and roll. Often times they will ask you what you want to promote and rather than promote a paid service, to people who kind of know you, I suggest offering your freebie. The goal is to build a relationship with them and your email list is a great place to do just that.

5. COLLABORATIONS TO GROW YOUR EMAIL LIST

In the beginning, I did this all the time and it worked like a charm. You can either choose to be part of someone else’s collaboration or get a group of friends together to start your own. These can look like Summits, Interview Series, Bundled Giveaways, etc…

What happens with collaborations is that everyone participating shares the opportunity with their community, so it expands your reach a lot quicker than just relying on social media. You can either share all email addresses as a group, or have each member give a freebie that requires an opt in and it works the same way!

Ready for 2 more tips? I’m sharing the bonus tips in the video below. Just skip to minute 8:10 in the video!

Don’t forget to sign up for my branding masterclass where I’m sharing The Build a Better Brand Method. Get signed up at brandmerry.com/brandmasterclass.

Please share your biggest takeaways from this blog post and how you’re going to implement this information in your own business!

P.S. Are we connected on Instagram? No? Well lady what’s happening here we’ve got to fix that. Come hang out with me on my favorite social media platform. Follow for inspiration and send me a DM to know we’re connected.

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

My Favorite Course Creation Platform

My Favorite Course Creation Platform

The online business model is growing every single day and more and more entrepreneurs are looking for ways to share their expertise with more individuals. Creating courses and membership sites are an excellent way to do just that, but where do you start. My favorite platform is Kajabi for its simplicity and ability to do so much more than just host a course.

Who kajabi is for

Kajabi is truly for everyone and it you’re just starting out I couldn’t recommend it more. I really wish I had known about Kajabi in the beginning of my business because of everything that is included. Not only are you able to host your courses directly on the platform, but it also includes email marketing, payment processing, sales pages, blogging, landing pages and more.

If you’re ready to get into course creation now, Kajabi is an excellent choice because of its ease of use. Within about an hour you can have the backend of your course set up and ready to go. If you’re not tech savvy it’s an amazing alternative to hiring help and if you love tech, like me, there are tons of features to customize as needed.

And for all my new business owners, I can’t recommend this platform enough. As I mentioned, if I knew of Kajabi in the beginning I would have created my website, email and everything else on the platform for simplicity purposes. While it might seem like an investment during the early stages it’s one of the best investments you’ll make.

My favorite ways to use kajabi as a course creator

Kajabi is the one stop shop to successfully launch and scale an online business. Here is just a small list of what features they offer for your online business:

• Website builder

• Online Course builder

• Membership site builder

• Landing page builder

• Funnel Builder

• Automations (when, then, if sequencing)

• CRM functionality

• Email Marketing

• Webinars

• Quizzes & Surveys

• Payment processing

• Affiliate management 

Personally, I love having everything I need to build, launch and scale a course in one spot. It allows me to better communicate with my clients and keep track of progress as well. 

With their added features around video watch time, we’re also able to keep track of when people are falling of videos so we can better structure our content.

How kajabi can save you money

When we start our businesses we’re trying our freaking best to bootstrap our businesses. Even three years in, I’m super conscious of how much of my profits are paying for tools to run my business. When starting you definitely need an email platform, landing pages, website and payment processor. This doesn’t even include running courses and housing your content. 

Overall I’ve found that Kajabi saves so many of my clients money because they can cancel all their individual subscriptions and just focus on one platform.

With all-in-one tools you can create a landing page to grow your email list, build an introduction email funnel to nurture your list, send weekly broadcasts before your and during your launch, create the sales page for your course, collect payment and house all materials (audio, video and workbooks) for your course. It makes it easier than ever to not just sell your course, but market it as well.

You can join Kajabi today and get a FREE 28-day trial only available through this link.

P.S. If you join during the Black Friday special I’m hosting, you’ll receive my Task Management Toolkit training completely free, just for testing it out.

If you continue with a Kajabi membership after the first 28-days, you’ll also get a bonus 1:1 Strategy Session with me to map out your course, funnel or website.

Join here.

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5 Tips to Improve Your Website Conversions

5 Tips to Improve Your Website Conversions

July 16, 2019

Want to watch the full video where I shared the 5 tips and so much more? Scroll down to watch instead of read.

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Your website can either work for you or against you.

And, I go against the grain a bit in the industry by saying you absolutely do need a website, I mean why wouldn’t you have one? It can work for you in your sleep!

We often talk about funnels working for us on automate, but what about your website.

Today, we are getting the majority of our website traffic from Google, which means free, and therefore are growing my list for free as well.

However, not everyone is focused on this, so today I want to share 5 quick fixes you can use to improve conversions on your website.

1. GRAB ATTENTION RIGHT AWAY

You have 15 seconds to keep someone’s attention on your website. The majority of the people who land on your website will be cold audiences, meaning they don’t know you, so why should they stick around? You’ve got to capture their attention with bold visuals and strong copy right away. Choose photos or videos that speak to how your audience wants to feel and showcases your service, lifestyle or product easily.

2. CLEAR BRAND STATEMENT

This needs to be the first thing people see on your homepage. I like to refer to this as finding your Superpower, and is something I teach in my course You! Branded. What do you want to be known for in your industry and what does it provide your ideal client? For instance, when you land on my home page you see a header that says, “Create a Profitable Brand Through the Power of Story.” My superpower is Story and the benefit is a Profitable Brand.

3. CRYSTAL CLEAR NEXT STEP (WHAT DO YOU WANT THEM TO DO?)

This one can evolve based on what you’re promoting or the action you want your audience to take, but you’ve got to give them a next step. Aside from grabbing attention, we also need to chat about keeping it. If you have a clear next step for your audience, they are more likely to take it. This could be a free offer, a link to your blog, a product or service. If people stay on your website longer, it tells Google people like it and increases your odds of converting them into a warm lead.

4. STORY, STORY, STORY

Since this is my Superpower, I couldn’t write a post without including it, could I? The trust is story makes your content 22x more memorable and builds trust quicker that if you don’t include it. Therefore, story elements need to be present in every part of your website. In addition, your ‘About Me’ Page is the second most viewed page on your website. And despite what many people teach I believe this is your opportunity to talk about you. I don’t go to someone’s ‘About Me’ Page to learn about me, I want to hear their story!

One of the most important pieces of writing a strong story is understanding your personal story and how it ties into your brand story. I teach this inside You! Branded. Click to learn more.

5. COHESIVE BRAND MESSAGING

When you start to create your website you’re probably listing out all the pages and then writing each one individually, but this can lead to a break in consistency and therefore a break in trust. We want to create clear brand messaging for your brand as a whole to make sure no matter where people land on your website it matches your brand. I call this Core Brand Messages and it’s one of the modules inside You! Branded.

When you create messaging for your brand as a whole, it allows you to string together your website pages, leading to higher percentage of people staying on your website longer. It’s almost like a journey you’re taking your ideal client on. Think homepage, to story, to blog, to work with me. Having consistent messaging is key.

If you’re ready to take your brand to the next level and create a bold, captivating and money-making brand, I’d love to support you inside You! Branded. When you join by midnight on Thursday, July 18, you’ll receive a fast-action bonus to help you carry your brand into your web design. 

You’ll get Websites Made Simple: 4-Page Website Cheatsheet completely free. This bonus includes a website checklist, what pages to include and what you need on each one to increase conversions, plus my Sales Page template.

Join You! Branded now to claim this special bonus.

Want more details about the information above? Watch the video below.

Don’t forget to join us in You! Branded to receive your special limited-time bonus! Learn more and get signed up at youbrandedcourse.com

Please share your biggest takeaways from this blog post and how you’re going to implement this information in your own business!

P.S. Are we connected on Instagram? No? Well lady what’s happening here we’ve got to fix that. Come hang out with me on my favorite social media platform. Follow for inspiration and send me a DM to know we’re connected.

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