About this column
Source: makingmagique.com via Charlyne on Pinterest
Let’s face it:
Creating a brand identity, relaunching a brand, or keeping your brand looking, feeling, sounding, and behaving like its most excellent self is a worthy challenge for any business owner.
Especially for new-ish brand creators who haven’t had the benefit of market response, peer feedback, and industry push-and-pull.
Wouldn’t it be nice to pick a successful brand creator’s brain on a regular basis, and get some answers to the questions that nag you most about creating your brand?
That’s the purpose of The Voice Bureau Asks, our every-Wednesday blog feature.
Each week, right here, we ask 5 smart business owner/brand creators for their take on a provocative brand-related challenge.
We’ve already asked our contributors the best way to defuse a tense moment on social media.
We took the pulse on how to make sending a scary business email a little easier.
And last week we asked you, our readers, to tell us a bit about you and what you’re curious about this year as you grow your brand, your content strategy, and your marketing plan.
This week we’d like to turn The Voice Bureau Asks over to you.
In the comments, would you share with us:
What’s your big, bad branding question — the one that keeps you stirring your latte nervously? (You’re not supposed to stir lattes, are you?) It might be about creating your visual brand, using your own natural brand voice effectively, designing a content strategy, marketing with more empathy and acumen, writing your own copy, or working with a creative pro like a copywriter or a web designer. Lay it on us. We’re listening. And no question is off limits.
Hello, you.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Abby!
Timely topic for me as I am in the middle of relaunching my brand. So here’s my question for The Voice Bureau:
I’ve gone into a bit of hibernation as I relaunch my brand. And I’m planning for a soft relaunch of my website, services, and the subtle shifts in conversation. What recommendations do you have for bringing my current subscribers along with those changes so that they feel oriented and up-to-speed? What I know I’m *not* looking for: grandiose announcements, big declarations, or completely ignoring what’s different.
Many thanks! Love this series.
Laura
Hey, Laura —
This is a terrific question and one that I know is on many business owners’ minds as they make a shift or a pivot in what they offer, who they’re serving, or how they’re messaging.
This is worthy of a blog post (or a series) in and of itself, and it is a topic we’ll take on in The Voice Bureau Asks this year. For now, here are my thoughts, as succinctly as possible:
1. Brands iterate. All the time. Especially startups. So you will change course, and once it’s done, it’ll be done forever, and you won’t go back (at least not like you were before), so *there’s* your permission to step forward and embrace the new.
2. When we iterate, most likely the change feels bigger and more crucial to us than it will to our followers. In other words, the launch of a new visual brand, or a new suite of services, or even a different market segment we’re serving, won’t seem as earth-quaking to the people who are interested in our brand, as if, say, McDonald’s announced they were stripping out hamburgers and introducing an all vegetarian menu. :)
3. I think the best way to introduce a new focus in any element of your brand is to simply and unapologetically say, This is what I’m doing now. No swan song for the old business model or brand identity. Just a — here’s what my work has come to, this is why I’ve changed it, and here’s who it’s for. And then get on with it.
4. When we reiterate a brand, we WILL lose a share of our previous followers, and we’ll gain new ones. You’ll see some unsubscribes from people for whom your new focus isn’t quite as relevant. But you’ll see lots of new subscribers, too.
So in short — point out the new, but don’t devote three emails’ worth of explanation as to why. Just get on with business. Short online attention spans work in our favor for these kinds of changes! ;)
For those of us who are a one-woman show, and whose work is effectively an extension of who we are as people and the other things that we do with our time… Where do you draw the line between how you communicate personally and how you communicate your brand? How do you effectively create your brand to be an “authentic” extension of you, while also enabling the brand to stand on its own?
Thanks!
Hi, Laura —
This is a terrific question — and one I hear a lot in my work with clients. We’ll definitely be exploring this matter heavily through The Voice Bureau Asks over the next year!
For now, though, here are some thoughts:
No one gets to decide where the line between the personal and the professional is in your brand but you. You can look at 20 different online presences of creative service professionals or makers or designers who feel deeply connected to the work they create in and for the world, and all 20 of them will draw the line differently as to how they integrate their personal life and personality into their brand presence. Some of them will talk a lot about their partners and their kids and their past professional and personal heartbreaks. Some will take a more intellectual and removed tone when sharing their work. And there’s a huge range of possibility for what can happen in between the two poles.
What I’m invested in as a brand voice development specialist is helping my clients and readers land in the place where they feel completely comfortable and artfully, intentionally FREE in how they share their life and their professional expertise through their brands. It really does look different for each of us.
HINT: If you’ve taken the free Discover Your Voice Values assessment offered here (subscribe in top righthand corner of site to get access to it), you’ll identify how *you* naturally use your voice in a powerful way, and you’ll learn how your Voice Values guides you toward how much to share, and what types of things to share, with your audience.
So glad you asked this question!
Hi Abby,
What are the branding pros and cons to using one’s name as a URL vs a business name – especially when you’re switching from one to the other? (i.e. Gina Bell Inc to Dare Change Network pending)
Was your decision to forward TheVoiceBureau.com url to AbbyKerr.com (rather than the other way around) a purposeful decision or am I over thinking this?
~ Gina xo
P.S. “Abby Kerr and The Voice Bureau” in your header image builds a nice bridge. That opens up some new ideas for me with my own transition. Thanks!
Hi, Gina —
Great question! And nope, I don’t think you’re overthinking it at all. This is about SEO assets as much as it’s about brand identity.
For me, I wanted to use BOTH my name and a ‘business’ name in my new brand name. I was previously Abby Kerr Ink, so my audience thought of me as Abby Kerr already, and I had lots of SEO assets built up around my name. It was an easy decision for me to host the site at AbbyKerr.com and use TheVoiceBureau.com as an alias. Why AbbyKerr.com over TheVoiceBureau.com as the primary domain? Because people already knew me as Abby Kerr, not as The Voice Bureau. *And* while The Voice Bureau is very much my sole focus right now, it’s possible that in a number of years I may focus elsewhere, and I’ll still want to retain the SEO assets attached to my name. Hope that helps!
(And thanks for your email. Replying soon!)
Hi Abby,
This is timely for me as well as I just completed a brand shift. What I’m wondering about is how to create content that helps people get to know, like and trust me. The service I provide is based on a long term relationship, it’s not a impulse buy by any means and it’s very personal. I’d like a way to be able to establish an emotional relationship. Also, since what I provide is local, I’m wondering about the best way to use the web to reach a local market.
Thanks!
M
Hey, dear Miki —
So glad you asked this! What you’re ready for now is a content strategy — a plan for what types of information and insights to share, consistently over time, across different platforms where your Right People would love to find you. You are so good at being YOU and I think your immediate challenge is going to be finding the balance between speaking to your Right Person’s needs and interests and core desires, and using your own experiences as the anecdotal material (like a jumping-off point). I *know* you can do this.
And if you’re wanting to reach a local market, I strongly suggest you create a Google Places page for your business/brand. http://www.google.com/places/ This will help Google to link you to local search results for your area. And you’ll want to use semantically relevant keywords in your meta tags for your main pages, listing the areas you want to found IN (i.e. city names, neighborhood names).
// my big bad branding question //
How important is it to stay tuned in to the brands of fellow sector sharers — especially with those that have approaches with which your own brand does not resonate or align?
Thank you, Abby!
B
Hello, Brit! —
Another great question. You guys are presenting me with some worthy challenges here.
“Sector sharers” — haven’t heard this term yet!
This is one of those questions whose answer, I think, depends on staying attuned to how much the result of your watching serves you. If staying attuned to the competitive and peer landscape gives you great ideas you can wildly adapt, helps you identify gaps in the market, connects you more confidently to your own gifts and abilities, and puts you more in touch with your own Right People’s needs — then I say, by all means, watch from a distance. Even engage with your sector sharers’ brands every now and then if a conversation arises that you can add value to in a way that’s not already being done.
But if watching the ‘shared sector’ makes you feel frustrated, small, irritated, angry, jealous, uninspired, or at risk of mimicry (and let’s be honest — it does for all of us from time to time), I say look away and get on with your own business. And keep in mind that your feelings about watching your sector sharers may change drastically from one season of your business to the next.