In this ultimate brand guide, we will cover brand marketing in three parts: 1) Brand Message, 2) Brand Visual Identity, and 3) Brand Promotion

Brand marketing is the art and science of creating and promoting a brand’s identity and message.

It’s about more than just selling products or services; it’s about building a connection with your target audience and fostering a lasting relationship.

A brand is simply a signal to aid choice. “I want this one, not that one, because XYZ.” 100% of purchasing decisions are made based on gut feelings, even by those who have convinced themselves that they have made choices based on logic.

Hence to build a successful brand, you need to start at the gut level.

Your brand needs to have a distinct identity, a unique voice, and a story that resonates with your audience so deeply that they will be the first in line to consume and promote your content, products, and services.

Your brand marketing strategy is composed of three core elements:

1. Developing a strong brand message (do people know what you stand for?)
2. Creating a unique brand identity (is it always recognizable, even without the logo?)
3. Implementing promotional marketing tactics to reach your target audience

In this guide we will dive deep into these core elements.
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A brand essence is the soul of a brand.

It’s the core identity, the fundamental truth about what a brand stands for, and the emotional connection it seeks to create with its audience. Think of it as the brand’s DNA, guiding every aspect of its existence.

The brand essence should be reflected in everything from your logo and color scheme to your tone of voice and customer service interactions.

Ask yourself:

• Why do you exist?
• What emotions do you want to evoke in your audience?
• How do you want your brand to be perceived?

Who Your Brand is For

An often-overlooked aspect of branding is doing the deep work of exploring who your brand is for before you start creating the visual identity and marketing.

Many people think of this as creating an avatar, or “ideal customer profile (ICP).”

I like to think of it as uncovering a specific social “type.”

This could be a currently-established grouping or one that you discover, such as “yuppies” (established) or “Disney fanatics” (discovered). These groups have characteristics above and beyond demographics that start to become clear the more you study them. For example, L.L. Bean has done a fantastic job of uncovering their social type, and even given them a name— “Outsiders.”

When I was getting my masters degree in Brand Development, I identified a social type I called “Foldeurs” which encompassed people who were passionate about folding bikes. I read articles and news stories about this subgroup and studied photographs of what they were wearing or what kinds of things they carried with them. I made best guesses on the types of brands that they already knew and loved and how those were reflections of how they viewed themselves.

Keep in mind that how people inwardly view themselves, the aspirational versions of themselves, doesn’t often match up with their daily lives. However, this aspirational version of themselves significantly influences their purchasing decisions.

I was able to deduce a set of characteristics about the folding bike social type. These included how they made a living, what they ate, where they vacationed and shopped, and what their passions were.

Upon presenting my findings to my class, my professor immediately thought of a friend who fit the bill “to a T.”
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This is not magic, it can be done with a bit of digging, and your findings can be pure gold!
Here is part of my presentation where I outlined this discovered social type:

Brand Message: Creating Your Brand Story

​Once you have a solid understanding of who your brand is for you can create your brand messaging.

This is best accomplished through the creation of your brand story.

Every great brand has a story. It is the narrative that explains why your brand exists, what it stands for, and why it matters.

It’s the emotional connection that you build with your audience.

You have spent time getting to know your ideal audience so you should know what they care about and the characteristics they look for in other brands, which is going to help you immensely.

A brand story:

1. Gives meaning to who you are and what you do
2. Is your connection to the customer
3. Help’s customer’s answer why they need YOU and not someone else

The story needs to be entertaining, instructive, engaging, informative, emotional, and absolutely human. It does NOT need to please everyone. You want to tailor it to your specific social type.

To craft a compelling and lasting brand story, be sure to include these four key components:

1. Origin Story: Brand History
   What is the problem that needs solving? What is your Founder’s brilliant idea and implementation strategy? What are some of the obstacles the Founder had to overcome?
2. Personality: Brand Voice
   If your brand were a human (a real human and not an AI version!) what kind of character or personality would they have.
3. Culture & Values
   What culture, if any, is your brand associated with? What positive associations do people have about this culture? Does this culture have specific values associated with it?
4. Typical Customer
   Describe your previously identified typical customer’s aspirational version of themselves and how your brand fulfills that vision. For example, are they a city-dweller office worker but imagine themselves as outdoorsy fly fisherman?

​Here is visual overview of crafting your brand story:

By crafting a compelling brand story, you can create that deep connection with your audience and build brand loyalty so when it comes time to make a buying decision, they will know they want your brand and no one else’s.

Excellent brand story examples --

Yeo Valley:

Johnnie Walker:
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Bonus: Differentiating Your Brand from the Competition: Brand Mapping

If you want to dive even deeper into brand messaging creation, you will want to do an exercise known as Brand Mapping. This is where you take the most significant and powerful attributes of a brand and map them with competitors.

For example, as a certified chocoholic, I chose to brand map chocolate bars. I explored categories such as price, masculinity, femininity, indulgence, giftability, convenience, earth friendliness, creaminess, and their image of friendliness.
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So many people immediately think “logo” when you mention a brand. A logo is the first thing we associate with brands visually as they are the visual “street address” or face of the company. However, a complete brand visual identity includes colors, shapes, patterns, tone of voice, even qualities of light.

I subscribe to color psychology theory which drastically simplifies visual brand creation. This powerful design structure is based on four distinct naturally occurring design groups as discovered by Angela Wright of Colour Affects in London.

Each of the four groups corresponds to four types of personalities and encompasses pre-defined visual groupings.

We instinctively associate the elements in each group with the corresponding personality traits. Here are the four groups:

Group 1:

Full of light, sparkling, bubbly, and outgoing, this group is all about youth and the promise of things to come. Group 1 personalities don’t get bogged down in the details. People are naturally attracted to them (babies are just so cute!!) as they are full of life and liveliness.

Personality Traits: Friendly, Warm, Outgoing, Cheerful, Bubbly, Effervescent, Youthful, Energetic, Quirky, Twinkling, Exuberant, Lively, Sparkling, Simple, Breezy, Charming

Colors: clear, delicate, and warm--contain white. Think coral, cream, cobalt, sunshine yellow, emerald, scarlet, violet, and camel brown.

Typography: use typefaces with clarity and rounded shapes such as Arial and Open Sans. Leave lots of white space between lines to allow for lightness.

Shapes and Patterns: Circles, polka dots, busy small repeating patterns with lots of movement, delicate lines.

Textures: Glass, sparkly, shiny, luminescent, gold leaf, brass, cut crystal.

Tone of Voice: Visionary, inspiring, articulate, daring, spunk, make clear, energy, purpose

Best for Businesses: that want to be seen as youthful or futuristic, creative, marketing, PR, communication, photography; ex: Lily Pulitzer

Group 2:

Elegant, graceful, and nurturing, with an eye for detail and love of organization, group 2 is more mature than starry-eyed group 1. Absolutely dependable with a classic, timeless appeal.

Personality Traits: Calming, Caring, Responsible, Graceful, Timeless, Nurturing, Ordered, Balanced, Perceptive, Intelligent, Compassionate, Elegant, Faithful, Gentle, Understated, Disciplined

Colors: cool, soft, and muted, and contain gray, think maroon, dusty rose, shell pink, grapefruit, and lavender

Typography: Use typefaces that are elegant, classic, have a timeless appeal, are flowing, with fine serifs, and have an aura of quality such as Book Antiqua. Text needs to look mature and elegant.

Shapes & Patterns: ovals, flowing, fluid, airy, soft, delicate, faded, elegant, or loose patterns.

Textures: those with a dreamlike quality, marble, natural wood (with a fine finish), linen, pewter, silver, satin, damask, lace, porcelain

Tone of Voice: reliable, secure, patient, just, fair, dependable, compassionate, sympathetic

Best for Businesses: that serve others vs. need to bring in a profit, such as health care, wellness, and social work, ex: National Association of Social Workers

Group 3:​

The group 3 personality is friendly, intelligent, and passionate. They have a love of history and research, and care deeply about people and the earth. The bulk of brands will want to use group 3 as these visuals naturally attract and pull people in.

Personality Traits: Historic, Healthy, Organic, Colorful, Conscientious, Earnest, Practical, Fiery, Intelligent, Passionate, Intense, Substantive, Earthy, Abundance, Richness, Natural

Colors: rich, fiery, and intense, and contain yellow, think butter, burnt orange, olive, eggplant, peacock blue, dark chocolate brown, and vermillion red

Typography: typefaces with substance or those with a texture or tactile quality or chunkiness such as Cooper Black.

Shapes & Patterns: squares with rounded corners, organic or earthy shapes, anything that feels like it is substantial

Textures: rustic wood, earth, anything cozy, antiqued, rope, velvet, grained, tweed, bronze, brick, stone, copper, terracotta.

Tone of Voice: Comfortable, Relaxed, Enduring, Lasting, Meaningful, Treasured, Cherished, Personalized, Unique, Celebratory, Quirky

Best for Businesses: Food-based, agricultural, rooted in heritage, historical, education, politics, non-profit; ex: Oakhurst

Group 4:​

High end or low cost, there is nothing in the gray area when it comes to group 4. This personality is all about extremes. Dramatic, discriminating, modern, forward-thinking and respected. This group promises not to bother you with fluff or frills.

Personality Traits: Dramatic, Extreme, High-end, Fashionable, Respected, Perfectionist, Efficient, Daring, Forward-Thinking, Discriminating, Innovative, Modern, Powerful, Grand, Logical, Objective

Colors: cold, and either very light, very dark, or very intense. Black and white fall into this category, as do crimson, shocking pink, jade, midnight, lemon yellow, and royal purple.

Typography: typefaces are stylish and minimalist such as Trajan Pro or Optima.

Shapes & Patterns: geometric, sharp angles, minimalist, clean lines, high contrast, crisp stripes

Textures: aluminum, silk, glitzy, marble, fine paper, stainless steel, chrome, leather, plate glass

Tone of Voice: Stunning, Attractive, To-the-Pont, No-Frills, Prominent, Elegant, Glamorous, Chic, Cold

Best for Businesses: high end fashion, jewelry, beauty/cosmetics, luxury cars, banks, appliances, high end or low cost; ex: DeBeers and Walmart

Here is a visual overview of the four design groups:
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Important Note on Styling a Brand Using the Four Color Psychology Groups

It is of dire importance that you choose all colors in your color palette from the group that most closely aligns to your brand personality. Colors in the same group harmonize and communicate their positive traits, while mixing colors from different groups causes disharmony and communicates the negative traits of the colors.

For example, blue communicates logic and the mind when used in harmony, but when inappropriately mixed, it communicates coldness and unfriendliness.
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Feel free to pull in design elements from a second group to support your brand message. I like to use the example of a high-end restaurant pulling colors from Group 3 to communicate food but using typefaces and design elements from Group 4 to communicate elegance.
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A strong brand presence can significantly impact your business’s success, driving customer loyalty, increasing sales, attracting top talent, and enhancing your overall reputation.

Getting buy-in and increasing your reach begins with internal communication.

Internal Brand Communication

Internally, ensure that anyone working for your brand understand, and preferably embody, the brand’s values, especially if they are customer-facing.

Communicating the brand can be done through training, brand guidelines and style guide documents, and company culture initiatives.

I like to put together a brand presentation that clearly outlines the brand guidelines, get everyone in the organization to attend the presentation, and then have a Brand folder on an internal server with easy-access brand assets.

This folder contains subfolders such as Documentation, Logos, Illustrations, Typefaces, Templates, etc. I even like to have a Zoom Backgrounds folder within the Brand folder where team members can access company-branded backgrounds.

External Brand Communication

Externally, you need to ensure that everything that is associated with your brand is on brand.

Every touchpoint should reinforce your brand’s personality and messaging. This includes your website, social media channels, marketing materials, and customer service interactions.

If you are the company’s brand steward, it is up to you to fine-tune all outward facing communications and promotions.

Promotional Channels

Today’s consumers need 28 moments during their customer journey before they will convert to buyers.

This requires a bit of creativity and a whole lot of planning, testing, and tracking.

This is also why it is so important to nurture the following promotional channels to expand your reach:

• Partnerships
  When your business forms a partnership with another business, you immediately have access to their audience. This is the quickest way to increase your reach. This can be in the form of long-term partnerships, or one-off events or promotions. For example, if there is a product or service that is aligned with what you offer, consider partnering with that company and co-promote. A partnership can also be as simple as being featured on a podcast that your ideal customer listens to or in a publication they read and offering the audience a valuable freebie that allows you to collect email addresses and start marketing to them.
• Brand Ambassadors/Raving Customers
  A brand ambassador is a type of solo brand partner who can be paid or unpaid. For example, my sister is a marathon runner. There is a local business in the town we grew up in that makes running spandex pants called Spandits. My sister is one of their brand ambassadors, posting photos of herself running in Spandits pants on social media and tagging the company. In return, she gets discounted merchandise. Ultimately, you also want to achieve customers posting similar promotional content out of the love they have for your brand.
• Affiliates
  Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing strategy where individuals or businesses promote other companies’ products or services. These promoters, known as affiliates, earn a commission for each sale or lead generated through their marketing efforts. It is a low up-front cost to the brand, and the affiliate is only paid when they make a sale. For example, digital course creator Amy Porterfield markets her good friend Marie Forleo’s B-School. She earns a percentage commission on everyone who signs up, and Marie increases the reach and sales of her product.
• Advertising
  Placing ads from out of home media like billboards and railway stations to digital advertising is a great way to quickly enter the marketplace. You can make as big or small a splash as your budget allows, and you are able to highly target your audience, or spread wider brand awareness with broad audiences. For example, if you are selling B2B, you can run ads on LinkedIn that specifically target people who work at companies you choose with job titles you choose. Your ads can begin with something as targeted as, “Calling all overworked CFOs in the foot apparel industry!” Especially when starting out, paying for ads is going to help you grow at a rate much more accelerated than non-paid.
• Social Media & Social Communities
  Apart from being active on social media channels such as Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and Tik Tok, many social media platforms allow you to create gated or open communities. Is there a cause or something that your ideal customer would want to be a part of? Curate a community of like-minded people and gain their trust through regular interaction and sharing of content.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Content Marketing
  Your website is one of the first places people will visit to discover who you are. And they don’t always come in the front door. Set up content “hub” pages that drill down specifically into your offerings or content aligned with your offerings that they might come across in searching. Do you sell homemade seltzer? Develop a section on entertaining through the seasons that prominently features your varied drinks. Here it’s important to spend time on keyword research to discover the words and phrases you should heavily feature in your website content.
• Email
  There are many articles that claim, “email is dead!”, but I am here to tell you it’s not. It is a foundational strategy for any brand marketer. Once you have someone’s email, you are able to reach out to them in a very personal, one-on-one way. Spend time crafting your emails to embody your brand voice and message and make that special connection with your audience.

The path that potential customers take to start learning about and interacting with your brand is called the customer journey. As a brand marketer, you can test and track your marketing efforts to see what is working and where you can cut the fat.

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Promotional Tracking

The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle, is a concept that suggests that roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. In other words, a small percentage of inputs or efforts yield a disproportionately large percentage of the results.
For example, 20% of your customers might account for 80% of your revenue and 20% of your tasks might contribute to 80% of your wins.

When you apply this principle to your promotional efforts, you can see how important it is to track everything you do. This allows you to eliminate low-value activities and streamline your workflow. By focusing on high-impact tasks, you can do more in less time, allowing you to accelerate the adoption and growth of your brand.

Promotional Tip: Stop what you’re doing right now.

What needs to happen in order for your business to grow? What can you measure? Start a Business Scorecard — I use Excel. Create a tab for this month and create headings for each piece that you want to grow. For example, I track incoming inquiries and their source. I track client meetings. I track personalized demos. I track webinar registrations and attendance. I track new, closed, and lost deals. I track activity — ad clicks, impressions, interactions, and engaged website visitors. At the end of the month I log the totals of each activity I am tracking and compare month-to-month. You want to beat your previous month’s numbers.

By focusing on what you need to grow, you have a higher chance of it happening!

Crafting and Marketing a Compelling Brand

You have crafted a brand with a message that resonates with a particular audience, giving them a compelling reason to choose you and not something else. You have styled your brand so that it is communicating on a psychological level and recognizable even without text or a logo. And finally, you are promoting it across multiple channels giving your prospective fan base multiple opportunities to interact with or experience your brand.
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By seamlessly integrating these three key elements — a compelling brand message, a distinctive visual identity, and strategic promotion — you’ve positioned your brand for success. This holistic approach will not only attract new customers but also foster loyalty among existing ones, solidifying your brand’s position in the market and driving long-term growth.

I heard this line in a book I’m reading, (or should I say listening to, as Audible currently has a premium on my book “reading” time).

“Edit the dialog for clarity.”

It jumped out at me and hung there in the air on the stage of my brain, inviting me in to explore deeper. Am I being clear enough internally with what I want and where I want to be in my life?

How we communicate internally matters. We have 12,000–60,000 thoughts a day, 80% of which are negative, and 95% are the same repetitive thoughts we had the day before according to the findings in a study published by National Science Foundation. Yikes!
Meaning we are all playing a broken record in our minds day in and day out.
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According to Lao Tzu,

If our thoughts lead directly to action, habits, our character, and ultimately, our destiny, how can we transform them from negative to positive?
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Obliterating Anxious or Negative Thoughts

Mindfullness is the first step. Acknowledgement.

If the thought is negative, and you continue having it over and over and over again, it is helpful to apply this three-part decision-making process to the thought. You create three columns:

1. Things that could go wrong
2. What you can do to minimize the likelihood of each of those happening
3. How you can get back to where you are now if those things happened

And then fill them out for each negative thought.

For example, say that you are worried about going live on social media for the first time to promote your business. What are some things that could go wrong?

The tech could fail. Maybe no one will show up to watch. You could have spinach in your teeth. You could completely blank out about what you are going to say.

How can you minimize the likelihood of these happening?

You could do a test run at a time you know most people are not online. I have done this before and just said “hey everyone, I’m doing a test run!”

You could email your supportive friends and family members and your email list to alert them to the time you are going live for a better chance of people showing up. And an email 5–10 minutes before works wonders.

Do a quick check in the mirror before going live to makes sure there is no greenery where you don’t want it.

And finally, write out a bulleted list to have in front of you off-camera so if you forget what you wanted to say you have a reminder. I also like to write out the full first sentence and memorize/practice it as a confidence booster. Hitting “Go Live” can be scary!

Now, say one of the above worries does materialize. You went live but were muted. Exactly zero people showed up. There was hidden mango in your teeth. Or halfway through you went silent for a full minute.

To get back to where you were before: if you were muted, just go live again. The second time might even go better because you got a dress rehearsal.

If no one showed up, promote the recording after the fact. And what a relief, maybe it was easier talking if no one was listening live!

If there was mango in your teeth, was it very noticeable? If so, feel free to delete the live and move on.

If you went silent, feel free to also delete the live. The important piece is that you did it, and the next time it will be easier.

Breathing TrickIf I am having thoughts that are particularly stressful in the moment, I also use what is called square breathing that a friend in college taught me. Here is how it works:
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1. Breath in to a count of 6–8.
2. Hold for the same amount of time.
3. Breath out for the same.
4. Hold again for the same.

As long as you need to. I have heard they teach this trick in the military, so I can fully say this is a tried and tested method.

​Finding Clarity to Fast-Track the Realization of Goals

When it comes to our BIG GOALS and dreams in life, which make our hearts sing and provide purpose, there is a way to fast-track making them come true.

And the first part of that is making sure that our inner dialog is in alignment. Instead of worrying about how hard it will be to get where you would like, instead create SMART goals.
I know, I’m groaning too. I learned about SMART goals a lifetime ago and they just seem like so much work!

For those new to SMART goals, they are simply goals that are

​This basically breaks down to Who | What | Why | Where | When | How, which is a bit easier to dissect.

For example, one of my goals is to be able to feed my family more nutritious food. It’s a great goal, but not very specific.

​Instead, I am going to focus on sending my kids to school each day with more nutritious snacks.

Broken down, I can make it more specific and clarify:

Who

My two children

What

Send them to school with more nutritious snacks such as dried apples, popcorn, grapes, home grown carrots and cherry tomatoes, and homemade granola bars

Why

It is one of the best ways to fight off disease and keep them healthy

Where

I will either purchase healthier items at the store or grow/ harvest/ process foods at home

When

I go grocery shopping on Thursdays and harvest/cook on nights and weekends

How

I will create a list on Sunday of the five snacks I would like to be available the next week and make sure I have them

By creating this very specific “map” of not only your end goal, but the “why” and “how” you’re going to get there, you have a much greater chance of meeting that goal.

I honestly still fall back some days on chips and cookies, but for the most part, my kids get healthier snacks in general than before I created the specifics around attaining this goal.

Applying this Concept to Your Business and Life GoalsNow when I think about having 12,000–60,000 thoughts a day, which is a lot of energy to be putting out into the universe, it is important to make sure that the thoughts regarding our futures and where we’re going are just as clear.

If we keep repeating the same thoughts over and over, and those thoughts ultimately become our destiny, I think it’s pretty important that we edit those thoughts for clarity!!

Instead of thinking something along the lines of, “I want to run my own business and have full freedom over my time and income,” try editing this dialog for clarity and making it much more specific.

What about, “I have noticed that people ask me for advice around xyz, and I could turn this subject into a business that could both solve their problems and scale via abc.”

This specificity should start the process of getting your mind going in a more focused direction that could actually lead to running your own business vs. just thinking about it.

Now, starting a business is a process, and is full of baby steps.

But once you start editing your internal dialog to be more clear, there is no holding your mind back from figuring out the next step and then the next.

The same works for your life goals. Maybe you have dreamt of swimming the English Channel or going on an African safari. Well, put together a Who/What/Why/Where/When/How analysis and give your brain some specifics. See how long it takes you to be able to check those off your list!

Achieving great things is not something you can do sitting in your cozy chair curled up watching Netflix. If it was, everyone would be achieving great things on a daily basis. It takes the combination of mental clarity and action.

If you can put those together, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish.

​I would love to know, what is something that you obsessively repeat in your mind every day that you will try to work through using the three-step process listed here? And what is one of your big goals that just needs some clarity to get started? Share a post on Collinson Creative on Facebook!

What do you do for work? Do you have a day job with an employer or do you work for yourself? Might you have a side hustle, which you are either content to keep it a side hustle or you hope to one day expand it into a full time gig?
According to a 2021 survey from Side Hustle Nation.com 45% of working Americans have a side hustle (about 70 million people!). 
In this week's Sisters Talk Shop podcast Lisa and I dive deep into side hustles.
What are the most popular side hustles of 2021?
Who is earning the most money from their side hustles?
How much time are people devoting to their side hustles, and what are some of their biggest struggles? 
We look at the survey data and offer insights into starting a side hustle with advice from both present-day thought leaders and our own experiences. 

This is a must-listen for any aspiring female who is ready to create a business from her passion!

​🎧  Listen Here

What I love about this site:
The PERSONALITY! It communicates the magic of youth through the color palette and creative visuals outlined below pulled from Group 1/Spring:
Illustration - The Alice in Wonderland ink drawings in the background continue the story of magic and curiosity. They playfully bring you down the page. 
Photography - What makes the photography stand out is the superimposing of magical elements to show not the way the world is, but how children see the world. Thank you Photoshop!
Fonts - The playful Cantoni heading typeface clearly expresses youth and fun. The paragraph typeface Belleza nicely continues that feeling bringing both easy readability along with some youthful character. 
Patterns - there are nice subtle watercolor paint strokes both in the background and used as highlights that lend to the lightness and playfullness of the site.
Navigation - I love how there is one central pale coral line that leads you down the entire homepage, ending on the map of where the school is located. Brilliant UI.
Nice work Interactive Schools!