3 simple ways to strengthen your brand
After wrapping up 2022 on a restful note, we’re getting back into the swing of things around here. But instead of hitting the ground running, we’ve been moving a little bit slower. These days, we’re surrounded by pressure to move fast, dream big, and go, go, go. We tend to set big goals for ourselves, and as soon as we reach them, we set bigger ones. There’s no pausing, no savoring, no taking a moment; it’s all about resetting and moving on to the next game-changing thing. This year at More Ours, we’re doing things a little differently. After an exciting year of big goals and big moves, we’re craving smaller steps toward business growth.
Don’t get us wrong, we still have lots of plans for the future. But hitting big goals starts with making small changes, so we’re making a conscious effort to focus more on the little things. These incremental steps might seem inconsequential, but they’ll have a long-term impact on your business.
If you’re also beginning this year a little bit tired, with the need to pull back and think smaller, you may want to start with your brand. After all, your brand experience affects your business at large, from attracting your target audience to building sustainable business infrastructure. By taking simple steps to make sure your brand is in tip-top shape, you’ll strengthen your business now and in the future.
Assess where your brand is right now
Before diving in, it’s important to take a step back and think about what’s working —and not working —with your brand right now. To begin, ask some basic questions to gauge the strength of your current brand, such as:
Are you connecting with your target audience?
Does your messaging feel relevant or is it getting stale?
Are you feeling burnt out from constantly creating content from scratch?
Do you feel confident about how you’ll reach your business goals?
If you’re struggling in areas like these, it might be an indication that something in your brand is no longer working.
Instead of jumping to conclusions and deciding that you need to rebrand immediately, take a pause and think smaller. First, identify your pain points. Then, consider what small steps you can take to solve them. What can you do right now that will help your brand succeed? Often, a quick site clean-up can make a huge difference; other times, you just need some new branded templates.
And if you need some help figuring all of this out, More Ours can conduct a full brand audit. We’ll discuss your business goals and examine your current brand. After this comprehensive assessment, we’ll identify small-scale opportunities you can prioritize right away as well as recommend larger improvements you can make in the future. And if a rebrand still feels like the most effective solution, we can help with that.
Use your brand toolkit to its fullest potential
If you want to improve your communication and presentation, your brand system is an easy place to start. Too often, we see businesses using different fonts, color palettes, and styles in their marketing materials. While we understand the desire for variety, brand consistency matters. Your visual identity has a defined set of fonts, colors, patterns, images, and graphic treatments for a reason, and it’s important to use these properly and consistently all the time. When you don’t stick with the visual language that was designed specifically for your brand, you’re diluting your message, creating confusion among your audience, and signaling a lack of professionalism.
Using your brand toolkit to its fullest potential is an easy and immediate step you can take to strengthen your brand and, as a result, your business. And if you don’t know where to start, let your brand guidelines be your literal guide. At More Ours, we build comprehensive brand toolkits that make using your visual system as clear and easy as possible. We provide instructions for how to use every element of your brand, from logo variations to color palettes to icons, so you don’t have to figure it out on your own. Brand guides are there to help you present your brand consistently and put your best foot forward.
Take advantage of branded templates
Creating your own brand and marketing materials takes a lot of time and effort, so it can leave you feeling overwhelmed and burnt out. If you’re DIYing it, even with the help of a brand guide, you may struggle with generating new designs over and over. Furthermore, expending too many resources on these tasks can distract you from the bigger picture of your business.
This is where branded templates come in. Social media templates that you can quickly edit each week or a slide deck template that will help you generate proposals in a flash have the potential to save you valuable time and energy. If you already have these templates but have fallen out of the habit of using them, take a minute to revisit them and consider how they can be improved or refreshed. And if you don’t have these templates, consider making it one of your small goals to hire a designer to build them for you. More Ours will always provide you with at least three of these templates as a part of your brand package so you’re set up for success.
Taking small, manageable steps now to strengthen your brand experience will help you make progress toward your long-term goals and growth. More Ours is here for your ongoing brand support needs, whether it’s website maintenance and updates, branded templates, or art direction for a smaller project. And if you’re ready to make bigger moves this year, we’re here for you, too. Whether you’re dreaming big or small, we’ll help you build a brand experience that’s as incomparable and impactful as you are.
If you’re ready to take that step, we’d love to talk.
