So. I have some really exciting news for you business owners and brand managers.
It’s a workbook. Wait, wait… don’t leave…
It’s an interactive workbook that promises to transform your business into a brand. And once you’re done, you’ll have a industry-standard reference tool that will simplify, streamline, and fine-tune all of your branding efforts. Introducing Brand Essentials: Interactive Brand Guideline Workbook. If you are craving to create cohesive, consistent, and valued brand out of your business, Brand Essentials is your light out of the dark. Finally.
*cheers*
I knew you’d love it.
And well put-together brands are how you differentiate from your competitors and stand out to your audience base. Good brands look pretty. Better brands connect. This workbook helps you to both by building a serious brand guide you can follow and grow.
What is a brand guide?
A brand guide is a set of rules that show exactly how your brand should look, feel, and work. Following a brand book helps your content have a consistent feel. A consistent feel makes a brand stand-out and become recognizable with the audience base. A good brand guideline book should act as a reference point for your brand – you should be able to hand it off to new employees or designers or copywriters and they should easily be able to create content, collateral, and more that fits in with your brand.
If you have a brand, there is a good chance you worked on a simple brand board or brand style guide before. It’s probably just sitting in a folder in your computer looking pretty and being unused. It probably looks something like this:
These brand style boards are great for establishing a cohesive visual identity for a brand. If you use these brand boards properly, everything you produce will have a nice flow visually. A brand style board ensures your brand is pretty.
Pretty is superficial.
As I’ve said before, your brand is way more than just it’s visual representation. While these brand boards are nice to have, they completely neglect to show all of the essential elements of a cohesive brand.
If you want a brand guideline book that can actually be an accurate depiction of your brand and a reference point for anyone who is building content for your brand, here are some of the essentials that go beyond visual identity.
Elements of a Better Brand Guide:
Brand’s Unique Purpose:
A good brand book should always include why a brand exists and it’s unique value. How does your skin care line stand out beyond the others in the market? More importantly, how does your skin care line connect to your consumer? Which leads me to…
Consumer Overview:
While definitely not required, including basic information about your target consumer is a great addition to your brand book. It doesn’t need to be filled with consumer research, but it should outline the what they need and how your brand addresses that need. Because you ideally want a brand to resonate with your key market, this section is invaluable.
Brand Essentials: Interactive Brand Guide Workbook
Vibe & Feel:
You should be able to clarify your brand’s vibe without depending on color and imagery. Does your brand have a voice and a sound? Does your brand follow an archetypal Structure? What adjectives do your consumers use to describe your brand? Keep these close in your guidelines, and try to adhere to your vibe.
Usage:
Having basic rules on how to use the logo or the color palette appropriately is great practice if you work with different designers. Having rules on appropriate and inappropriate language is. This can include examples of what not to do and what to do to help give further clarity.
Living:
There are elements of your brand that may change with time. Your consumer may change; your logo may simplify; your values and goals may shift. It’s a good idea to have an editable document on hand that you own and can make changes to when the time is right.
Upgrade Your Brand with a Brand Guide
A good brand guide provides structure, meaning, and direction. It is a point of reference that maintains consistency of your brand and provides guidance during handoff.
We humans love patterns, so maintaining consistency will encourage brand familiarity that leads to brand adoption. If you hire a designer, copywriter, social media manager, agency, or staff member to help expand your business, this tool can be used to help them create content that is within the confines of your brand.
If you are struggling to find a consistent, moving brand story to stick to – I recommend checking out The Brand Essentials Interactive Workbook. It is designed to simplify the process of building a brand by laying out all of the steps for you, and organizing everything in a way you can actually use. It helps you not only help you plan your brand, but also be a central point for you to reference to keep your brand in check.
Learn more about this business to brand workbook here!
This will be the first of at least three workbooks. The next will go deeper into brand strategy and setting goals for your brand. The final one will be a content strategy workbook to help you plan content for social, email, web, and more. I am super excited to share more and more resources with you guys!
Oh, and if you need one-on-one help with your brand, feel free to contact me to set up a consultation meeting.
Brand Essentials: Interactive Brand Guide Workbook
Turn your business into a brand with this interactive branding workbook! If you struggle to find a consistent, moving brand story to stick to – Brand Essentials is designed to simplify the process of building a brand. Create a cohesive, consistent, and valued structure for your brand with the Brand Essentials!
