As you work on developing your brand, one of the factors you need to figure out is what your core message or big idea is and how that relates to your business. Your core message is so important for your success because it will help differentiate your offers from the rest in a way that speaks directly to your ideal customer about your “why.” Getting to the reason or why of what you do requires a little digging and research.
Here at Taylor'd Consulting, we take our values and mission very seriously. We strive for every client to feel like the products and services we provide are custom to them, AKA Tailored to meet their needs!!! Check out our Unique Value Proposition HERE
This vision of how our team wants our brand to be and the great things it will accomplish for our clients has been the driving force in creating this business, all because our founder did not have these resources when she was beginning her entrepreneurial journey back in 1994. The mission of our company is a bit different, those clear actions we have on how to accomplish the vision of what we what to create! We know the WHY and the HOW! Because we believe that it is best to keep things simple, let's define VISION as your desired destination for your business, and MISSION as the big picture steps to reach that destination!
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To develop your core message, ask yourself the following questions:
1) Who is your ideal customer?
2) What is your ideal customers’ problem(s)?
3) What is your solution to the problem(s)?
4) What results have you produced?
5) What makes you different from the competition? Why you?
You must remember that everything you say impacts your brand. Because of this, it’s important to take the time to truly develop your brand so that you have an idea of how to answer certain questions that may come up in the future to best represent your core message and values. If you cannot easily explain what you do, why you do it, who you do it for, and what makes you unique, you have some work to do.
What do you want your customers to hear?
If you can step outside of yourself for a moment and focus on the message you want the customers to receive from you rather than what you want to say, it’s a lot easier to craft the message. Saying what your customers want to hear because you truly mean it is not compromising anything because your business is all about them, not you. If you remember that as you create any piece of content your customers will consume, you’ll be a lot more consistent with your messaging.
Write the Core Message in a Few Sentences
Once you get all this information together, you’ll find it a breeze to put together your basic core message in a few sentences that you want the world to hear about your business. It’ll explain who you help, what you help them with, and what makes you different or unique. Remember some basic storytelling fundamentals such as showing not telling, relate the story to your why, and leave people feeling something.
Remember, everything you ever say in public, online and offline, will be related to your business whether you like it or not. For this reason, taking the time to develop the core message you want people to know from day one about your business is going to help you keep it all much more consistent for your audience. You can use this information to inform and inspire product creation, content creation, and all the innovation, conception, and implementation that you want to do.
One of the reasons you should develop a brand is that it’s going to help you with every aspect of your business from A to Z. You’ll be able to come up with product ideas and solutions to your audience’s problems a lot easier when you know what you stand for. Branding helps you define what you stand for, and it all starts with a name.
· Create a Customer Avatar– The very first thing to think about when choosing names or creating products is your customer. Create an avatar of your ideal customer so that you can think directly of this person as you create your brand identity.
· Create a Brand Persona – Knowing your ideal customer and what they like, what type of personality would your brand have - if it was a person - to attract that ideal customer? Try assigning person-like characteristics to your brand. For example, “honest, forthright, transparent” or “irreverent, sassy, and unfettered by societal norms.” Who would your ideal customer want to engage with?
· Brainstorm Brand Name Ideas – Now that you have the customer in mind, and you know your brand’s personality, what are some names that you can come up with? It’s time to brainstorm. Just start writing down ideas. Remember to keep it simple, use word association, use your thesaurus, do a google search, and keep track in a spreadsheet.
· Consider Foreign Language Words Carefully – It can be fun to be clever. After all, some well-known businesses have done it and succeeded - like Nike, Amazon, and others. However, consider how big or small your business will be when it’s at its peak and then tone it down a bit. You don’t want to have to spend years explaining your business name to anyone.
· Consider Your Own Name – For some small business owners, they may want to use their own name in their branding because to them their entire business is them. They are the personification of what they do and who they do it for. That’s fine. If you want to be “Jane Doe – America’s Personal Trainer,” then you should brand yourself that way. Just keep in mind that this business is harder to exit than the one you name differently.
· Check for Availability – Once you have some ideas that resonate, check out their availability. You’ll want to check to see if the name is taken via trademark, copywrite, or otherwise. Then find out if you can buy the domain. One caution is that you may want to go ahead and buy any domain that is available for now. It’s just a few bucks, and you can always flip them later when you make your final choice.
· Test the Name Before Making a Final Decision – Now that you have three to five ideas, you’ll want to test out the names to find out which one most resonates with your audience. You can do this via social media ads and surveys. Set up a survey that will be marketed to your ideal audience via segmentation so that you can make an informed decision about the business name.
Your brand is much more than a logo or your name, it’s also the core values of your business and what it stands for. To learn more about what is a brand, read this recent post! Depending on your goals, the name might be something totally made up, or have seemingly no relation to the industry (like Apple, for example). But over time, when you put it all together - consistently minding your message - it will become what you and your business are known for.
Would you like an overhead view of your brand, online? offline? Do you want to scale your business and have more time for the things you love? Get started today!
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