Tip 2/3
My goal here is to give you insights about branding, resources, and other tips and tricks to help you on your way with your brand, business, and being an entrepreneur. As such, here are 3 basic tips to help you stay on track with your brand.
Use a cornerstone document for your entire brand.
Build an internal workflow that translates to a client journey.
Create your brand for your audience, not for yourself.
This article will be all about the second one (to keep them shorter) so make sure to stick around for the other tips!
Build an internal workflow that translates to a client journey.
Well, tip two is one that a lot of people get confused by at first when I mention it. After all, what do workflows and client journeys have to do with one another, let alone with your brand? If you want to know the exact details and get a more in-depth view of this one, take a look at my article on The power of detailed workflows and Workflows, client journeys, and your brand.
Otherwise, here is a very quick overview:
What do workflows and client journeys have to do with one another, let alone with your brand?
The quick answer… everything.
The long answer… everything your clients care about.
Okay, okay, let's break it down a bit more.
An internal workflow is how you create and use any function of your business. For example…
Look through social media at competitors' profiles.
Record their top content down in your notebook.
Put in a future date when you'd like to put up your version.
Write your own version and create the graphics for it.
Schedule it or put it down on your calendar when to post.
Go back to social media and respond to interactions about it.
Okay… maybe yours isn't exactly like that, but you get the idea.
A workflow can be for how you create new content for social media, how to create a new freebie or lead magnet for your clients, how you onboard your clients or maybe hires, how, how, how… Basically, anything that you do that is repeated has a workflow. And that repetition can be daily (write your to-do list), weekly (schedule your social media), monthly (onboard X amount of clients), quarterly (create a new freebie), or annual (file your taxes).
And these are only examples. But basically, if it repeats… having a workflow makes it much easier for you.
On the other hand, a client journey is very similar to a workflow except it's not on your end. In the example before with creating content for social media, here is an example of the equivalent client journey…
Go on social media and look at new posts.
Access your latest post and interact with it.
Scroll away or close the app.
Go on social media again.
Shorter and much easier, yes… but in order for your clients to find your content, it should be on there. In order for them to interact with it, it should be worthy of interaction. And in both the case of your workflows and your client journeys, they are dependent on your brand. I'm going to keep going with the same example of social media for multiple reasons, though the main one is to keep things consistent.
One of the parts of your brand strategy that you want to focus on is called your brand’s essence. This includes your brand’s personality, voice and tone, and language style. When you create content, you want to make sure that your personality shows through in how you write it, your voice and tone can related to what your audience is expecting, and your language is consistent with your previous posts.
And let's go back to the workflows for a moment, because having the right tools for your workflows, makes an impact on both your brand and your audience. Let's say you use a scheduling tool for social media. This allows you to batch your content creation, make sure everything goes live when you want it to, and gives you some free time. The opposite could be stopping mid-project to go on social media to post, being so absorbed in what you're doing that you forget to post, or grabbing your phone during vacation time to make sure you've posted when the algorithm says so.
Both of these translate to your audience…
◇ They will see that you're either posting regularly or not (and I am not saying one is better than the other!),
◇ they will see how fast you respond to their interactions,
◇ they will see the words you use on a regular basis…
◇ they will get to know you and your brand.
Stay tuned for the other tip!
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