Did you brand your business, or did you just get a logo?

When most people think of a brand, they immediately think of a logo, colors, patterns, graphics, and all that pretty stuff. While the term branding has been used for centuries, what it’s most associated with is ranchers who branded their cattle with their specific ranch mark to identify who they belonged to. They burned a symbol into the hide of the cow to make it clear who owned that cow, right? The business world kind of took this term and while there’s a lot to it, most people still think of this single symbol sort of thing, or logo, as a brand.
But branding is so much more than that! Let’s dive in…

Let’s look at what a brand is and isn’t because there’s a lot of confusion and misrepresentation out there on this topic.

A brand is…
-the personality and theme of your business.
-It is what instills a certain feeling in your clients.
-It is the relationship between your business and your audience.
-It is how you speak to them and how you resonate with the perfect client for you throughout your marketing, your services, and the client experience.

-It is NOT a logo.
-It is NOT a tagline.
-It is NOT a color scheme.
-It is NOT a pattern.

Those are all components that can help support a business’ brand. They are visual and text representations of a piece of the brand, but they are not what MAKES a brand.

Think of it like a book. If you were writing a book, would you start with the illustrations or the story? You’d start with the story. The illustrations come once the story is there because their entire purpose is to give visual representation to the story.
Develop your brand before you ever develop the brand visuals.

So what exactly makes up a brand?

Step #1, identify your ideal client. Like, in great detail.
Then, you can develop your brand, which includes…
The central theme.
Your services.
Your client experience
Your business name along with a tagline or slogan.
And your copywriting.

Then you can develop the central concepts of your brand visuals.
Develop a full branding suite.
And finally design your printed and digital marketing materials.

If you’re wanting to dive deep to identify your ideal client and develop all of these components of a brand for your own massage business, check out our business classes!