When DIYing your branding, how do you know if you're "doing it right?"

When you are DIYing your brand, you’re bound to have a few questions about whether or not you’re nailing it or… dare I say, failing it.

You might be thinking “Am I doing this right? Is this going to work? What if it is not good enough?” 

So today, I want to give you some tools and tips that you can use for each step of the branding process to help reassure you that you are doing it right, that it is good enough, and that it is going to work.

We’re going to be breaking it down into three parts - The brand strategy process, the brand identity process, and the brand marketing process.

But before we dive right in, let’s start at the very beginning with…

Set your goals before you begin

By setting goals before you get started in this process, you’re setting yourself up for success because, throughout each stage of this process, you’ll have something to measure your success by. Meaning, that when questions come up about whether you’re doing it right or whether it’s going to work etc, you will be able to confidently answer those questions because you have goals to measure them by.

Say for example you want to increase your brand awareness. With solid goals in place, you can easily, say, three months down the line, “I achieved that. I achieved my goal.” 

Talk to your audience

To make the most out of this process, you’re going to need to know where your brand is at right now. The best way to do that? Talk to your audience.

Let’s say that your audience currently feels a certain type of way about your brand. Well, in three or six months down the line after you’ve done the work and made the changes you want to make, you can ask them that question again and see what kind of a difference it makes to their responses.

Find your community

It doesn't matter if it's one person, a few friends, or a whole group of peers; Having people to talk to throughout this process is invaluable. Whether it's for family, friends, etc you will find that having feedback, advice, accountability, shared experiences, or just a pep talk from others will be again, invaluable. 

If you can find people who have been through this process (or are currently going through it), even better! I recommend either gathering a bunch of people or joining an existing community of artists so that you can be alongside them and have people on your side who you can go to for feedback, advice, or help as you are going through this process.

And if you need that - quick plug - The Next Level Creative™ is the perfect place to do that and I encourage you to check that out!

The Next Level Creative™ is a branding lab for artists and creatives specifically designed for artists and creatives who want to work on their brand. So if you would like to check that out, you can click the image above to get all of the details and come join us!

Okay, so now that you are all set up and ready to get started, let’s dive into phase one of our 3-part process:

Phase One: Brand Strategy

Underneath the umbrella of your brand strategy are research, intuition, and feedback. Let’s look at research first…

1 - Research

You can do both qualitative and quantitative research that informs your strategy. Qualitative research relates to things like interviews, gathering stories, and talking to people. Quantitative research is getting data, statistics, information about your audience, and things like that.

So say as you're going through your brand strategy and you're figuring out what to do about your audience, instead of guessing that information, you can go to your analytics and find out more about your audience (age, gender makeup, where they’re from, etc). 

Even if you have a YouTube channel, it will tell you what other people they follow. That kind of stuff is really useful information that will give you guaranteed answers and informed answers, rather than just guessing. 

2 - Trust your intuition 

A very important part of this process is to listen to your gut and trust your intuition. The brand strategy process can feel quite personal and intimate because you are asking yourself a lot of deep questions. So naturally, you are going to feel a certain way when something resonates with you or lights you up. 

When I'm doing brand strategy with people, I can see it within them. I can see them perk up. Their voice lifts, gets higher and louder, and they’re more confident. They start smiling and you can feel it. 

You can see this in yourself. You will know when things feel right and when they don’t.

I describe brand strategy as the Marie Kondo process or the life-changing magic of the tidying-up process. The idea is that as you are going through the brand strategy process, pick up something you've just done, whether it's an idea you had or a thought you put down, or maybe you were writing your mission or something, pick it up (physically or mentally) think about it, look at it, and see if it sparks something in you. 

If it sparks something in you, it’s probably right. If it doesn’t, then maybe not. So listen to your gut within this process and trust your intuition, always. 

3 - Get feedback

Working in isolation during the brand strategy process is a surefire way to feel unsure.

Whether it is another creative that you trust, a coach, a customer or two, or your whole audience, share parts of your strategy with others and get feedback. 

For example, if you’ve just worked on the part about your audience, you could grab a dream client, show it to them, and say, “Hey, do you feel like this represents you? Does this feel like it’s talking about you or now?” Show them the things you've written about your personality and whether they resonate. Ask them, “Would this resonate with you?” 

Talk to people, talk to your audience, talk to a trusted friend, talk to a coach, talk to people who you trust, and see what they think. Getting feedback as you go through the process is extremely helpful.

And while we’re here, this is another great benefit of The Next Level Creative™. Not only is the community there to give you feedback, but your target audience might also actually be IN that community, which is awesome! But also, as a branding expert and brand coach, I’m also in there giving you feedback.

You’ll have my 1:1 feedback on everything you create during the branding process - whether that’s brand strategy, brand identity, or brand marketing, you can share it with me and I will look over it and give you my expert opinion on your brand.

So if you’re worried about whether you’re doing your branding right, and you want a branding expert in your back pocket (literally on your phone, at the touch of a button!) then check out The Next Level Creative™

Next up…

Phase Two: Brand Identity

Underneath the umbrella of brand identity are your design fundamentals, using your brand strategy to guide the entire design process, and involving your audience.

1 - Get familiar with design fundamentals

You and I both know that you are an amazing artist, however, there are some very specific design fundamentals you need to follow to help you make everything you create within your brand look more professional and help you feel more confident in everything you make.

I have a full article about these 8 design fundamentals, which you can find right here – Elements of Design | The Fundamental Principles Every Creative Needs to Know to Design Their Own Brand

This article will teach you about all eight of the design fundamentals that every designer uses. They are what’s behind every professional design, so you want to learn these eight things and start using them in your designs.

2 - Use your brand strategy

If you’re using your brand strategy throughout this identity process, you’re doing it right. If you are just designing, willy-nilly with no thought behind it, then you're not doing it right. But if you are using your brand strategy, then you are doing what professional brand designers do. You are doing it intentionally, strategically, and with your brand strategy in mind.

The first step is to take the keywords that you decided about what your brand's personality needs to be and what it needs to NOT be, and use those words to guide you at every step.

Say, for example, you decided in your brand strategy process that your brand needs to be bright, bold, and playful, not cold, corporate, or minimal. What you want to do is use those keywords to help you search for inspiration that you're going to put on your brand mood board.

You’ll also want to put those words alongside everything you are designing. This way, as you are designing, you are constantly checking if your designs meet your brand strategy and can ask yourself, “Does this feel bold, playful, and fun? Does it not feel cold, stark, and corporate?”

If it’s aligned with those, that’s great! However, if it's not aligned with those, then you need to change it and make sure that it’s working towards the personality and feeling that you decided on in your brand strategy. 

3 - Get your audience involved

Everybody loves a rebrand, so what better way to show yours off than by getting your audience involved in the process?! 

Your audience wants to get involved. Not only does it make it engaging and exciting for your audience, but you’re also going to be getting the help you need to attract the right audience and share it with those dream people because it’s coming from those people in the first place.

So find either one, or a group of, or your entire audience if you want to, and then share it with all of them. Involve your audience in the process.

Phase Three: Brand Marketing

Last but not least, let's talk about brand growth (aka marketing your business) and how to make sure that you’re doing this right!

1 - Choose strategies that feel good to you

If you ask me, the only “right” way to grow your brand is the way that is right for you which is why it’s so important to choose strategies that play to your strengths, your interests, and your passions. 

For example, if you’re a great speaker who loves to edit videos, maybe YouTube or TikTok or something is the way to go. On the other hand, if you’re a great writer and editing videos isn’t really your thing, then maybe a blog or email newsletter is the way to go.

The only way that you can know if something is going to be right for you when it comes to marketing your creative business is to do what feels right for you. 

2 - Know your audience, well

The more you know your audience, the better you can choose marketing strategies, platforms, content types, and topics that are going to reach and resonate with them.

The more informed you are, then the more confident you can be that you are doing the right things and that it's going to work.

For example, let’s say that your audience is creatives who love art and crafts and they're currently spending their time on Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok. By knowing this information, you now know that’s where your audience is going to be, and then those are the platforms that you need to be on.

By doing this, you're going to be way more confident because you know that information about your audience. Whereas if you had no idea about who they were, where they were hanging out, what they were doing, or what types of content they liked, it’d be a lot harder (and you’d be a lot less confident!) with your marketing.

So learn about your audience, learn what they like, learn where they're hanging out, learn what magazines they read, what blogs they read, what newsletters they subscribe to, what other people they’re watching, and learn everything about them.

3 - Have some fun with experimentation

As we know, marketing is all about experimenting and trying new things, seeing how it works, seeing how it performs, iterating on that, and then trying again. It's why on TikTok, you will see people try a bunch of things, hit on something that works, and then do that for ages until it dries up before they do something else and then repeat that same process.

Of course, we want to do things that will work, but not everything is going to work and not everything is going to work right away. You have to learn to be okay with that, and you have to be willing to try things and experiment until they do. 

Don't be disheartened if things don't work straight away, especially when it comes to marketing. Things are changing all the time. That's just how it rolls. You just have to try things, give it a go, and keep going. You're doing great. Don't stop. Don't give up. Just keep trying. Keep giving it a go. And you will see progress, I promise.

So that’s the process folks! I hope that you are now feeling more confident that you’re doing this whole DIY branding thing right (because you are!)

I hope that one or some (or ALL) of these tips were helpful for you and that as you are going through the branding process, whether you are just starting or about to start, that these are helpful for you throughout that entire process.

As I mentioned, if you are looking for more tips like this, feedback on your work, and support as you go through the brand process, that's exactly what my mastermind, The Next Level Creative™ is all about and I would love to have you in there!

So if you are interested or you wanna check it out, you can sign up and have a look at thenextlevelcreative.com or send me a message on Instagram @makerandmoxie to chat about whether it’s right for you!