As the new year has quickly snuck up on us, the pursuit for inspired new beginnings has begun. Right and left, we see the gyms filling up with people desperately fighting to shed the results from holiday comfort food, cars on the highways earlier in the morning for an earlier arrival to work, and the abolition of wallets being mindlessly whipped out at the first sight of a sale. As the founder of a branding agency that focuses on creating unforgettable human experiences, what I hear the most in the new year is brands looking to redefine their image, inspire their community, and grow their business.
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For those of you whose businesses are in the boat of reformation, I am going to uncover a branding experts guide to three key ideas every business owner must understand before going through a rebrand. Once grasped, every single tiny piece of your new brand will be inspiring, consistent, and rich in reward.
Mission
If you are hiring a branding expert to help guide you through a rebrand process, the first question they should ask is, "Why do you do what you do?" This is a weighty question that often gets overlooked or too quickly answered. There is only one answer to this question, and it's unique to every individual. It's much deeper and more sustainable than, "to make a profit" or "to appeal to a younger demographic." What this question really means is, "What is your purpose, your mission, your cause, your belief in doing what you're doing?" What are the roots behind starting this business and what is the reason you left a life of stability to pursue a life of unpredictable fulfillment?
This question helps both you and your branding expert to discover the purpose of your entire brand mission, ultimately defining the way every message you put out will ever be communicated, and how your community will be inspired by it.
Missionaries
The second, and traditionally, the most challenging question is, "Why should your user community care about you?" The reason this question tends to be so challenging is because most of us are results-oriented. We are in pursuit of more money, more users, shorter sales cycles, more recognition; all of which aren't inherently bad things. These are just the wrong things to pursue. Without being mission-minded, we aren't capturing the depth of why we do what we do, therefore, why should anyone care.
Once you discover what your purpose is, you can fully discover why your community should care. People are starved for something to believe in, and your products alone will never inspire their affinity. Your belief will. What's most amazing about this idea is that once your community can sense that you are on a mission much greater than the products or services you sell, they adopt your mission, make it their own, and become your missionaries. They fight for YOUR cause without you having to persuade them. They tell THEIR friends about YOUR cause because they believe in it and have made it their own.
This concept is what makes brands like Nike, TOMS, Livestrong, Apple, Starbucks, and Facebook so successful. The founders of these highly inspiring brands felt a problem with the way something had previously been done, started a movement to help solve that problem, and the products they made just so happened to be the best possible catalyst to help solve that problem. To this day, every decision made within these organizations is rooted in the mission behind what they are doing, giving their employees and customers a mission to fight for.
Vision
Once we've discovered what your mission is, and how to inspire your missionaries, this opens up the natural next step to identify your brand vision. Your brand vision is that overall approach to the types of experiences you want create, the feelings you want users to have when they experience your brand, and the image you want to uphold along the way. Traditionally, many brands and agencies start from this point without covering the first two vital topics, which is why most rebrands are either done poorly or die out before they even begin. Knowing what you know now, though, this inspired creativity will be sustainable and will help your entire organization understand how to truly adopt these behaviors, characteristics, and traits of your new brand image.
Defining your vision is where you can begin to get creative. There are no right or wrong answers to this. This is the moment when you can let your personality shine and your preferences out. A good branding expert will allow you to let your creative juices flow, and create something that will merge your ideas with what will appeal to your specific community. Keep in mind; in the words of Simon Sinek, "The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe." With this in mind, recognize that a branding expert's goal is not to generalize your brand to fit the majority of people, but instead to create a brand that will stick with your community of people who believe what you believe.
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