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The Core Emotions Behind Your Brand

Lesson 3 from: Brand Your Creative Business

Megan Auman

The Core Emotions Behind Your Brand

Lesson 3 from: Brand Your Creative Business

Megan Auman

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Lesson Info

3. The Core Emotions Behind Your Brand

Lesson Info

The Core Emotions Behind Your Brand

So we're going to talk a little bit more now about what is a brand and as I mentioned before, a brand is an emotional connection repeated over time and this is going to be our working definition for this workshop again. It's not your logo it's not your fun it's not your color scheme it's this emotional connection repeated over time, emotional means it makes someone feel something right it's not it's, not nothing it makes someone feel something any connection means that that feeling aligns with who they are and how they want to be so your brand might make someone feel something, but if what they're feeling doesn't align with how they want to feel or who they want to be or what their world view is, it's not going to stick and that's actually okay, so one of the things that we're going to talk about is that your brand can't appeal to everyone. The strongest brands are actually really polarizing people love them and people hate them. You know, we brought up the example of the beginning of,...

you know, something that makes you feel sexy and and we came up with victoria's secret that's, a brand that there are people who love their super passionate about it, and there are people who find it repugnant, so you have that range but that's the mark of a strong brand so it makes someone feel something and then the people who become your customers they have that connection because that feeling aligns with who they are and then repeated over time means that that feeling is consistent in each interaction with the business so it's not like one time it makes you feel great and the next time it makes you feel kind of bad the connection has to be consistent and the consistency is going to come through that emotional feeling but it's also going to come through all those visual and verbal elements it's going to come from seeing those same color seeing that logo seeing a consistent product range seeing kind of everything happened over and over and over again so let's stop talking about businesses for a second and talk about people so how do we fall in love with a person whether that's your partner whether that's your friend you know how do you fall in love with someone so you meet someone for the first time right and you immediately get an impression about them based on what they're wearing how they act, what they say how they carry themselves you have an immediate emotional reaction right? We tend to have a pretty strong gut feeling about people so that first one is important then you meet them again you're like okay I like you it's cool it's lets you know hang out again so we made them a second time and if we get that same feeling right, we want two deep in the relationship, but maybe we don't get the same feeling maybe the second time they do something, they say something that doesn't quite match the image of what we thought in a person, and we're like, uh, like step back that's not working for me, but if it's consistent, if we get that same sense of emotional connection, then we keep going and that's how we fall in love with a person, right? So the same thing happens when we fall in love with a brand it's just like falling in love with a person. You have an encounter with some element of the brand, maybe it's the product, maybe it's, their website, maybe it's you as the business owner, your customer has some interaction with you and if it's positive, if it gives them that connection, they're going to come back for more, and if the next one gives them the same feeling and the next time gives them the same feeling. That's, how you create those raving fans and that's what we're going to build in this workshop. So as I mentioned, no brand can appeal to everyone and that's really important to keep in mind, um, I always like to say, you know, vanilla brands can't create raving fans and I know it's lame and cheesy and rhymes and it just sort of happened that way but someone else that I heard say it framed it even better the middle of the road is where you get killed right? So if you're hanging out in the middle of the road, your business is toast so you wanna pick something you know, commit to the idea is that you're working with commit to what you're doing that's really, really essential for your brand and in the process you're you might make some people angry or at the very least you might make them uncomfortable and that's okay, you know what's actually really hard for a lot of this audience maybe not us sending like how should I know you guys watching at home there's a lot of people pleasers and if you guys have that people pleaser yeah so your people pleaser right? So you want to make everybody happy you want to make everybody like you, but when you try to please everyone, you end up making no one passionate about you. So we're going to let go that need to please everyone. In fact, there was one night where I had a dream that someone had actually started a site dedicated to how much they hated designing an mba like the whole website was about how much they hated me and my website and I woke up in the morning and I was so disappointed that that wasn't true because I thought okay if someone hates my sight enough to make a site talking about how they hate my sight I have to be doing something right so we're probably not going to get hate sites made about us I hope not we actually don't really want that but don't be afraid to alienate people so back to our branding strategy we're going to figure out how we want our customers to feel and then we're going to create that visual and verbal strategy teo amplify those emotions so danielle report some of you many of you probably know danielle danielle wrote a great book called the desire map and it's not technically a book about business or branding but it's actually got some really useful lessons that we can pull out for our purposes so daniel says knowing how you actually want to feel is the most potent form of clarity that you can have so her entire thing is you don't set goals and said you figure out how you want to feel and then you structure your life so I extrapolated from that a little bit and I think that knowing how you want your customers to feel is the most potent form of business clarity you can have knowing how you want your customers to feel is the most potent form of business clarity you can have if you know how you want to make people feel, that makes it so much easier to make decisions if I know that I want my customers to feel more confident that makes it so much easier if I'm introducing a new product if I'm thinking about a new line, if I'm going off into left field and expanding my business in a way I couldn't imagine is long as I'm making my customers feel more confident that I know I'm on the right brand path so we're gonna come back to this a couple of times, but maybe off the top of your heads and you guys can share on line two how do you like your customers to feel it's okay, if you don't know will come back to it, but if you know we'll talk about it empowered I want my customers to feel, uh, passionate ana and brave enough to go through transformations in their lives, okay, that's, how you want your customers feel lucky blessed because of the product? Awesome uh, like their inner supermom like they can tackle anything because they're well equipped. Yeah, the one then feel like put together like they were, they have all their stuff together, what we hear in our line great responses, vivian saying she just wants her customers to feel free inspired a strong lisa saying special bree is saying adventurous alexandra grease specialist something she likes to adrian, a saint confident individual, and she wants to be the girl boss confident and motivated to coming up a lot of actresses. Well, we also got some questions coming on one from sierra, one from lalla back are I'm not going to the full details with what they're basically saying is they've got so many ideas that they're trying that they're confused as to what they should be doing. So, you know, maybe the business clarity is something that they need to really yeah, yeah, I think that's so true, when you, you're probably going to feel like, in the beginning of this workshop, right? Like, you've got a lot of ideas and it's okay to feel that way, but if we can start with this idea of how you want your customers to feel and then from there what we're actually gonna do is we're going toe, we're going to talk about your products, so because that's, the foundation of your brand, so maybe you're thinking, I want to do this, I want to do that and that's, ok, if it all fits under this umbrella of how you want your customers to feel, and we're going also talk about sort of the why or the purpose behind your business, and that lets you also kind of do a lot of things under this one umbrella so I'm really passionate about this idea that the world needs strong confident women that's really what my entire brand is about and that absolutely applies to my jewelry and my product design but it also applies to what I'm doing here right when I'm teaching women and wes how to improve their businesses I'm creating strong, confident women so while it feels really desperate and I can tell you guys I actually felt that way I was like, I've got this jewelry business and then I've got this teaching coaching thing and it felt like I was really being pulled in a lot of directions and once I really drilled down to this idea of like I want the world to have mohr strong confident women once I understood that then everything sort of felt way more cohesive you know it might not be on a day to day basis it might still feel like I'm flipping between making jewelry and doing a coach and call and all those things in your day to day it might still feel a little bit more chaotic but on the outside having that one point of focus makes it look like everything has pulled together and that's again that idea of that branding can make you feel more put together than you actually are actually kind of like monica's really so brandon can make you feel more put together so you might still feel really chaotic, but if you continue I it all together with one really strong core message, it doesn't look chaotic anymore to your customers and that's really what we're doing here now the business clarity is obviously something it's very important so you've obviously got your macon ormond jewelry line and that's branded as make a normal and then you have your designing mba, which is about coaching sweets here is basically asking the same thing she's hoping to do a digital graphics business, but she's also got an organic bath and body line would be better for her to separate these two lines and brand them separately or should they have different business names? That's kind of how you approach yes oh that's actually a really fantastic question can I have you just read it one more time so that we're all on the same page sweet sierra she has a different product lines, she has digital graphics and she also has an organic bath and body line. Would it be better to separate these two lines and brand of separately and should they have different business names? Yeah, so my gut reaction on that is yes and the kind of way that I approached that is again thinking about who the customer is, so in the case of my business is the customer for my mega nomine jewelry is different than the customer for my my business and my coaching, right? There might be a little overlap, certainly someone who maybe isn't a jeweler who sees my workshop might want, you know, a necklace or something, but for the most part, they are very different audiences, and so I separate them out into two different businesses, and I'm guessing in that case, that's also the same. Now there are kind of some complicated things that come in when you're thinking about things like social media, that dough I need to social media profiles and that's something that we can talk about coming up a cz we kind of start to understand your business. Sometimes you do sometimes you don't. And the other thing that what was the name? Sweet sierra? Okay, so the other thing that sweet sierra needs to figure out is what her role is in the business. So I'm assuming it's a she, you know, is she kind of the big personality that holds it together or just you want them to feel separate and then also on top of that what's your end goal. So do you think that you're gonna want to do both of these businesses forever, or do you think maybe you want teo? Sell one of them off one day or let someone else run one so that's, another important distinction as well. You know, I think for the rest of my life I'm I want to design things so it makes sense that my product design business is branded under my name that's always going to be me, it's who I am that's really important. But then I needed that other space. So that's, where designing an mba came in, I think, uh, tina roth isenberg from swiss misses a really good example of this. She talks about the importance of side projects, and she's, the founder of tat lee and you guys may not know tina's name, but you probably know tat lee's name. Now they make designing temporary tattoos. Amazing brand. You know, that started as a side project, and it made sense that she gave it its own name because then it morphed into its own identity. So it's also okay to create these little side projects. And if they don't take off it's okay to kind of just let them slide back in. Nothing has to be forever it's all a big experiment for sure saying they they're working jewelry, but they also working with textiles and paintings. They they have their own website, but they also have a the cartel website was their part off and they're just wanted for a stronger band brand should they feel they should they move them all into under one roof because they're concerned by doing that they'll get less traffic exposed? Yes oh that's a great question and I'm actually going to tell you that we're going to circle back around to that so one of the things that I'm hearing it a lot of these questions is that people are really concerned about the details, right? Should I have one or two? Should I do this or that? And while they certainly are important, they're not the most important piece of what we're doing in this workshop the most important pieces right here knowing how you want your customers to feel knowing what emotions you want to create because the truth is if you have a really strong brand that people are talking about and you have both a website in a big cartel shop and people are talking about and they're telling your friends they're going to find you on one or both doesn't actually matter that much they're going to google you, they're going to find you, but if they're not talking about you if you're not making people feel things doesn't matter if you have one website or four hundred websites right, it doesn't matter where you're selling doesn't even matter what your business is called to be perfectly honest because if you're not making people feel things they're not talking about you and you have a huge uphill battle so we're gonna come back I promise you we're going to answer all of these questions about one website to my name we're going to talk about all of this stuff and I know we're going to talk about it with the studio audience because I looked at everybody's websites and I know that a couple people in our studio audience kathy and sarah also have that multiple website you've got the block on one side and then you know you think you've got the big cartel shop so a lot of people in our studio audience have those same challenges so we're definitely going to address all of that and really this is the most important framework that you're going to apply every element of your business has to communicate the core emotions behind your brand so one website or two you know where hosting it doesn't really matter as long as it's communicating the core emotions people need to go there if they're going to go to west his website they need to feel lucky and blessed from the moment they step into that website right monica needs them to feel like this super mom put together from the second they arrived there you know if they're looking at your product if they're looking at your packaging they should feel like that from start to finish so that's the framework that were going teo to use so every question that you're going to ask you can apply this framework yourself now keep listening to the workshop this and we're not done after this it's not like, go apply this framework and now you're you're set to go we're still gonna answer all those questions but you can say, you know, I know I want my customer to feel lucky and blessed so then every decision that you're going to make about your business you're going to say, does this make my customer feel lucky and blessed? Is it going to help them or is it going to make them it's going to make them feel angry or frustrated or, you know, like they didn't win the lottery, you know, whatever it is you're gonna apply this framework and that's going to help you make those decisions, so then we're going to apply this idea of this emotional connection to the elements of your brand and this is what we're going to be doing throughout this workshop, so we're going to talk about your products what people buy we're going to talk about the visual elements what people see so that's going to be things like the overall aesthetic and mood and vibe your logo, you're fun, your color palette, your photography, your promotional materials, postcard social media, post advertising, packaging we're going to talk about all of those details, so I promise you we're going to cover all of it, but we're going to cover all of it under this framework of is it creating that emotional connection with my audience? Is it making them feel the way I want them to feel? And we're going to do the same thing with our verbal brand elements? So your business name or business names plural is it sounds like we've got a lot of people debating about that your tag line, your mission statement, the stories that you tell about your brand, this is really critical, because, again, we're trying to get people to talk about our brand, so if we can give them stories to tell if we can generate those stories, then you know that's going to help them talk about it, I'm going to help them spread the word, you know, the emails that you're writing, the blogger post the sales pitch, all of this is going to be really important, and we're going to apply that lens of does it create the emotional connection? So a question that I know comes up a lot and I know it comes up a lot for makers is how much of yourself should you put into your brand? How much of the brand is you? How much of the brand is your product? And that's something I want to kind of talk about now because it's I think it's a sticking point for a lot of people, right? I see some heads nodding in the audience so what do you what do you guys think? Monica? You know, how do you feel about that? Do you feel stuck there? Yeah, so I want to infuse myself because I can model myself as the mom I've done it, I'm in the throes get your frustrations and I have the solution but then on the opposite side, if I'm not somebody that the consumer can relate tio I don't want to be that person, so I'm like, I I also don't know if I because I have a product based business I don't know that I necessarily should be associating with the brand that I'm trying to establish for say that last part again because I have a product based business I'm not sure that I should be associating mice self with that product in the image I'm trying to portray for that because you don't feel like you're the right fit o our just cause I'm not sure I resonate with everybody else s o now here's the question that kind of follow up with that are you feeling like you're not going to resonate with every mom or that you don't particularly resonate with the moms that we're going to be your ideal customer that's a good question, probably every mom, right? So that's, I think the first piece of this which is trying to please everyone right? So you're worried that you're not going to resonate with every mom out there. Great, and you're not right, it's not you go to the play that you're not going to be friends with every mom at the playdate, right? So that kind of is the first way to start thinking about that. Cathy, you were kind of nodding your head to, um it was just kind of I mean, I do love the emotional part of branding, and there is a lot of me that goes into my biotics and then there's, also a side of me that's a lot of people don't really know about me, like maybe that I'm a lot more spiritual than people think that I am on then speaking in those in a very spiritual way or kind of like, empowering way it's, it's, it's kind of like finding that in between of representing me and how other people really know me and it's like, I don't want to feel like I'm faking it, but I'm not because that's really how I am and, you know, I just kind of finding that voice and then honing in on right, so you're worried that if you show more of who you know you actually our people are actually going to think that that's not authentic right? Because that's really you right? Are we hearing anything online? Are they kind of seeing some of those same echoing exactly what the students here are saying? It's very interesting and something you know they've got small business their designers that branding so they're really looking forward to know learning over the next couple days about how to stay but how not has become corporate how to keep a few small business etcetera so it's a really engaged chat room awesome. So throughout this quote to you from kit yaro, who wrote a really fantastic book called decoding the new consumer mind really great book that came out recently which is basically talking about how technology has changed us as consumers and what that means for us is people selling a product trying to sell them something so kit says whether they do so consciously or not consumers will attribute a personality to your brand in their quest for a shorthand emotional understanding of your brand's values. They will attribute that personality because just like I talked about with a brand, you know the way we fall in love with the brand is the way we fall in love with a person they're going to start to give your brand of personality because it makes it easier to form that connection right? So what's great about being a small business is that it's easier to form that connection or to form that perceived connection because you can be the face of your brand? So in the same part of the book kid is talking about how you know if the only people if in a big business they're gonna interact with your employees, right? So your employees better have at least on the job the personality that, you know, fits with the brand otherwise it's not gonna work, right? But we have the advantage of being a small business so we can go ahead and let the parts of our personality come through that makes sense. So here's the thing so first of all and biting your brand, it doesn't mean you have to be identical to your customers. You don't have to be the same now, of course it helps to have those foundational connections. It helps that monica's mom, it helps that that product that you have comes out of the same experience that they're having it gives you that sense of empathy, and it feels like, hey, we're in this together, so that certainly works, but you know, you create these customer profiles, and if you guys sat in on my last two creative life workshop, we talked really extensively about customer profile, so you create these customer profiles and then you're thinking okay, well this doesn't sound like you you know someone asked me the question other jewelry designer right now she was like all my customers are like more fit and active than I am she's like they hicham or they know they do all these things she's like I'm not quite that like sporty and fit and active is that okay? Well of course that's okay no one is expecting you to be the same as your customer but we're going for that same emotional connection so there has to be some common ground there has to be that the same values there has to be that sort of same consistency just like when you're dating someone you're not going to date someone or marry someone or even be friends someone who's probably super identical to you because truthfully they're going drive you nuts right like when you marry your identical my husband they're complete opposites so light and we drive each other nuts for other reasons but you know you're not probably gonna marry that person who's identical teo the same thing with your customers you don't have to be identical but you have to be consistent with your brand's core emotions so what cathy is talking about you know you are saying I had this kind of spirituality that's really important so you get to decide how much of that you want to bring out into the brand and if it's imp important enough to you that you're thinking about it that it probably should come out more right that's the first thing, if you're thinking about it, it should cut out more and the other thing that kind of comes in there is if you're worried that it's inauthentic, it's probably authentic, right? So if you're thinking, I want to do this, that I don't know it's going to seem gimmicky or whatever, if you're worried about it, you probably don't have to be so you can go ahead and let mohr of you come out and it's okay, that if the you that comes out is not identical to the private you, this is the other thing that I think is really important to understand you don't have tio feel guilty about performing when you're us, your brand versus you in your real life, right? So when I stand up and I'm me for my brand, I'm not going to tell you about every little detail of like the fight I had with my husband. My poor husband is getting picked on right now, I swear or not, we don't fight that option. I'm not like the fight I had with my husband or some like really deep personal stuff that's going on because that's not actually part of my brand it's, just not for another brand it might be if you maybe if your brand is about serious deep personal transformation sharing, that stuff might actually be really important, so you get to pick and choose what you get to share and you can think of it as you know, like the performance you and then not you, so you get to decide what you put out there, but because you're a small business and because you're you know you're not a big corporation don't feel like you have to hide that personality. I think that's the biggest mistake you could make in this branding thing is to feel like you have to take all of your own personality out because even though people connect with brands, we also connect with individuals and that's what makes your products distinctive is that they are made by individuals they are made by people, and even if you aren't the one making them anymore, they started from your personal story or a personal problem that you were trying to solve. So it's okay to bring yourself out into your brandt yeah, so I'm not sure where you draw the line because in your last class you talked about that um the product that the customers are not concerned with, like what it's made of how long it took you or really your story, so then how are you putting in your story and making it feel like it's about them well it's about you so I'm yes I'm so glad you asked that question because I actually took a little peek on your website too so you write your customers aren't concerned with the fact that it's made using a very, very specific process because that process is gibberish basically to them right you I know youse a like a I saw in your blood that very specific like japanese pat nation technique and there's a whole bunch of people who just heard gabby's pat nation technique and were like what did she just say and that's probably how most of your customers are going to feel but if you say I studied jewelry design in japan had lived there for six years I'm really influenced by this minimal japanese aesthetic that's interesting to your customers write us they're like that's cool now you want to know more about her about the brand right? So the line is is there a hook that they can get into? A technical process is not a hook that your customers come grab onto there's no sense of connection I spent years studying in japan and I love that minimal aesthetic there's hooks all over the place I went to japan I want to go to japan that's just so cool I love people who travel you know I also love that minimal aesthetic I'm really into that clean design I love you know there's hooks all over the place where people can get really excited about so that's the difference does it make them feel confused and alienated? Or does it make them feel like fascinated and they want to know more? What we waiting on line for that it's interesting? What people are saying is they're sharing different things that they say they want their customers to feel emotion, but, you know, they're confused whether it needs to be several emotions except hers. So I think as we go through, we'll see some very specific examples of people hoping to learn, but yes, certainly because some great engagement so far awesome, yeah, you know, I think the thing with the emotion is you might feel several, but they're gonna probably feel related, right? So lucky and blessed that feels related. Uh, you know, like, kathy water over years again, um, it was being empowered and just right, motivated, right, empowered, motivated that's those air related, so you're probably gonna you might have a couple of emotions, but they're probably going to be fairly close together, right? Do we have any more questions about this kind of like you as the face of your brand thing, I know this is something that holds people up, and I want to make sure that works. Kind of sorted before we well yeah I mean I got a question about specifically about emotional says the emotion I want my customers to feel does it have to be one emotional can it be several emotion so I think this is some confusing around this is but a song is it's consistent? I think it's it's consistent that's okay, so if you want them to feel happy and relaxed like those air two different emotions but they can work together right where someone else I say I want them to feel happy and motivated right? So they can absolutely be more than one emotion now you want to kind of stick till like two or three you know be like I want to feel happy and excited and uh confident and smart and feminine and kind of romantic and also like a super mom that's that's a little too far right? We got a little too much going on there but if you can kind of drill down to a couple then it's going to be okay and since he's actually asking she's she's actually product designer in new york and she's saying she well she's got to the point where she wants the public to show story she wants is to show her personality through her products and sorry mr miss red that is same but how can she be consistent with her brand and the emotions for two different markets she wants to be able to bring everything together that's a that's a really tricky one and I think the thing with that is that at some point you have to focus right? So you can say I've got these two different markets and you might but then they might require two different brands so what I really want everybody to dio for the purposes of this just because it's going to make your life a lot easier is pick one right for the purposes of this workshop I want you to pick one brand and you're either going to realise one of two things you're going to realize you know what? I have this other brand over here and it does need to be a second brand and then I'm gonna go through this process all over again right? Or you're going to realize as we get kind of further along you're going to realize okay, you know what? Actually this does fit more than I realized and I'm going to bring it in right now if you feel like you have kind of so much to different things pick one and focus on it and that's really I think gonna help you the other thing that I think that I heard there that um is really important to keep in mind is you know you're talking about you want to show your personality in the product and I think that's really good but you also need to remember that it has to relate to the customer so the customer doesn't care I'm going say they don't care about you and that's a really harsh I know but what they actually care about is how your product makes them feel right this is really what we're getting down to here because they care about how they feel when they put that necklace on how they feel when they wear those earrings how they feel when they pull that diaper changing pad out of their bag right that's what they care about so absolutely you want to infuse your personality but it should be in service of making your customers feel something guys are so you can use your personality to basically inspire right? You know you're pretty you're not your personality your personality, your story a story right to inspire people so then eventually your transfers over to them so that they can feel yes, what what you felt or you know who you are yeah, absolutely eso right so what happens is the way that we as humans communicate the easiest way is to tell stories and a lot of people aren't super comfortable with their own stories right it's sometimes it's hard some people talk about themselves really usually right at other people are really hard and it it depends on who your customer is, but I'm guessing that a lot of us probably have customers that even though they think about themselves, they're not goingto necessarily talk about themselves all the time, right? So if you're sharing your story in a way that relates to them that's really going teo give them a story that they can then tell the other people so they're wearing your necklace and their friend is like, oh that's a great necklace and they're going to talk about how you you know, you studied in japan and and I think more than that, you know, you're also talking about this ideas of transformation, which is really important so one you can really hone in on how you tell that story, then they might tell this a little bit more so she went through this kind of transformation and then I bought this for myself because I went through this kind of transformation and that's really I think what we're kind of doing with this emotion here is we're creating these stories that help us do that, and I know this feels really, really like who out there right now? And I know everyone especially in the chat rooms was like, but I just want to get down to business, right? They don't you want to get down teo kind of solving those elements of your brands, and I promise we're going to get all of those details but it's really important to understand this idea of emotional connection because without it, all of that other stuff is actually kind of useless I mean that's really, at the end of the day, what it comes down to is, you know, if you don't make people feel something it's not gonna work and it's okay, that you're obsessed about the details you haven't read, the steve jobs biography that came out, I highly recommend it for every business owner, right? It's a really great book for getting inside the mind of someone who built this incredible business and steve jobs was obsessed with every detail when they were building this first computers every detail, from the slightest like millimeter of the curve to the packaging to the local. He was obsessed with all of those details, but at the end of the day he never forgot how he wanted to make people feel when they pulled out that computer for the first time, how we wanted them to feel when they were using it. So it's okay to be obsessed with the details, but you have to understand that the emotional peace has to come first or the details don't matter. We're seeing more online kind of I want to hear more about some people are kind of stuff on the emotions thing, or if they have some of their thinking about, well, they are because a lot of them just now sharing that they all have like about me pages on their websites and most of the saying it's awful they're saying that they're not very confident other people saying, well, I don't have one a tall again I think you know, there's some agreeing that it starts with the brand on the about you is far less important others seem to be very hung up on it and feeling they want to put that personality into their business sites interesting. Okay, so yes so first of all that it's okay to having about me or about us page on your website that's not wrong because a little bit of your story is certainly useful, so you're not wrong by having that on there and we're going to talk about that. But what's even better is if you can tell your story in a way that it reflects the customer story back. So if monika is talking about this need that she had of, you know, being the mom and feeling really disorganized and not finding the product and then just saying, hey, I'm going to make it and this makes my life so much easier her mom's understand that feeling of feeling disorganized and maybe not feeling is chic and stylish is they want to feel I know that's a big thing is that they want to help but together because they still want to feel kind of stylish right? Your moms I want to feel frumpy they want to be like you I got this and I'm a mom and it's all it's all together it's all good so you could talk about all that on your about paige but they see themselves in you they see something about that emotional connection that's interesting to them it's kind of like you're dating profile page we're gonna keep coming back to this idea of dating so like you're not gonna not talk about yourself at all you're not gonna be like, well, I just want this specific person and you know you're going to tell a little bit about who you are because that's important but you know you don't have to go overboard you can also make the customer feel like it's a two way conversation, not a broadcast um are they shouting out so any more emotions that they're mourning their customers to feel no, I mean not not specific emotions et cetera but they are, you know, sharing how this sort of getting around this and johnny's just showing for example he says he needs to get his he's he feels he's got his own story right? But he's not clear about what his mission statement is, so he doesn't want to sort of put it out there about him except until he's got back down perfect, okay and you and the other thing that again, I want to say is that this is all an experiment, right? So I think I reread my about pains, like, twelve times, and I had to stop myself from rewriting it before I came here, but I'll probably write rewrite it as soon as I get home because you will evolve and you start to figure out what kinds of stories are going to resonate with your customers and so it's okay to sort of change and experiment and that's, you know, kind of what we're going to do here now, the other thing, and this is going to be good news for those of you who are maybe a little bit more uncomfortable with sharing yourself, and I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm actually one of those people who doesn't like to share a lot of their personal self in their brand, even though I like to get up and talk to people and tell stories and all that stuff, I actually really like to do that, but I'm a fairly private person. I believe that my personal life is my personal life, and I very kind of specific about what I share with the brand, so that is absolutely okay, so the good news is that the essence of your brand starts with your products, right? So if you're not quite comfortable with yourself yet, that's ok, because your products are going to be your biggest brand ambassador and so that's actually, what we're going teo talk about in the next segment is we're going to drill down, we're gonna look at your products, and if you're stuck on what those emotions are, we're actually gonna look at your products and figure out how your products make people feel because that's a good starting point. So, you know, west mentioned that his brand is about people feeling lucky and blessed because that's, what the product makes them feel that's perfect, it doesn't have to be any more than that, it's just about making them feel, you know, how the product makes them feel is going to really be our starting point, so I don't want to hear that list now, I know that I know that you said you're going off on some of those questions, but I want to know what are the elements of your brand once we drill down this emotion peace because I know we're gonna we have to work on that a little more with everybody. What is the element of your brand that you think needs the most improvement? So we'll start with our studio audience, monica uh, really creating that emotion speaking? And I just don't I don't think that it's at the end of the day a diaper pad right? So it needs to know how I can really provoke an emotion out of something I'm so ordinary right? So and a years is a really interesting case because the product itself is really getting fairly ordinary but everything that's surrounding it this whole motherhood piece there's a lot of emotion there s so few it's ripe to tap into if you could do it right caddy for me I think it's just message consistency yeah, yeah. You saw my block there was like, a different name that was started before and then it's just building the two and getting yeah, so yours is really about getting there, making everything consistent and then everything also kind of fall into place from there who? I guess my website? Yeah, I mean there's a lot that ever never them overhauling everything, but I I now know what I want. My, um I need new collections and so those air in my head that's the easy part, but and then I need to convey completely re haul my website. Yeah, because what? My current website is not reflecting what I've kind of discovered that my brand is going to be about yeah, and you could actually you can see that when you go to your website that you you're starting to kind of use a little bit of language that shows that you're drilling down into what the brand is, but it doesn't come through in the overall design yet so we can absolutely work on that because in great answers online and maggie saying I want my jewelry to convey confident, chic and special to be accomplished. So she's that's what she needs to work on ninja dog design is saying she needs to work on the style she needs to work on the aesthetics time capsule is saying they want to create the emotion associated with their product that's where they're struggling our secret tree house great name is saying we create good connections, but getting to the getting to the people to make those connections is where they need the most to focus, adrian is saying conveying the emotion on all my marketing challenge channels on jan baska who's in photography says, I want to make sure that people that visit my website of feeling our feeling is what I'm wanting to get across is easy and fun to take photographs of me I want those clients perfect. Yes, so we've just yes, so it sounds like we've got, you know, a lot of people who are maybe needing to get that visual consistency happening on the website or or maybe with the products in general and we're definitely going to dive into all of that and we're absolutely going to dive into that emotional piece, and we're going to really do that in the next segment. We talk about product, so we're going to get in there. We're going to talk about your products, and we're gonna use your products to figure out what those emotions are. So if you guys are still stuck with that, don't worry, because we're really going to dive into that in the next segment, and we're also going to talk about how to make the product line more consistent, right? Because that's something we all want is that consistent visual recognition, and we're going to answer that question that I know love you have for that, that concern, which is why I'm super super creative, and I want to do a million things, right? So I'm really creative and have a million ideas, and I can't drill them in, so we're going to do drill those in and really kind of home that in.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Megan Auman - Brand Your Creative Business Resources.pdf
Megan Auman - Branding Bibliography.pdf
Megan Auman - DIY Photography Resources.pdf

bonus material with enrollment

Megan Auman - Brand Your Creative Business Syllabus.pdf
Megan Auman - Brand Your Creative Business Workbook.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

I was drawn in immediately. Megan's ability to tender precise, goal-oriented, and REAL life experience-infused information is what captivated me the most...AND...I logged in 30 minutes late on the first day of her class. I am excited to know that her course is STILL available, and on sale a couple of days after it aired live. TY CreativeLive for this opportunity; it is truly a gift to myself which will keep on giving...I have often used storytelling to build my brand, but Megan's guidance has given me a structured approach, which I really needed. Paying it forward, and sharing her amazing course with others will be a joy, as I feel an obligation to others I know, and those I have yet to know, all who will benefit from her plethora of carefully cultivated information. Her use of emotional connections to build a brand, and to reach a solid audience based on one's authentic voice is clear, clean, and easy to follow. Thank You Megan Aumen!

Visindie
 

This is such a great class! Great content, great advice, great examples...great, great, great!! I'm so happy that I have a clear path to create a great brand for my business. Very empowering! I especially love the bonus information, especially the video on how to make your own logo in Illustrator. Exactly the information I've been looking for. Great job, Megan!

Laura Captain Photography
 

I'm in the process of launching a creative business and this class was what I was looking for. With procrastination and indecision cast aside, I will now confidently plan and carry out a productive and well organized branding strategy of my own. Before this class I felt somewhat confused and overwhelmed by all the miscellaneous branding information I had been trying to piece together. Even though I already knew some of the information she covered in the class, she put her own spin on it, gave some great examples and put it in an easy to follow plan. I particularly liked the segments related to naming your business and social media branding because I had a lot of questions on those topics. I'm very excited to get started with branding my business and I'm so glad I took the time to go through Megan's class, it will be so worth it in the long run. A big shout out to Megan, I love your business branding, your jewelry and your teaching style, great work!

Student Work

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