Sneak Peek: Our Branding Process

By
Kyler Nixon
March 28, 2022
5 min read

A corporate rebrand can feel daunting. There’s a never-ending list of next steps, tasks, and deliverables. But what if it didn’t have to be like that? Today, I’m sharing a sneak peek into the branding process we take our clients through, so you can see just how simple (and effective) it is.

Most of the insights we find come from an in-person, 1.5-day strategy session where we gather key team members and work through our framework together.

Step 1: Getting to know the business

We want to know who you are and where you come from. Why did you start the business? What has allowed you to stay open? What are your values as a company? We ask questions like this and interview your employees to learn more about what makes your company awesome.

Step 2: Creating persona profiles

If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you likely have a pretty good idea of your ideal customer. However, we’ve found most companies don’t go deep enough with their persona profiles. We want to get inside the mind of your target customer by establishing things such as:

  • The customer story
  • Who they are and what they’re like (demographics)
  • Their personal goals
  • Their wants and needs as it relates to your brand
  • A “day in the life” of your customer

We’ll create three different persona profiles and then narrow it down to one ideal customer.

Step 3: Identifying the user journey

What is your customer’s journey with your company? We’ll walk through the process of taking your customer from awareness of your brand, to consideration of your brand, to conversion into a paying customer, to relationship with your brand, and then finally, to becoming an advocate for your brand (aka a raving fan who tells their friends). We’ll spend some time taking a look at each of those five touch points and identify what we need to do to ensure we’re reaching your customers effectively at each one.

Step 4: Establish brand traits

We’ve identified your ideal client and how they interact with the brand through their user journey, now we need to figure out how we can engage them in a compelling way that is still true and authentic to your brand. We do that through brand traits. Brand traits are essentially the “bumpers” on your “branding bowling ally.” They help you determine things like voice, personality, visual direction, and more. We’ll identify three traits that describe your brand, create descriptions for those traits, and then establish do’s and don’ts for each one.

Step 5: Determine brand positioning

At this point in the process, we start to create more tangible pieces of brand collateral. We’ll create a tagline, a company slogan, and a brand positioning statement. All of which will incorporate your ideal customer, their user journey, and your brand traits.

Step 6: Create a visual brand that ties everything together

We’ve done a ton of heavy lifting so far, and now it’s time to turn it into a visual brand that is compelling, authentic, and looks great. Here are some of the things we might create during this step of the process:

  • Stylescapes
  • A logo
  • Brand fonts & colors
  • Brand elements (like textures, patterns, & icons)
  • A brand style guide
  • Photography guidelines
  • & more

There ya have it! Our 6 step process has helped create the brands you might see on our site as well as many others that we haven’t shown. If you’re ready to have a clear, simple process that results in a brand that connects with your audience and helps you stand out from the crowd, start a project today!

Kyler Nixon
Founder