How to magnetise your brand and supercharge your sales

How to magnetise your brand and supercharge your sales

by | Mar 25, 2016 | Sales and Marketing

Guest blog from Vicki Nicolson

Vicki Nicolson Branding Therapy

 

When you first started out in business I bet you thought, right, I’ll press my publish button on my Facebook page, launch my site, set up all my different social media accounts and then BOOM I’ll get loads of clients. And as soon as you did all this you got a few likes from friends and well wishes but not actual paying customers, am I right?

So here’s the thing when it comes to your lovely business, you really are the only one who cares about it more than anyone else. You are your biggest fan because you believe that you can do great things, change people’s lives and make a real difference. So why aren’t you telling anyone? Why are you sitting looking at competitor websites, pages and posts? Whilst in the back of your mind there is a little voice telling you, OH MY GOD THIS IS NEVER GONNA WORK, YOU ARE CRAP and YOU CAN NOT DO THIS.

This is called being normal! Brands build their reputation and recognition over time. There is no such thing as an overnight success. Speak to anyone in business and they will tell you the same thing. Crickey, Apple were literally on the verge of going bankrupt until Steve Jobs returned to Apple. They had to work mighty hard to get to where there are now.

So how can you too become a brand magnet and stand out from the crowd? Here are my 3 simple steps to help to magnetise your brand and supercharge your business.

 

Step #1 – BE YOU

Your brand is all about personality. You know already what makes you different but sometimes we just don’t have the guts to show our true colours and confidence holds us back. Find something you love doing, be YOU and be consistent and I guarantee you will feel more at ease with your brand and your biz.

So just be YOU. That is the one piece of advice I give on a daily basis. Stick your name in your biz name. This is key advice, especially for the coaching market. Right now I see a lot of coaches entering the market, using your own name makes you unique and will make you stand out in an overcrowded marketplace. Sticking you name right in there in your business also makes you look passionate about your business too. You love it so god damn much you put your name to it. This also works, especially if it is just you in the business.

Write your copy for your site the way you want to. Post on your FB page when you want and not on the basis of your insights – I get way more engagement when I don’t even take notice of my insights stats. And tell your brand story – tell people how you came up with your business idea, what your passion is and how you help them. People are intrigued by how you can help them. The whole brand building process is about building an emotional connection with you so that ultimately they buy from you.

 

Step #2 – Use eye-catching images and don’t blend in

First impressions matter – it takes milliseconds for your potential customers to form an opinion about your website, logo and visual branding, font, colours, spacing, symmetry etc so your brand image is everything.

Using eye-catching brand images will enhance your brand’s image ten-fold. I know the hard part can be finding just the ‘right’ image for your meme, Facebook cover or brochure but the biggest secret behind captivating your audience is to follow some of my simple basic steps to help you pull some images together fast.

  • Try to choose images based on the relevance of what you are posting and writing about.
  • Don’t blend in. So for instance, if you sell ethical products then it would be obvious to use all things green and eco related right? WRONG! Go down a different path, choose a different colour, like pink with a use of teal and yellow instead, and images of laughing women seem to get the most engagement on my own Facebook page. Try it and see.
  • Use quirky images that pop and don’t just copy and paste other people’s quotes when you are posting memes, find your own voice and write your own quotes based on your own opinions.
  • Use well-composed images that ooze greatness and that are well thought out.

Overall think about the emotion you are trying to communicate. How do you want you tribe to feel? You want to build an emotional connection with your brand, how will you communicate that?

 

Step #3 – Professionally brand yourself

We’re all drawn to visual gorgeousness. It attracts interest and it creates desire for something. If you want to make more money in your business right now then you need to create an exciting and irresistible brand identity for your biz. A well-developed brand identity is key for clients and customers in their decision making process. According to Google research, users spend most time focusing on your logo before moving on within a website – it’s 6.48 seconds – yup that’s more time than anywhere else on your site! Yikes! You literally have seconds to win them over. 94% of first impressions are design related. Google research, overall, said this, “invest in design – it’s what matters the most for pulling users in.”

The benefits of having a good logo are tenfold:

  • It makes you look established, bigger, committed and reputable
  • Conveys you are professional
  • It explains your company name
  • You will stand out from others in a similar field or explains an unusual line of business

It’s a no brainer to get yourself a good logo and consistent branding across all your marketing materials and that includes things like photoshoots, your office space and even down to what specific piece of clothing you wear. I am known for my love of all things pink – I wear a lot of pink. So my brand is pink. Nails are painted pink…  Professional branding identity will boost your business and your confidence.

Once you nail these simple steps you will start to ask yourself, how can I do more with my brand?

Your brand will evolve over time but you need to be committed, consistent, be your biggest fan and be hands on in your brand. It needs daily maintenance, it needs love and your customers need to be engaged. So be prepared to look after your brand. Post every day, mingle in groups, get your name out there, be the expert, stand out from the crowd and be in it for the long haul and I guarantee it will supercharge your sales.

 

Author

Vicki NicholsonVicki is a creative branding stylist, designing magnetic branding for women in business throughout the world.
Vicki has two decades of graphics, marketing and communications expertise. She enjoyed a lucrative career working as an in-house designer for international corporations and when her son turned four she decided it was time to take the leap and follow her dream of running her own business.
Using her power of creativity Vicki helps women stand out from the crowd by branding businesses in such a way to target desired clients and help convert customers into paying ones.

For more information visit: https://www.vickinicolson.com/

Make first impressions count

Make first impressions count

by | May 25, 2015 | Sales and Marketing

Have you thought lately about how your business is packaged and how that packaging affects the first impressions people have of your business? Oh, but I don’t need to I hear you say, I don’t sell products, only services.

Well, this is where you might be going wrong. Everything that represents your business needs to have thought and consideration put into how it is packaged or presented and what impression it gives to your potential customers.

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This can be in the form of marketing material, your website and you personally.

What first impressions do you get from packaging?

Take luxury products in a department store.  What stands out about the packaging?  It is usually of a higher quality and both looks and feels good.  So if you are in the luxury product or a professional industry such as a solicitor, consultant or interior designer, all your business presentation needs to represent this.

Your business cards should be of a higher grade paper and feel good to the touch.  This can have a subtle subconscious effect on the user that will help them with how they perceive your company. If you have inferior, cheap, flimsy business cards, the user may subconsciously think you offer an inferior business also.

Your website should also be considered as packaging for your business.  If it is a quick cobbled together effort with poor layout, you may well lose out to your competitor who has spent a bit more time, effort and money in getting theirs right.  If you go to the newsstand and see a magazine that looks cheap and poorly done, you don’t expect the quality of the content to be as good or professional as one if the top magazines.  Your website has the same effect visually.  If yours looks poor quality and cheap, people will be deterred from reading further no matter how good your offering is.

How do you package yourself?

And think about you.  You need to package yourself to represent your business.  a lady selling wedding dresses who wears a stained badly fitting tee shirt and too tight jeans with her stomach hanging out over the top is unlikely to inspire confidence in a bride who wants to be advised how to look her best on her special day (unfortunately this is a real life example I came across).

Don’t let your branding deter your ideal client

We have spoken about luxury branding here and you need to make sure if you are not looking for top end clients that you don’t create a brand that makes you look out of the price range of your target market.

I made this mistake myself with a previous business.  I had a property staging company that dressed homes for sale at an affordable price that would help attract buyers and secure a sale more easily.  I got my branding wrong and my business marketing looked more suited to an interior design business which my target market thought they would not be able to afford.

I have known someone refuse to contact a gardener for a quote as they believed he would out of their price range as he drove a brand new range rover.  He wasn’t expensive and would have been better off driving around in a small van on his business travels.

So think carefully about how you package your business and the perception that packaging has on your potential clients.  Make sure the first impressions your packaging gives out are the right ones for your business.