Building brands for tomorrow’s future: 5 tips on how to elevate your brand

Sounds corny, right? It kinda is, but let me tell you why it deserves the greatest blog comeback after a two year hiatus.

The world is changing. Heck, the world has changed. Perception has changed, people’s needs and wants have changed, even brand accessibility has changed … so how on earth do you keep up as a Brand amongst all the chaos?  

With a saturated market in just about every industry these days, there’s a few things you can do to stay at the front of minds and the top of social feeds.

Here’s my top 5 tips on how to elevate your brand in 2022.

1.     Create meaningful Connections

There’s mixed reviews on the exact number of times someone needs to interact with your brand before they make a move, but I’ve read it’s anywhere between 7 and TWELVE times. That’s 7 – 12 chances you have of convincing someone that you’re the best solution to their problem, whether that’s ‘needing’ some new pearl earrings or engaging a copywriter for your upcoming launch. People are savvy, and depending on what exactly you do or who you serve, the hard sell usually doesn’t work anymore. Consumers have so much choice so you need to make it clear why you’re the best solution for them 

That’s where an emotional connection with your brand will put you above the rest. A few ideas on how you can create more connection with your customers are: telling relatable stories about why you started your business, figuring out if your branding aligns with your ideal customers, creating content that solves a problem and showing your face more.

2.     Be more Accessible

If anything, the last two years have taught us that it’s absolutely ESSENTIAL your business is operating online. This doesn’t mean physical stores don’t serve a purpose anymore (hello, I still need my Messina fix), it just means your online presence needs to be SPOT ON and your user interface and user experience (that’s UI and UX design for the geeks out there) needs to be highly functional and look good. Think about how many times you’ve googled a business to look up their menu or find out their address (Google Business listing: critical). 

If you’re a restaurant or dentist and you don’t have a Book Now button on your website that’s easy to navigate, you are 100% going to lose customers. And on the flip side, if your website doesn’t have an A+ mobile experience, not only are your customers getting frustrated, but Google will penalise you too.  

3.     Allow for flexibility

I just finished reading Emma Isaac’s new book, The New Hustle, and it’s an absolute game changer (if you’re a business owner I HIGHLY recommend picking this up over the holidays)!

She talks a lot about flexibility within workplaces and how employers need to adapt to this way of work and life (9-5 is so 2019), but it also made me realise that I need to be more flexible in my way of work too. If you’ve worked with me, you’ll know I’m very process driven, and that makes business flow nicely, but sometimes I know I need to give and take a little more, be kinder to myself and have a more empathetic approach if someone doesn’t get me content on time. I’m working on it…

4.     Stay Consistent

Flexibility is important, but consistency is the make or break. Remember when I said it takes 7-12 times for someone to interact with (or see) your brand before they’ll make an enquiry or purchase a product? Imagine if all those touch points looked and sounded kinda different? No one wants to purchase from a brand that’s having an identity crisis -  it’s confusing and super unprofessional.

I love Canva and actually use as part of my Brand Toolkit upon project handover for custom branding projects, but if it’s not used properly, it’s going to end in tears. What’s the point of having a strategic brand identity designed by a professional if those elements are not then implemented properly?

My biggest takeaway of the day would be to ensure all your brand touchpoints are consistent and look like one cohesive brand with consistent messaging and visuals.

5.     Take a Break

Take some time away from your screens. At The Design Conference this year, one of the biggest takeaways for me was that as creatives, we actually need time doing nothing to come up with our best ideas. Procrastination IS actually productive!

This is the perfect time of year to switch off and give yourself a mental break if you need one. What’s the point in working this hard if you can’t enjoy it? I also highly recommend planning a few mid-year breaks because December burnout is the real deal.

I’m actually taking two whole months off next year and travelling to Broome in a Caravan, but that’s a story for another day.