Three Elements of a Memorable Brand with Rita Suzanne

SPEAKERS

Rita Suzanne

Rita Suzanne  00:01

Welcome to the Mom Owned and Operated Podcast, the podcast about moms and for moms, where we have candid conversations about running a business, raising a family, and remembering ourselves. I’m your host, Rita Suzanne, a single mom of four, digital strategist and provider of no nonsense business strategies and tactics.

Rita Suzanne: 0:29

Hey everyone, it’s Rita Suzanne. This is a special day on Mom Owned and Operated. After 50 fantastic guest interviews, I’m stepping up and I’m taking on my very first solo show. So you know that I love diving into topics that matter to you most. So I sent out an email and asked on social media what everyone would love to hear about, and the responses were clear it was all about branding, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

Did you know that a consistent brand can actually increase your revenue by 23%? That’s a major jump. So today we’re going to unpack exactly how you, as a mom business owner, can build a memorable brand that attracts clients and sets you apart. I’m a big believer in taking action, so we’re going to do that today and we’re going to create some real change Instead of just talking about theory. I’m going to give you action steps in order to build your own memorable brand today. So first let’s talk about the first element of building your memorable brand. It’s all about your brand’s purpose. So what is a brand purpose? It’s the core of your business, it’s the heart, it’s your reason for doing what you do aside from making money, obviously. For example, my purpose at MomOdinoperated is to empower mom business owners to build a thriving business without sacrificing time for yourself or your family.

Rita Suzanne: 2:18

When I started this podcast, I was in the midst of a huge personal struggle that resulted in an amazing transformation, in part because of this podcast. I have been running my business for about five years and my business was having its best year, but then, in January of 2020, I discovered that my husband, who I hadn’t been married to for less than a year, was cheating on me. Two weeks later, my sister passed away unexpectedly. I was devastated all around. In March of 2020, covid restrictions kicked in right and by May, I had filed for divorce and for custody of my two nieces, leaving me to be a single mom of four, who are now four teenagers, by the way. I then completely isolated myself. I think for the first time in my life, I actually experienced real depression Because of that. I had isolated myself from all of my friends, whether they were online, local, just everyone, really, even my own family. My business started to struggle because of it, but then, in January of 2021, I started this podcast, and it helped me to rediscover my purpose. It helped me to reevaluate my life and my business, because the whole intention of the podcast was so that I could talk to other mom business owners and really find out how are they doing all of the things. I say that because I was struggling. I was struggling so hard to do even the most basic things. I would get up and get dressed and then I would get right back in bed and I really wouldn’t do too much outside of that. Starting the podcast actually helped me to reevaluate everything because I got to listen to the stories of other moms and talk to them and reconnect with others. It helped me to figure out what my purpose was in my life and in my business.

Rita Suzanne: 4:51

It is critical that you have your own brand purpose. People always say what is your why? Why are you doing the thing that you do? This is your brand purpose. It keeps you focused and helps you stay on track with doing what you really ultimately want to do. How do you find out your brand purpose? Here’s what I would like for you to do. I want you to ask yourself these questions what problem does your business solve for your ideal client? Next, what positive change do you want for your business to make in people’s lives? I want you to think beyond the specific products or services that you offer, what is the big goal or the big change that you want your business to make? Then I encourage you to take those answers and then kind of develop your own brand purpose statement. That way you can go back to it, you can revisit it and it will guide your decisions and keep you motivated, especially during those tough times. Right, specifically, what I, my example Purpose anchors your brand internally, but consistency is how the world sees you.

Rita Suzanne: 6:15

Let’s dive into your second element, which is brand recognition. This is something that I love to talk about. It’s a very hot topic. I see others who focus on some aspects of branding talking about your brand messaging. That is a piece of your brand recognition, but my favorite part of it is brand consistency. They do go hand in hand, but I think consistency is the most important aspect of it. We’re going to talk about both.

Rita Suzanne: 6:54

In this aspect of your brand’s recognition, your brand is more than just a logo. I’ve been saying that for years. You can have the most amazing logo in the world, but it’s not your entire. It’s not the entirety of your brand your visuals. Staying consistent in what you put out is important. Your visuals are things like your logo, your color, your fonts and your web design. Then let’s talk a little bit about your messaging. Your messaging is how you convey your brand on all platforms, just the words that you use across social media and on your website and even inside of your emails. It’s all about how you’re saying things and what it appears. You know how it looks, so I’m always telling my clients to stay consistent with their brand, colors and fonts and things of that nature, right? So let me give you an example.

Rita Suzanne: 8:08

I’ve been using Canva for creating images for a while, because it’s easy for my team to use as well. I can go in there and create a template, and then it’s easy for my team to go in there and actually make images for me, especially for this podcast. But when I rebranded recently, I updated one of my main fonts. It’s not available in Canva. I guess I could upload it to Canva, but I haven’t been doing that and I’ve been using Adobe again, and Adobe created a platform that’s very similar to Canva, called Express, and I have to say there are some aspects of Express that I actually love more than Canva, and it has the same abilities in some ways, but I’ll have to record a training on it soon, but I digress. Anyways, I started using Express so that I can stay consistent with my brand visuals, and obviously I’ve been an Adobe user for years and I love it, and so I wanted to check out what their comparable offer was so that I could see if I, maybe if I would leave Canva and just start using Express as my primary.

Rita Suzanne: 9:35

Anyways, let’s circle back around to brand messaging and think about the tone and the language that you use when you’re communicating to your audience. And so, for instance, I like to say that my brand this is how I describe my brand messaging overall when the things that I like to put out are professional and yet still a little bit sassy. So I like to have a little bit of wit and sass in my brand, but I like to remain professional as well. So I don’t want it to feel anything else other than like professional, educational, a little bit of wit and sass, because I’m a little bit of a spitfire, but I don’t, you know, don’t want my brand to be completely. I still want to be taking seriously, right. So those are kind of the words that I use to Describe my own brand messaging.

Rita Suzanne: 10:44

But let’s talk about you for a second. Let’s talk about what what you can do in order to what actions can you take for your own brand and the consistency. So Ask yourself Do you have two to three main brand colors? If not, I want you to quickly research color psychology and Then think about do those color choices match the emotion that you want your brand to evoke? Also, I want to tell you, when I first started branding about 10 years ago, one of my favorite books that I got into was this book I’m going to recommend. If you, if you’re into these type of things, this is the book I would recommend. It’s called how to style your brand by Fiona Humberstone. Okay, so if you are really into stuff like that, that’s the book I would recommend. It’s all about you know color psychology and things of that nature as well. So the next question I would have you ask yourself is in is your brand voice professional and Authoritative? Is it friendly and relatable? Think about those things and make sure that your messaging is consistent and it aligns with your target audience’s expectations. So you know, obviously I’ve been probably preaching from the rafters about Target audience for years. It is Probably, to me, one of the most, if not the most important aspect of your brand is really determining your target audience, but let’s tap into what makes your brand unique.

Rita Suzanne: 12:36

This is where your brand personality shines. So what’s your brand’s personality right? Think of it as the overall vibe that people get from your business. It’s shaped by your story, your values and even the unique approach you use to what you offer. Oftentimes, when I talk to clients or other people, they mention the struggle to determine what makes them different from everyone else like. But that’s an important aspect of your brand personality and Oftentimes they’ll compare themselves to maybe their competition and look at them and say they look like they have it all together. Or even looking at the other person’s credentials might make them feel that they can’t compete with them. Or, you know, maybe they feel like their credentials are not as impressive and I want to tell you don’t let that hold you back.

Rita Suzanne: 13:38

I taught myself Everything I need to know about designing websites, online marketing, branding, seo, all of the things that I needed systems, processes all of that in order to run my own business. I taught myself those things, obviously one step at a time. One client would ask for something and then I would dive deep into that thing. So I don’t have the credentials of maybe some designers or some branding Experts have. However, I have the experience of ten years and I don’t let my lack of Like formal education stop me from knowing that I know what I’m talking about, and I don’t want that to hold you back either. So you are you and your experiences are what make you different. So keep that in mind. Discovering your unique value proposition or your UVP is Going to help you create your confident brand personality.

Rita Suzanne: 14:43

So let’s, let’s do this exercise. This is a little bit of a longer exercise, so what I want you to do is picture your favorite customer. Now describe them in five words, like five adjectives. These are the words that are key to identifying your purse, your brand personality, right. But if you struggle to visual, visualize your ideal client, let’s, let’s try a different exercise. This one I think you might like a little bit better.

Rita Suzanne: 15:15

Right, it’s called if my brand were right. It’s it if my brand were exercise. So if my brand were a person, who would they be? Maybe they would be a trusted mentor, a stylish friend, you know something along those way or along those lines. If my brand were a car, what kind would it be? Would it be a reliable minivan, sleek, sports car, you know on and on the list, you know. Fill in your adjectives from there. If my brand were a place, where would it be? Would it be a cozy coffee shop? Would it be a bustling mall or city center of sorts? What? Where would it be?

Rita Suzanne: 16:00

And it’s interesting because I use this Adjectives exercise with my clients and I do it in a different way, but this is a. This is a good alternative, because I obviously can’t show you what I’m doing, but I I use this exercise and one thing that we do is we find the adjectives that best describe your brand and that helps create the tone, which then, in turn, help create the visuals that you have for your brand. And when you are doing that, you take those adjectives and then you put them into Pinterest and then inside of Pinterest, you search for the visual equivalent of those adjectives and then you put them together in a board and then that creates the overall. It helps you to, or helps someone like me, look at that board and determine the actual Color palette and fonts and style of the person I guess the personality so that we can create color palettes and stuff for you. So my point is One of the examples that I always give is about an open door, right.

Rita Suzanne: 17:13

If somebody says open, like they want, one of their adjectives is open or inviting or something of that nature, and then I always say to them if you were inside of Pinterest and you you’re looking for that adjective, I would say look at an open door adjective. Open door, right, and it’s inviting and it helps them to create that, because a lot of people it’s like how do you find an adjective for a person who’s inviting, right, like we look at it from a different, different aspect and let’s go back to the if we were, if my brand were, exercise. These comparisons are going to help you create those Visual associations that are going to help you tap into your brand personality, just like I was describing in the Pinterest adjective or Exercise. So you can also list like five to seven core values that you’re you have in your business. Is it innovation, compassion, sustainability? You know things like that. So you can list these other Other values and those could act as guideposts as well for you to develop a matching brand personality.

Rita Suzanne: 18:42

Some other things that you could do to create your brand personality is a competitor Analysis and then gather feedback from your existing clients, if you have them, determining your brand personality and UVP your unique value proposition can take a bit of reflection, but just keep revisiting it and then you’re going to get the best results. Okay, okay. So those are the three elements of a memorable brand, and also, I want you to remember that building a brand is Going to help you attract your ideal clients, it’s going to help you fuel your growth and it takes these three things right brand purpose, brand consistency and brand personality and these are all aspects of your brand strategy. I Feel like your brand strategy is way more important than your brand identity, although they work together as a team. So just keep those in mind.

Rita Suzanne: 19:44

If you know your brand strategy, then you are able to convey Everything else to the world. You can find all of these questions and these exercises in the show notes for today’s episode. I’d love it if you’d share one action that you’re going to take this week from this podcast and Tag me on social media. You can find me at branding with Rita on all platforms, and I would just want to say thank you for listening to this first solo episode of Mom owned and operated. It’s been a pleasure.

And there you have it. I want to encourage you to remember that being a mom who runs her own business is not easy. We all struggle, but just keep moving forward. And don’t forget to make time for yourself. As moms we are usually the first thing to go to the bottom of the list. If your business is overwhelming you and you need real solutions, not just some sugar coated suggestions apply to work with me at ritasuzanne.com/apply