Branding is Like Gardening: 3 Key Steps to Grow Your Brand
Branding is more than just creating a logo or visual elements. You need to go through a step-by-step process to build a foundation and then maintain a continuous effort to grow your brand. Maybe you’ve already gone through the process of building your brand, but it’s not doing as well as you had hoped. You might find that your brand doesn’t stand out from the crowd or it's not attracting your intended audience. Were your branding efforts wasted?
Not at all. Branding is a lot like gardening. I realized this when I started a garden in my backyard last year. I love growing flowers, vegetables, and herbs. I love the feel of the soil in my hands. The more gardening I do, the more similarities I see to branding.
Gardening requires a lot of work. Before the seeds can even be planted, the soil has to be prepared. Once I plant the seeds, I can’t just leave them. My job isn’t done yet. I need to water the seeds, pull the weeds out, prune away the dead branches, and fertilize. Even as the seeds grow, I still need to tend to them to keep them thriving. If I neglect any of these elements, they may start to get diseased.
Branding is the same way. If you don’t promote your brand or continue to support it, your brand won’t attract your target audience. Just as your plants won’t thrive without tending, your brand won’t grow without your continuous support. I know it’s a lot of work, but the end result is so rewarding. This is why it helps to love what you do. You need to have some passion for your brand.
When it’s harvest season in my garden, I get to enjoy the rewards for all of my efforts with some of the sweetest fruits and vegetables around. As a bonus, my blueberry bush attracts bunnies, birds, and squirrels - animals that I enjoy seeing. It’s a thrill for me to see my plants grow bigger and stronger each year.
Just like a garden, your brand doesn’t grow overnight. It takes time, patience, and hard work to grow your brand. Once your brand starts to grow, you will attract more of your desired audience and your sales will increase.
The 3 key steps to growing your brand
It takes continual effort to take your brand to the next level. If you follow the 3 steps below, you’ll start to see better results for your brand.
1 Create a brand seed ( strategy )
This is the most important step to build a brand. I call it a brand seed because it’s at the core of your brand. As I’ve mentioned in many of my previous posts, you shouldn’t create your brand visuals before completing this step. If you find that you’re not attracting your intended audience, you may need to go back and make sure that you’ve established a solid foundation. Your brand seed consists of the following elements:
• Your brand core (purpose, vision, mission, and core values)
Why does your business exist? This is the reason why you do what you do beyond making money ( purpose / never changes )
What do you hope your brand will achieve? ( vision / future )
How will you reach the future you envision? ( mission / present )
To achieve your vision, what are your beliefs and behaviors? (brand values)
• Your brand personality
This includes your voice, unique value proposition (how you are different from your competitors), and brand message. The brand message determines how you are going to communicate with your audience. It’s what makes your small business unique.
2 Plant a seed to sprout ( Visual identity )
Once you create a brand seed, you need to plant it in the right niche so it can stand out from the competition. Remember to keep your visuals simple and memorable, so your ideal clients can easily find and remember your brand.
You will attract a specific target audience by using the right combination of the following visual elements:
Logos
Color palette
Typography
Imagery
Patterns / graphics
3 Care and maintenance ( Marketing/ promotion )
Can you imagine going through all the efforts of creating a top-notch brand and then not doing anything with it? The creation of your brand is only the beginning of the process. Now you need to promote your brand. It’s time to let your audience know how your product is different from your competitors and what they can expect from you. This will help your brand to stand out from the crowd.
In my experience, many people want to skip the first step. But if you want to grow your brand, you first need to establish a strong foundation. Once your foundation is established, you can bring it to life with visuals. So let’s say that you’ve gone through all of the hard work to build a foundation and you’ve created stunning visuals to go with it. Now what?
At this point, you need to find where your ideal clients hang out and promote your brand there.
What social media platforms do your clients spend most of their time on?
What keywords do your clients use when searching for a product or service similar to yours?
This is the part where a lot of people tend to give up if they don’t get good results. You need to put your brand into the right market and promote it. If it doesn’t work the first time, then you need to make adjustments and promote it again. You repeat this process until you get it right. Eventually, your brand will start to attract more of your target audience.
But just like in gardening, weeds inevitably creep in. Weeds can inhibit your plants by competing for precious nutrients and sun. Gardeners pull the weeds out to allow the plants to thrive. Just like weeding, you can simplify your brand by removing the clutter and distractions so your message will stand out more.
Have you ever found that your brand promotions work well in the beginning, but over time the results start to wane? This is similar to watering or fertilizing your plants. The plants get a quick boost at first, but the effects eventually fade. At that point, you may need to check-in, adjust, and try again to get a better result.
Plan
Do
Check
Act
Conclusion:
Brands don't grow overnight. However, over time, if you consistently care for your brand and nurture it every day, your brand will grow. Remember to care for your brand just as you would your garden. Keep checking in on your brand to see if it’s achieving the desired results. If not, then it’s time to make some adjustments and watch for improvement. Keep repeating this process until you’re getting the results you’re looking for. As a designer and brand consultant, there is nothing more rewarding to me than seeing your brand and your audience grow bigger.
I hope this article is helpful. Please feel free to leave any questions you may have.