What does it mean to spark your brand?
Here at Spark Your Brand we have a very specific vision of what success looks like to us. We've worked with entrepreneurs, start-ups and bic companies and have seen the same common pitfalls preventing true success. You can have a great idea, a great technology, but the devil is in the details, in the implementation.
The one thing
I recently had a conversation with an artist/entrepreneur friend of mine, who I have known and worked closely with over our more than decade long friendship. We had a rather riveting two hour long conversation about life, business and strategy more generally and started a discussion around Gary Keller´s book and concept, The One Thing. The one thing is a method to focus on what matters most in your personal and work lives.
So I asked my friend, what was the one thing his business needed, to move the needle? To set him up for success and growth.
“The one thing I need to move the needle, is to grow my business. To grow my business, I need leads. The best place to find leads is social media. Social media is my main vehicle for selling. ”
This led us down an entire conversation around mission statements and visually mapping out your customer roadmap.
So, without further ado, here we present the five things your brand needs for success and growth, ideally in chronological order
The six steps to sparking your brand
1, Vision
Mission statement ready? Many of us think we are but is your mission statement his clear? I think we can all take a page out of Bruce Lee´s inspiring story and mission statement. Bruce Lee died at the age of 32, but had already accomplished his life´s mission statement - in large part due to the intent, specificity and contribution to society behind his now famous ¨My Definite Chief Intent.¨
To us, for a business to truly be a success, the mission statement has to come from such a place of intention and purpose that ultimately you are also contributing something of value back to others, to humanity or to our planet -- whether through some kind of innovation, service or product.
2, Research
You need to have a vision not just for what you're selling, but how you're selling it. Build the customer roadmap in your mind and then visualize it on paper. Look at the key players or players doing something similar but in a different industry. What are they doing and how are they selling it? What are the processes and tools they are using? What processes and tools do you want to be using.
We at Spark Your Brand consult entrepreneurs and start-ups launching new products on how to build this vision and product marketing roadmap using a variety of tools and resources, depending on your needs and goals.
3, Design and build it
The next step is building it. Developing your brand identity, website and appropriate lead generation funnel. We offer brand identity services, turnkey Wordpress website design and development solutions. We also have experience working in Shopify, for strictly e-Commerce based businesses and SquareSpace. Many of our clients also come to us for website redesigns and brand overhauls. To us, simplicity sells. Whatever the case, our solutions focus on simple user experience and design, copy that sells with simple calls to action.
4, Sell it
Most of us understand the value in social media is in building community. When it comes to making buying decisions, consumers are very much effected by their social networks. Trust plays a key factor in this. According to Digital Intelligence and Nielsen research, word of mouth is still the most powerful influencer today. In fact, 92% of consumers are more likely to trust recommendations from their peers and network over advertising. The phenomenon applies across the board, whether in B2B or B2C.
“Quite simply, social media is a peer influencer when it comes to making buying decisions, as 71% of consumers are likely to purchase an item based on social media referrals.”
Social media is your main vehicle for selling - its the place to find leads, convert them and keep your customers engaged.
We offer social media management & content creation services on monthly retainers. We´ll work together to build a style and content guide and send you weekly reports and analytics on our progress.
5, Engage
An important part of sparking your brand is telling your story in an authentic way that resonates with your target audience. There are many ways of doing this kind of storytelling - through social media, videos, articles, email drip funnel campaigns, eBooks, PowerPoints and other marketing collateral. We have amazing content mavens on staff that have produced beautiful work.
6, Refine
To us, everything we do is about learning. We are constantly learning about the industry, trends, and also from our clients. We love the human centered, iterative approach behind design thinking and especially love how IBM visualizes it in their thought research, and use this three step process of observing, reflecting and making with all of our clients.
As we refine our process, so does our work with you. This feedback loop is critical for us, and is why we prefer and work best with clients that we can form long, trusting relationships with.
Statistics based on 2015 research.
Perhaps you´re already up and running and are just looking for some additional support to help refine and manage your processes, systems and tools. As digital nomads, we need to stay on top of the latest best practices, trends and tools and would love to help take your business to the next level, if this is an area you need support in.