The Six Branding Strategies That DOUBLED My Income In 2022
With 140 saves and shares in just a few days, it seems like this post got some people thinking.
So, let's deep dive into each of the six strategies I touched on in Monday's social post and really break down why each of them worked, and how you can copy and paste my results.
BRANDING STRATEGY #1
I niched, niched, niched
If you’re trying to appeal to every possible person who might ever want or need what you sell, you're playing a losing game.
A boring, uninspiring, losing game.
I know that sounds harsh, but hear me out…
There are a plethora of people who may be a potential candidate for what you offer. That doesn’t mean you should design your brand for every single one of them. It means you should design your brand for the one you want to work with the most.
In 2022, I did a ton of soul searching about the type of business and client I wanted to have. That meant doing some serious reflecting about what type of work felt energizing and what felt draining. At the end of it, I discovered that I wanted to:
A) Design for myself and based on my own aesthetic more
B) Work with more creative, unique, personality-rich brands
C) Embrace my romantic side and attract clients who did the same
Based on these conclusions, I pivoted my entire aesthetic to honor my love for romanticized living, poured heart into my messaging to attract clients who were aligned with my personality and value system, and made a huge push to get in front of more creatively-driven business owners.
As a result, I…
1) Built a website template shop as a second source of income (designs based ENTIRELY on my own creative freedom).
2) Overhauled my brand look, client process, and brand positioning to claim my role as the creative director of my brand builds rather than as a designer executing other people’s ideas, and…
3) Invested in educating myself on how to create massive value for creative and service-based entrepreneurs through brand strategy, design, and content creation.
This lead to attracting clients with DREAM personalities who trusted me to take the creative reigns and were ready in invest in me and their brand in a big way.
It also lead to me turning down small potatoes work, projects that weren’t in my area of true genius, and clients who simply didn’t vibe with my process or personality. It created the space I needed to say YES to the truly aligned projects.
BRANDING STRATEGY #2
I started pricing my services based on ROI potential
This one felt scary, but I removed all set pricing from my website and reevaluated how I thought about pricing my services.
First, I did extensive research on industry standard rates (turns out, I was WAY behind), but more importantly, I started evaluating my pricing on what it had the potential to EARN my client.
As a mentor of mine framed it, you wouldn’t charge a one person small business the same for branding work as you’d charge Nike, would you? No! Because working with Nike is not only going to ask more of you, the work you produce for them has the potential to earn them WAY more money in return than the work you do for a mom and pop shop.
Essentially, I switched my mentality from:
Putting a set price on deliverables
to
Earning a “commission” off of the work I produce.
BRANDING STRATEGY #3
I made my brand a cohesive experience for myself and my audience
I spent the year streamlining my brand and my process in the following ways:
A) Made my website easy to understand, beautiful, and engaging with a crystal clear call to action (inquire or subscribe)
B) Created a consistent content schedule to stay top of mind with my subscribers (my hope is always that subscribers will eventually become clients when they’re ready to make the investment)
C) Streamlined the client process so every single project runs the same way, through the same systems
D) Automated everything humanly possible
E) Batched my ENTIRE LIFE
The tea on this last one?
Multitasking is a lie the corporate world sells you to normalize overworking and undervaluing you.
Our brains don’t like or function well in a multitasking environment; we miss details, overlook things, we become frazzled from being pulled in multiple directions at once, etc.
Here’s what your brain is really craving: HYPER. FOCUS.
When I eliminated the idea that I could successfully focus on 27 different things a day, my world changed.
I started creating hyper focus days where I work on one type of task a day.
Monday and Friday are for coaching and calls, Tuesday and Thursday I focus on client work, Wednesday I work ON the business to push internal initiatives forward.
At the end of every month, I block two days out for the next month’s content creation, one day for Ink & Vellum, one day for District Site Shoppe).
Wash, rinse, repeat.
BRANDING STRATEGY #4
I branded the way I screen, pitch, and book clients
Before clients even get on the phone with me, they’ve interacted with my brand through my website, through a detailed services guide, and through a thoughtful project inquiry. This allows me to weed out anyone who’s not a good fit for me or my business by telling them the following:
A) The kind of person they’re going to be working with
B) That they’ll be making a significant investment in their business hiring me
C) What they’ll get out of our working relationship
D) What they WON’T get out of our working relationship
E) That by hiring me, they're hiring a creative director and are comfortable allowing me to lead that process
Through a discovery call, I then dive deep into 1) their biggest brand issues, 2) their brand needs, and 3) who they are.
This is all followed by a branded, 3-tier investment option proposal.
Giving people options for how they can potentially work with me has made a huge difference in my conversion rates and the overall enthusiasm my clients have about creating a working relationship.
BRANDING STRATEGY #5
I made a high end service more accessible through payment plans
In 2022, I began offering six month payment plans for all proposed services over the $5k price point (an option most of my clients now take).
This creates reliable monthly income for me, and an easier to budget option for them.
The plus side?
Clients who opt into the payment plan are often making their money back from the work we do together before the project payment plan is even up. Talk about a win, win.
BRANDING STRATEGY #6
I made who I am just as important as who I'm selling to
In business, it’s so important to have your finger on the pulse of your ideal client - what they like, what their struggles are, who they are, who they want to be, etc.
But I’ve learned it’s just as important to communicate who YOU are through your brand.
We all want to work with people we can relate to, so if we produce brands that don’t show our personalities, our values, and our mission, our potential clients have no real sense of whether or not they can trust us with their dreams, goals, businesses, money, etc.
To address this, I did a lot of work getting in touch with myself and poured that into my content and my brand aesthetic so every second of interacting with my brand felt like having a conversation with a warm, kinda funny friend who GETS you.
Turns out, being human is actually what sells - not having the best, cheapest, loudest, coolest product or service.
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P.S. Love our style but looking for a more entry level investment? Check out District Site Shoppe, our new space to purchase affordable, customizable website templates designed to convert and lovingly crafted by yours truly.
xoxo
