Who knows the importance of branding? If you own a small business or any business at all, your branding is the one main aspects that draws a customer and pulls your audience keeping them captivated and interested. Here are a few simple things to keep in mind when thinking about branding.

1. Find your story:

   • This is so important when understanding who your products will draw in. If you have a strong background story, a strong personality, and a strong impression.

   • If you have a strong story, you will keep your audiences attention. So once they buy your product, they will continue to be interested in what you have to say, do and produce.

   • Take the example of Apple. Each year they come out with a new phone that promises something better than a phone. They use stories to draw on emotions and human connections to make you feel like your life will be fulfilled with a new phone. They have a good story and it goes a little something like this: A Christmas commercial of a family during the holidays. It flashes through many holiday family traditions in a home, and back to a young boy on his phone. Everyone keeps looking at the boy. The scene switches to everyone going into the living room to watch something. At this point, the young boy flicks his finger and plays a video of a recap of the holiday weekend together capturing everyone’s hearts. At the end, their logo appears. End scene.

   • This is a perfect example of branding for a few reasons. The biggest is that there is a story, a promise of something more with their product.

2. Find your theme AKA make it visually appealing.

   • From the obvious topics like Instagram layout to colors for logo and website to labels and print outs, remember that everything needs to have the same “vibe” to it. Think Pinterest, Twitter, email profile photos, personal account photos and the like. Everything will tie together in this age and having everything come full circle can help your audience stay in that circle.

   • Currently, Vertical Ledge is transitioning from warm, earthy tones to bright whites due to finding a studio that is more affordable, more accessible color pallet and a shift in emotional presence.

   • When we first started, our colors were blue and brown. Then it shifted because we moved to greys and blacks for our make-shift garage photobooth. Then we transitioned to earthly tones for one photoshoot before finding the perfect little spot that we can use from here on out.

   • All that being said, it is important to think through where you will be taking your photos and how you can make that space work for more than a few months at a time.

3. Stay positive and keep at it when things get slow. It can be overwhelming to pick and choose each little detail and feel as if all your success depends on the perfect branding BUT just like everything, it takes practice so give yourself grace and room to grow!

If you want more in-depth branding training, head to Pheobe over on Girl Gang Craft. In this live workshop-style class, you will learn all about how branding can turn your business around.

That’s all for now friends

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Sydney