Develop your brand

- [Instructor] As designers or illustrators we often invest our time in making sure our brand is a visual expression of our work. Sometimes we forget the power behind how our work really empowers others or how they make them feel. To have a more profound impact we need to invest some time in understanding why our customer buys. And let me explain this a little bit more. You see when we look back at the term branding, it really derives from burning a mark right? This is how back in the Egyptian days they would mark their livestock and the whole idea was for it to say this is mine. Now we fastforward a little few years later down the road and branding has evolved so much since then. It's the way we communicate across the board that makes it so crucial. Visuals and your brand messaging need to align. And as designers and illustrators, our work can have such a profound impact that we really need to help people connect and understand how our products and services help them. So we need to consider every touchpoint related to our brand, not just the visuals. Let me explain a little more what this means. You want to consider how your work creates a customer experience, this is a touch point to your brand. People associate that how do they feel after working with you, it's that impression you leave behind. How does your work help them raise their brand value and along the side how are you raising value to your own brand and you also want to think about how you can help others increase their sales. At the end of the day every business wants to know how you can help them make more money. So as you develop your brand you want to make sure you hone in on your own creative edge. Now let's get a little more specific as far as what these touch points can be. So you have your pre-purchase and these are all touch points that can be as far as social media impressions how people see you on social media, your signage your website, if you have a consultation how did that experience go with them? Word of mouth, your portfolio, all these things can have an impact on how people associate your brand. Now we look into the purchase area and this is where you have your onboarding section so how do you bring in your clients, how do you start a project with them, all these associate to your brand, your meetings, the environment if you have an actual store front. These all influence the way that people associate your brand. Then we go into the post purchase area which is any follow-ups that you do after working with them. Do you have to provide any customer training let's say you are a web developer you have to provide some training to your clients relating to their website, all these things are part of developing your brand and they're so crucial to the way that you communicate. So you've got to think of all these things in detail, your portfolio presentations, how this aligns with your client. So as you bring these together, you need to consider every touch point that we just talked about. You see every touch point is a tool that helps sharpen your brand and it helps influence that positive association and to be remembered by others so that you can continue to grow your business.