Stephen Houraghan here of BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this video you're
gonna learn 10 tips to market your branding services so you can stop
waiting on referrals and start to build an actual business.
now when I became a freelancer for the first time I went about building my own brand and
I remember spending weeks on end developing that brand of the brand
identity the website and then when I push my website live I kind of felt like
all of a sudden I was out there and I was I was ready to go and I was kind of
expecting the door to start banging down for inquiries to start coming in the
door straightaway and I had this feeling like I had opened my shop doors in the
middle of Times Square when the reality of it was I had created a little
lemonade stand in the middle of the Sahara Desert so you know it took me a
while to realize that I had a long road ahead of me to really understand what I
needed to do to build an actual branding business and that's what I want to go
through in this video I want to lay out some of the tips and tricks that I
learned along the way so that you can shortcut your progression and build your
branding business number one position yourself effectively now if you've gone
out into the marketplace and position yourself as services for small
businesses well then you haven't positioned yourself at all because at
the end of the day if you think about it's only three types of businesses
small medium and large and if you're producing branding services or design
services for small businesses well then that's pretty much everybody except for
medium to large businesses so really take the time to think about who you
want to serve what type of client do you want to work with what kind of work do
you want to do what kind of niche or industry do you want to serve and really think
about where you can offer the most value where you can offer the best kind of
service so really think about what you want to do in the market what you want
to be known for and take the time to position your brand effectively number
two develop a brand persona now you might be shy and introverted or you
might be the most charismatic person in the room but when it comes to your
brand and who you're trying to connect with you need to understand the type of
person or personality that they are and the desires that they have and then to
portray the characteristics that they're going to be most attracted to so really
think about what you're trying to do in the connection that you're trying to
make here and rebuild a brand out so that you have this human persona front and
center and that your brand feels like somebody that your audience can engage
and kind of get that interaction with and it feels approachable and it feels
human number three tailor your messaging now this is absolutely without a doubt
one of the biggest advantages of positioning yourself effectively in that
you can talk to your audience more specifically in much more detail as
to their situation what they're feeling the journey they're on the
challenges and pain points that they have the outcome that they want to
achieve you can get a lot more specific with your messaging and the more
specific you are the more you will resonate with who they are and if you
resonate well then they will feel that you understand them and you know you can
make that connection that is how you're really going to engage your audience if
they feel that you understand them through your specific and tailored
communication and messaging so tailor that communication once you've
positioned yourself effectively tailor that communication to speak to that
exact audience number four develop your story now just to clarify here this is
not your story and if you're building out a story for your brand the story is
not about you it's not about your journey how you became a designer or a
brand specialist or anything like that it's about your audience who they are
and the journey that they're on now if you are somebody who is targeting
somebody else in your exact same position or on the exact same journey
that you were on well then you can create a story that will resonate
directly with them but if your situation is slightly different let's say you're a
brand specialist and you're targeting specific entrepreneurs in a specific
industry well then you know you want to develop a story that resonates with who
they are a story about somebody on a journey that they're going through
because if they see themselves within your story then that again will resonate
with them hit home and you will be able to engage
them through that story number 5 create a brand presence now this will come
naturally to you if you are a designer you're probably used to designing brand
identity systems maybe even websites but this is what you need to do now to bring
your brand to life visually you know you've got your brand strategy behind
you you've got your positioning and your messaging and your story and your
persona now you want to bring that to life visually and put yourself out there
so put yourself out there through your your website and through your social
pages and any collateral that you have and start to bring that to light
visually so you can introduce your brand to the world number 6 take your prices
down now I remember I flip-flopped between having my prices up there on my
website and not wanting to have them up there and I remember thinking at the
time if I had my prices up there and somebody came to my website they would
see what I charge and therefore if I fell within their budget they would be
more likely to get in contact with me but what I learned over time is that you
know the people getting in contact because of prices they're not the type
of clients that you want to have on your books they end up becoming more
expensive and you know they're always trying to squeeze you on price and look
at the end of the day you know people order food from a menu and if you have
your services up on your website just like a menu well then you know as I said
you're not attracting the right client so get your prices down and come up with
a better system and I'll show you in the tips upcoming had to do that number 7
create a funnel now this is not something that they teach you in design
school had to go out and get clients but something that I learned and it
took me quite a few years to learn this was about marketing about funnel
marketing and about understanding the journey that your client is on your
prospects are on and giving them and facilitating them to step closer to
becoming a client so what you want to do is you want to make it as easy as
possible for your website visitors to become clients so if you understand you
know every single step that they need to take to become warmer and warmer so that
they're you know ready for your offer they're ready to become a client well
then you can put those steps out there into the marketplace and
you know the first step would be a lead magnet something
of value that they can download and get a feel for the type of value that you
offer and then from there maybe you would have an email drip sequence and
you know that would follow up with them with a few emails over the course of a
few days and then possibly an offer after that or the opportunity for a
phone call but you need to understand the steps that you want your audience to
take that you want your prospects to take to get closer to becoming an actual
client because you know nobody's just gonna come to your website and just
gonna they're just gonna buy straightaway it doesn't happen that way
you need to understand the importance of funnel marketing and progressively
bringing somebody closer to becoming a client it does take on average around
about 8 to 10 touch points for somebody to warm to the opportunity of becoming a
client so really understand funnel marketing and understand how you can
apply that to your business number 8 develop a sales / teaching process now
early on in my career I was in sales I worked at a call center I used to pick
up the phone and cold call people to sell them into different products now I
was actually quite good at it but the reality was I hated it I really didn't
like it I didn't like any minute of my day when I was in that role despite the
fact that I was good at it because there was just so much rejection I would pick
up the phone and I would dial numbers and I would spend the whole day you know
people hanging up the phone on me and you know even when I did get into a
situation where I was selling somebody into something it just felt kind of
awkward it just felt like I was putting pressure on them and it's
just not something that I like so I don't like selling I don't like being
sold to so you know I developed the system over time to navigate that so you
know the people that I was speaking to didn't feel like I was selling to them
and I didn't feel like I was selling to them either so I learned how to educate
my clients to give them enough information that they needed to know
that I was a good fit for their business that I was going to be right for them
that I was going to do right by them and produce a good result for them so you
need to learn the importance of the sales process but you know you don't
necessarily need to go down the road of hard sales if you can educate
your clients if you can come up with a system to teach your clients on the
benefits of the value that you offer well then you know they're gonna come to
that epiphany themselves that they need your help so come up with that process
of bringing them closer along to becoming a client by teaching them about
the value that you offer number nine construct an offer now along with
understanding funnel marketing and making it easy for your prospects to
come step by step towards what it is that you have to offer your offer needs
to make it easy for them as well so again if you just have services up on
your website well then that's not enough for somebody to make a decision that
they need to engage you for your services you need to package that up in
a way it's gonna make it easy for them to know what they are getting to know
what the outcome is gonna be so you need to construct an offer that's gonna be
compelling to them to take action now if you've done this correctly you will have
brought them through a funnel system that will take them step by step closer
to becoming ready for that offer now as I said maybe that's through a lead
magnet where you give them some initial value an email drip system where you
follow up with continuous value over time so by the time they come to your
offer they're warmed to what it is that you're putting in front of them but then
that offer itself needs to be constructed well so it needs to be clear
on the outcome that they're going to get from whatever it is that you're offering
to them and it needs to be presented to them in a very clear way so understand
what it is that you're offering to your prospect I make it as easy as possible
for them to buy number ten to find your marketing strategy now as I said before
when you build it they don't just come that old adage it doesn't hold
water when you build your website you realize that unless you've got a system
to drive traffic to that website then you're gonna be sitting there twiddling
your thumbs and you know you're not going to be getting those inquiries that
you thought you would be doing but if you do take the time to develop your
funnel so that you know the steps you're bringing your prospects through and you
know the offer that you're gonna put in front of them and you have a sales or
teaching process to you know convince them that you are the person to do
business with well then what you need to do now is to drive traffic to that
website to go through that system now in order to do that you need to
understand who your audience is and where they're congregating and what type
of information they're gonna be open to when you know you're putting your your
services in front of them when you're putting your value in front of them is
that gonna be content marketing are you gonna create articles you're gonna
create how-to videos are you going to contribute to forums or to groups and go
in there and be the most helpful person within that group or within that forum
or are you going to use paid advertising you're gonna use Google AdWords are you
gonna use social media advertising Facebook advertising what is it that
you're going to do to drive the traffic to your website so you can start putting
them through that system so you bring them closer to a sale and number eleven
show up consistently now if you follow every single step up until this point
you will be in a position now where you have all of the pieces of the puzzle
you've got everything in place you've got your system they're ready to bring
cold leads through to becoming clients and to producing that revenue but what
you need to do now is to continue marketing to those people continue
driving traffic to your website continue putting them through your funnel and
then through your sales process to becoming clients now does this mean that
you need to have blind faith that what you have done on what you have put in
place in the first place is correct no it doesn't mean you need to have blind
faith you need to keep your eyes open and you need to optimize and improve
where possible but what you do need is you need a little bit of resilience you
need to continue to show up again and again and again it's not something that
will happen for you overnight it's not something that will necessarily happen
for you in the first week or a month or even quarter but if you do continue to
show up consistently you will get better at whatever it is that you're doing
whether it's creating content or creating how-to videos or optimizing
those ads through Facebook or through Google Adwords whatever it is that
you're doing to bring people through to your website and how ever you're
bringing them through that funnel through that sales or promotional or
teaching process that we spoke about earlier then you're going to learn
you're going to get better and you're going to be able to optimize so you can
refine every single step and this is what a building of business is all about
you just throw up a website today you don't
just build it and they will come there are a lot of pieces to the puzzle and
you need to understand what you need to have in place to bring people through to
your business and convert them into a client so that they pay you for your
services so these are the tips that that if I was going back to give myself
some advice these are the tips that I would give myself and it
took me a long time to learn each and every one of these processes and to
integrate them into my business as I said it took me years and years and
years to really come up with this system so take the time to go back through
these tips and really understand what you've already got in place within your
business and where you don't have your systems in place within your business
and then do what you need to do to implement these tips and to implement
these processes and techniques into your own business but I'd love to hear from
you where you are on your journey of building your branding business have you
just cut the cord of your secured in-house role or your studio design role
to go out into freelance for the first time or are you a couple of years in and
you're starting to realize some of the things that I've spoken about here and
started to implement them into your business I'd love to hear from you if
you've got any questions at all in relation to any of these processes
please let me know in the comments below if you like this video please give it a
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where you are in your journey until next time brand like a master and I will see
you in the next video!