Building a Brand: 3 Questions to Ask Yourself

September 21 2020 | Inspiration , Downloadables , Marketing

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Building a brand isn’t easy. It requires lots of time and sacrifice, hard lessons and failures, and most importantly, being honest about what it is you’re building and why you’re building it.

We had to answer each of these questions when building PLANOLY. Sometimes those answers changed, and we changed as a result. We were constantly evaluating our company and adapting to the changes in our industry and our lives. For us, we never wanted to build a business just for the sake of having a business. Money wasn’t our focus; we wanted to solve real problems and add value to the small business community.

As a mom, wife, and small business owner with an emerging jewelry line in New York City, I needed a social media tool to help simplify my life. PLANOLY was born out of that need. But it quickly became clear to me that other mompreneurs needed this tool. So did other small business owners struggling to juggle family life while chasing down their dreams. We knew that PLANOLY was something that people needed. But how did we reach them? And how could we build a brand and a tool that spoke directly to the audience we wanted (and needed) to reach?

During a recent digital summit where PLANOLY partnered with Madewell and Create & Cultivate, I discussed Instagram growth strategies and also touched on those core brand building questions. Today, I want to expand on them a bit more and really explore why they matter and how they’ll help shape your brand.

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Three Questions to Ask Yourself When Building a Brand

What are you good at?

Be honest with yourself about what you’re good at. What are you passionate about? What do you do better than anything else? How can that skill impact people?

Find out where your creativity lies and use it to bring joy to yourself and others. We’re always at our best when we create from the heart. You should look inside yourself to solve problems for your community.

Being authentic and having good intentions should be your compass when building a brand and creating content. Doing what you’re good at makes this so much easier and truer to your purpose.

Who is your target audience?

Before moving to Austin and planting roots for PLANOLY, Andy and I were bootstrapping my jewelry line, all while raising our son Teddy in New York City. And although we were making it, burnout quickly consumed us.

But we weren’t the only small business owners, creatives, or entrepreneurs experiencing burnout trying to balance family, friends, work, and everything else. Because of this, we were able to look at ourselves and our peers and find that our target audience–for what would be PLANOLY–was all around us.

Identifying your target audience makes all the difference when building a brand. It allows you to ideate with intention and create with purpose. With PLANOLY, we knew that we personally had a lot in common with our target audience so we understand that bringing them along for the journey would connect us! This also helps you build trust with your audience. Honesty and transparency are so important when identifying and connecting with your target audience.

Where do you find them?

Finding your audience is much easier than it used to be. Social media really democratized entrepreneurship. It has leveled the playing field for anyone who is good at anything or has a passion for sharing what brings them joy, and naturally that allowed creatives to build businesses in the digital space.

Find out which social media platforms your target audience prefers and meet them there. Don’t make them come to you; take your stories and your products where they live. Your content and story have to give context as to why the audience should care and invest in your brand in a way that speaks to them. And the first step in doing that is communicating in a venue where they feel comfortable.

Building a brand is a lot like building a family. It’s rewarding, it’s stressful, it’s exciting, it’s maddening, it’s joyful, it’s sometimes defeating, but it’s always worth it. It ends up defining you, and lighting a path toward your purpose.

Creating PLANOLY was a labor of love. There were ups and downs but we’re so thankful that we built PLANOLY with a purpose and a plan to help people. I knew that my personal problems weren’t unique. But I was certain that I could add uniqueness to this industry by building something to help others facing similar issues. That’s PLANOLY’s purpose. What’s yours?

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