5 Tips for Spring Cleaning Your Service-Based Business or Personal Brand
Ahhh spring. The most unpredictable season to dress for and the one brimming with most excitement for all things clean, shiny, and new. We’re emerging from our winter slumps and are feeling the urge to breathe new life into the things that surround us — our homes are getting the deep cleans they’ve been craving, our closets are being purged, drawers are being organized, and we’re making an all around effort to space to invite in a freshness that’s been missing for months.
Are you doing the same for your business?
Maybe. But also maybe not.
Maaaybe you don’t know where to start or what that would even look like. So to help you get started with the process of spring cleaning your business I thought I’d create a little list of five things you can do specifically for the brand-related aspects of your business. If you’re keen, let’s dive in!
Evaluate Your Branding
The first step to refreshing your branding is to evaluate what you’re working with — think of everything from your logo, colors, typography, and overall style. Does your current branding represent you in the way you want to be seen? Does it feel like the perfect combination of your personal essence and your professional presence? Is it consistent across all your marketing materials and platforms? If the answer to any of those questions is no, this is where you might want to spend some time getting clear on what an authentic brand identity would look and feel like for you.
(Can’t figure it out on your own? I’d be delighted to help!)
Update Your Website
Even if you’re not a web expert there are certain things you can do on your own to make your website more appealing, more optimized, and working better for you. These things include:
Making sure your content is up-to-date (ex. service descriptions, hours of service, bio, etc)
Prioritizing easy and intuitive navigation — guide people through your site using buttons and descriptive text links; tell them what you want them to do (ex. get in touch, click here, book an appointment)
Using consistent styling throughout the site: fonts, colours, button styles, image blocks and styles etc
Create a Style Guide
A style guide is a document that outlines the visual and stylistic elements of your branding, like your logo, colors, typography, and imagery dos and don’ts. Creating a style guide can help you maintain consistency in your branding across all your marketing materials and platforms and makes it easier for you (and/or your team) to create new materials as you need them.
Refresh Your Marketing Materials
Marketing materials such as business cards, brochures, and social media graphics can help you promote your service-based business or personal brand. Take the time to refresh these materials with your updated branding and design. This can include updating your logo, using new colors and typography, or incorporating new imagery.
If you don’t know where to get started creating things like this, Canva has some good starting points and Creative Market is brimming with delicious templates waiting for your beautiful branding.
Create some brand collateral pieces
Once you have your branding dialed and you’re feeling chuffed with it all, bring it off the screen. Print new business cards, make a tote, screenprint a sweatshirt, slap your logo on a mug… it doesn’t matter! And it doesn’t need to be for anything other than just to make you feel good — this tip is not to make you feel like you need to create a line of products or add an ecommerce section to your site. This step is just a celebratory one so you can hold your hard work in your hands, rather than on a device (which, yes, I know is technically held in your hands but you know what I meannnnn).
So there you have it — five tips to get you started spring cleaning your branding so you can feel good about the way you’re showing up!
If all of this sounds overwhelming and you still don’t know where to start, I’m here for you. Feel free to slide into my DMs with any questions or reach out for a chat so we can get you feeling excited, rather than stressed about it all — branding should be fun and make you feel empowered and stoked to show up. So if that’s not where you’re at, let me help get you there.
