Brand Guideline Questions to ask Yourself
When it comes to marketing, there are typically two places I suggest people start. Before you implement ANY marketing tactics, you should first review these brand guideline questions to ask yourself and second, create buyer personas.
In this blog post I'm going to share my general list of brand guideline questions to ask yourself. Once you have these in place you can then go on to create your buyer personas, aka a description of your ideal target market.
Once you have these two activities completed, you can go about designing and writing the copy for your website as well as any other marketing tactics you want to implement. I would highly recommend doing these two activities before doing anything else, otherwise, you may just be wasting time and effort.
Brand Guideline Questions to Ask Yourself
About YOU:
Who are you most passionate about serving?
What experiences in your life make you uniquely qualified for working with this audience?
What legacy do you want to have?
What testimonials will you have at the end of the year?
What will be your impact on your business? On the people you work with?
About The Business:
What is your business about?
What problem do you solve for your customers?
Who are your 3 main competitors (direct or indirect)?
What do you like about their presence?
What do you dislike about their visual identity?
What about your background or product or service sets you apart from your competitors?
Why should your prospects buy from you or engage with you?
Is there a unique story behind your business or business name or logo?
Share 5 adjective or words that best describe your company.
Who are you looking to help? (You'll get more into this in Buyer Personas.)
What types of language will and won't you use when talking about your product or services? What will be the overall tone of your business?
What do you look like?
Share 3 links of brands whose visual identity inspires you. What do you like best about them? Be as specific as possible.
Share 3 brands/logos that you thought were weak, and what made you feel that way. Be as specific as possible.
Using 5 adjectives or short phrases, describe your brand’s desired look and feel.
What colors do you think best visually convey your brand?
This is a great place to start for your business. Add questions to these guidelines to get even deeper into who you are and what you want your brand to be.
It's also important to remember that your brand guidelines may change over time. Make a point to check in with the answers to these questions every few months to see if they still hold true and if your marketing efforts are still holding true to these sentiments.
