How To Design Your Brand Compass
Are you experiencing decision fatigue when it comes to figuring out how to get the most performance out of your marketing budget?
Confused about which is the best platform to promote your brand?
Have you tried partnering with creative service providers only to find your content is not generating the conversions you hoped it would?
45% of Businesses Fail in Their First 5 Years, and 65% Fail in Their First 10 Years
Not investigating the market, business plan problems, too little financing, remaining rigid, and expanding too fast are said to be the reasons why.
All of these issues can be avoided if you design your brand compass before you get started on launching or revamping any product or service.
In this resource, I will explain:
Why no one else can do this part for you.
Why you must start by defining your ethos.
Why you need to combine emotion with logic to create distinction.
How to design your brand to be future proof.
How to strengthen your brand position even if you need to pivot.
There’s a huge gap in the branding and marketing information landscape when it comes to learning why you are not getting the results you want from your branding and marketing efforts.
Designing your brand compass is your secret weapon for navigating your short and long-term brand strategy to reach your desired destination, wherever it may be.
Whether it’s business or personal - both follow the same formula to create a successful brand.
No One Else Can Do This Part For You
Wherever you are, you’re starting at a place that’s unique to you and no one else, because this is your journey.
It’s a signature no one else can sign for you.
You have to build and customize your specific “branding” tool to navigate toward the destination you’re designing in this moment before you can effectively endorse anything.
There are lots of experts who will give you step-by-step advice on the methods they used to achieve their position.
But your brand compass is not something you can hire out.
This is not that kind of advice, because you are not them.
You are not me.
You are the only you.
That’s why you have to be the designer of your brand compass.
I’m just here to show you how so you can finally achieve the results you’re looking for whether you hire help or DIY.
Define Your Ethos
Your ethos is an element of argument and persuasion through which you establish your credibility and knowledge, as well as your good moral character.
These are the key factors of establishing brand trust.
We will get into this subject more comprehensively in future resources, but for now, I'm providing this example to illustrate the basics:
About Joe's Plumbing
Joe has been a plumber in Lansing, MI for 23 years. He knows the ins and outs of all of the residential plumbing issues that occur most frequently in the greater Lansing area. He has a well-stocked warehouse of supplies and established relationships with material vendors that allow him to make guaranteed repairs (optional: often in half the time it takes all local competitors). Please take a moment to see what customers are sharing about their experience with us in our reviews. Call us for your free estimate.
It's easy to see why Joe would be great to ring up and get an estimate from if you're having a plumbing issue in the greater Lansing area:
Target - the location of his target market
Authority - time he's been in business shows experience in that target market
Differentiation - competitive manufacturer relationships/access to materials
Reputation - positive reviews (also show organizational accountability)
CTA - conversion incentive call-to-action (free estimate) that is trackable
That is a simple "brand messaging" ethos example from which you would pull your brand features and benefits.
Your Vibe | The Cornerstone of Distinction
Ethos fuel your legacy/drive as translated into two areas of life:
The present day. And…
The messaging you construct as the purpose behind your inspiration (ethos) that cultivates your vision for your life work.
Creating Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that stem from your brand compass is how you avoid dissonance and align with your values.
Combined, these two things inform what you’re aiming to become and help you realize what you want to accomplish.
How Is Ethos Affected by Pathos and Logos?
When using ethos in writing about and designing your brand compass, it is important to balance it out with the use of pathos and logos to build a complete and persuasive argument.
Pathos is an emotional appeal.
Pathos works to balance out ethos by providing more emotional resonance.
Your argument (authority) is better served by communicating its moral value and by relating to the reader through your past experience using emotional language.
Logos is a logical appeal.
Logos is most effective when grounded in credibility, or ethos.
Proving you have relevant experience or knowledge builds goodwill with the observer and draws them towards the same logical conclusion.
You may have heard the term “customer/client avatar”. Avatars are defined by asking yourself:
Who is my customer, and what is the emotional stressor I will logically ease for them with my product or service?
How does my style of delivering it make me more desirable than the competition?
These can be outlined in a series of features you have that translate into benefits for those who engage with you and or your product/service.
Your “vibe” is how you appeal to the emotion and logic of your target customer - i.e. the person whose life you’re changing for the better with your product or service.
The next step is the GAME CHANGER when it comes to your capacity to truly beat out the competition, and that is to show, then tell.
Build Your Legacy Now
Who is the hero of your brand?
The answer is you.
What has your client or customer’s journey been like to this point, and how can you help them get to the next level of their journey?
Define the purpose behind what you are portraying in messaging formats that will build the foundation of what you hope to build through your journey.
Ask yourself what content and or “experiences” you can produce for others that align with your ethos, no matter where you hope to pivot in the future.
Producing and publishing with this messaging in mind initially establishes your brand while it also paves the way for formally establishing your brand gravitas down the line.
This is how you create your brand legacy, and design “evergreen” content that will speak to where your enterprise aims to scale.
Gravitas comes from the word “gravity”, and is used to show the capacity for reputational dignity, force or pull.
Well-known brands follow their brand compass through the years to create a recognizable experience that other brands will nod towards, emulate, or merge into because of that brand’s industry dominance.
Walt Disney is one of the most popular examples of this.
Design Your Brand Compass To Scale Your Business
Plan to diversify and scale before you launch any endeavor if you can.
Without Vision, Your Goals Perish
Sure, dreams die… But you can be the phoenix that rises from the ashes as long as you live.
The key to resilience when championing any endeavor is knowing how to pivot.
You can pivot more effectively if you’ve designed your brand compass.
If you're dealing with a mound of scraps, go through them and see what you can salvage from your experience.
Use what you glean to lay the baseline of your reality and map clear, achievable steps you can take to monitor your habits of performance towards who or what you're becoming next.
It’s NEVER TOO LATE to revisit your hopes, and decide how you can improve your positioning and scale it, or diversify your position and scale in that way to come at your dream from a different angle.
Growth doesn't have to be big, but it's always important to monitor the health of your productivity and what it is producing, and always be building on the strength of your position.
Building On Brand Awareness
Once you have your KPIs up and running to create an overview of where your execution plan is succeeding, you can continue to build on the plausibility of fulfilling your dreams.
TLDR/Summary
If you don't design your brand compass and take ownership to ensure your creative aligns with it, you risk the cost of ineffectiveness.
If you design your brand compass and align your performance with delivering on it, you will generate positive recognition, conversion, and legacy for your brand.