Just getting started branding your handmade business?
Learn the basics and beginner steps that artists and makers can take to start branding their creative business.
Why branding is important for artists and creative small businesses
Your brand is the foundation of your business.
It’s the thing everything else is built upon.
When I work with artists and makers, I like to introduce them to a framework that I call the Badass Creatives Marketing Pyramid.
It's a helpful visual tool to remember what you should be focusing on the most:
At the bottom of the Marketing Pyramid is your foundation, your brand.
Your brand includes all the things that make your business uniquely yours.
It includes YOUR unique products, your art, your creative vision.
Your brand identity also includes the voice and the tone that you use to communicate with your customers, as well as visual branding elements like your logo, your colors, your fonts, and your aesthetic.
Your brand also includes your ideal customer and your target audience.
Knowing WHO you want to work with or sell your products to will help you determine what type of colors, imagery and language will appeal to those specific people.
Your brand comes first.
It can evolve and grow over time, but you need to have at least a basic idea of the brand you’re trying to create and the FEELING you’re trying to evoke with YOUR people.
A brand is your VIBE. And as they say, “Your vibe attracts your tribe.”
The middle of the pyramid is your owned marketing channels, including your website, search engine optimization, and email marketing.
These are things that you have control over.
They are assets that you can continue to grow and build and develop that will continue to bring profit and revenue.
And at the top of the pyramid is 3rd party marketing channels.
Third party is just what it sounds like: it's another person or entity.
Third party is also valuable, but it's at the top of the pyramid for a reason.
Third party includes things like social media platforms, paid ads, working with influencers, getting press and publicity for your business.
One of the mistakes that I see a lot of small business owners and handmade businesses make is that they start a business and they know that they need to market it. They're familiar with social media from using it as an individual user. And so they immediately gravitate towards social media as their primary marketing tools. But they neglect to build the foundation of their pyramid.
Focus MOST of your time and energy on creating a strong brand and getting your owned marketing channels in place.
Are branding and marketing the same thing?
They are closely related but they're not exactly the same thing.
Marketing is about promoting, communicating, and spreading the word about your work and your products.
Branding is about creating a unique identity for your creative business. It's your reputation, style, and what people think of when they hear your name.
Marketing is how you get your work out there, and branding is how you make people remember and love your work. Both are important for your creative business!
Where to start with branding your business as an artist or creative
In this video, I discussed some branding basics with my friend & small business branding expert Holly Marsh.
Holly Marsh is the founder of Ecommerce Arcade, where you can level up your ecommerce game with strategy, design, and heart. She's an illustrator and branding designer, with more than a decade of experience selling products online and in-person.
Holly says, "I do recommend starting with a really memorable, solid logo that's readable. Print it out in really small print and see how far you can go away from it, until you don't see it anymore. Because if you have a logo that's really unreadable, whether it's a very flourishy script font... it's not really going to make an impact and be memorable for someone who is seeing you at a craft show. If it's unreadable, when they're seeing that banner they may have to really look closely to see what it says."
What does branding include?
Branding is not just a logo.
In the video above, Holly and I also discussed the difference between a logo and a brand mark.
Holly says, "Alternate marks like a brand seal or a word mark can help leverage memorability with a brand. You can think of a logo as your primary logo. It's the thing that you use most often and it's usually the name of your business in a typeface or even handwritten or hand-lettered. A brand mark is usually something like either your brand name, initials or maybe even just a really iconic illustration or icon."
She explains, “A good example of this is Apple. We all remember the actual brand mark, which is the famous apple shape.
“That's the thing about branding that can be surprising. Sometimes you might find that there are some elements that are part of your brand identity that stand out even more than your logo. They're a little more memorable or they kind of take on life of their own.
“It's really exciting but ultimately the goal is so that all of the elements within your branded identity are cohesive and that they are memorable to where someone can even visualize your brand colors or what you make. With a memorable brand, they are immediately going to associate it with your brand.”
Holly suggests, "If you're on a budget, I'd say that a logo and a color palette are probably your best bet just to get started.
“You can always build off of that and maybe down the road you can rebrand with a full identity identity suite of assets. What I mean by assets are graphics, illustrations, patterns, color palette, typography, a couple of logo treatments.... That's like the whole gamut of things that could be part of a full brand identity.
“But if you're going more simple, I would say a logo that's really memorable and it's flexible, so whether you're having to fit it into a wide banner (for printing and hanging at a craft show) or even like a circular avatar (for social media) it works."
Choosing your brand's color palette
Picking a color palette for your brand is one of the best places to start with developing your brand's visual identity.
Your brand doesn't have to be perfect, especially when you're just getting started, but it should be consistent and cohesive in some way.
It should be immediately clear to someone - whether they go to your website, your social media profile, or your craft show booth, that this is YOU.
And color is a great way to do that!
Holly suggests, "Use color as part of your brand identity and try to stick with that. It's okay if not everything matches exactly. For example, if you're trying to buy solid colored tissue paper for your online orders, it's not going to be that exact Pantone color, and that is okay! But if you're using basically the same colors throughout, people will start to associate those colors with your brand."
With a color palette, you're creating boundaries around what you do and don't do as far as colors.
Having a consistent color palette helps with things like social media posts and your website, as well as your packaging and even how you style your booth at a craft show.
Back when I was running my own handmade business, cobalt blue was one of my brand's colors. I was able to find tablecloths that were fitted to my booth and I had little organza bags for jewelry in the same color.
If you are trying to determine your brand’s color palette, one of my favorite tools is is Coolors. It's a really fun and easy to use color palettes generator.
Want to learn more about choosing fonts and colors for your brand? Check out this post by Aeolidia.
Need help with branding and marketing your creative business?
If you want to hire someone to design a logo or brand identity for you, check out Holly's website: Ecommerce Arcade.
If you want support and mentorship when it comes to growing your creative business, check out my program, the Badass Creatives Marketing Accelerator.