Being Authentically YOU: 6 Steps for Establishing Your Brand Identity with Abby Grace
Episode 27: Show Notes.
In order to market anything – your product, your company, or your ideas – you first need to define your unique brand. Your brand is not just the visuals, like your logo and your website, it also encompasses your brand identity. Today’s guest, Abby Grace, has 6 steps for establishing your brand identity, which is so important to running a successful business. With more than 10 years experience in the wedding industry, Abby is a photographer based in the Washington, DC area, and her work has been published by many of our industry’s top editors. In addition to photography, Abby is also a speaker and an educator, teaching workshops for small business owners and fellow photographers. In this episode, Abby explains to us what brand identity is, why it is so important, and how to establish it. This is one interview that every photographer needs to listen to, so make sure to tune in today!
Key Points From This Episode:
- Abby introduces herself and her business, from wedding to branding photography.
- The misconceptions of what a brand is – it’s so much more than a logo and a website.
- What it means to create a brand identity and why it’s important – your why statement isn’t visible, but it’s essential.
- A brand identity consists of your why, values, strengths, audience, voice, and messaging.
- Consistency breeds trust – people know what to expect when you have strong brand identity.
- New website templates won’t solve all your problems, you need to know your audience first.
- Abby suggests letting your brand identity take shape slowly over time – you can’t rush it.
- The single most important aspect of a personal brand is knowing your ideal client very well.
- A personal brand isn’t about you, it’s about crafting a message that your ideal clients relate to.
- You must know the psychological profile of your ideal client to know how to best serve them.
- Abby explains why it’s important that photographers have a professional headshot taken.
- When you’re starting out, you don’t need to have a set of branding photographs taken.
- Your brand will develop over time – who you are now is not who you’ll be in 10 years, it’s okay that your brand grows and changes with you.
- When choosing brand colors, see what brands your clients buy and look at their websites.
- Your color palette should be important to you – check your wardrobe, what colors you wear.
Tweetables:
“If you think of [your brand] as a tree, your brand visuals are your trunk and the leaves, but your brand identity is below the surface. That’s the soil, that’s where your tree is planted, that’s the roots, that’s the seed that the tree originally started with. You can’t have the visuals if you don’t have what’s below ground.” — Abby Grace [0:06:17]
“The best advice that I can give for someone who is trying to establish a brand identity is, if you’re not sure, start by examining those six factors. Again, those are your why, your values, your strengths, your audience, your voice, and messaging.” — Abby Grace [0:10:25]
“A personal brand is about crafting a message and a persona, selecting pieces of your personality that your ideal clients resonate with, so that you become the one that they want to work with and then that in turn allows you to use your gifts to meet their needs.” — Abby Grace [0:19:53]
“Who you are now is not the same business owner that you are going to be 10 years from now. It is okay that your brand grows and changes with you, but I needed my brand to give me some breathing space to figure out who I was, so that I wasn’t pigeonholed to one area and not able to grow or expand from there, because my visual brand was so specific.” — Abby Grace [0:32:16]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Abby Grace Photography on Instagram
