Branding…we have all heard that word. However, just how important is it for virtual assistants and starting your own virtual business? The quick answer…VERY IMPORTANT! The long answer, keep reading, my friend. Here are my branding tips for virtual assistants.

Branding Tips For Virtual Assistants

What Is Branding?

No pressure, but you only have a few seconds to grab the attention of your potential reader or client when they stumble upon your social media or website. Branding doesn’t have to be difficult, but it can feel overwhelming.

Oxford defines branding as “the promotion of a particular product or company by means of advertising and distinctive design.” Branding isn’t just about the sparkly things that catch your eye. Those are important too, but you also have to remember it is much more than that. Branding can answer the question, “what do you want your clients or potential clients to think about you and your business?”

Why Is Branding Important?

1. Your brand is the first impression you give about your business to your potential clients. If you don’t hook them quickly, they will just click out of your site and onto another.
2. It’s a great way to connect with your clients and potential clients.
3. Your brand is your personality. It can help set you apart from other businesses that are in the same niche as you. Your brand, your voice, could be the very reason they go with your services or online course instead of another one.

Set Your Tone (Define Your Brand)

First, you need to define your brand, set the tone you want for your business. Here are a few questions you should ask yourself when defining your brand:

• What is your ideal customer?
• What qualities do you want to be known for?
• Why do you do what you do?
• Why did you start this business?
• What is your ultimate career goal?
• What do you want to offer your clients?
• How can you stand out from similar businesses?

Your brand tone is the look and feel of your brand. It is what people think/feel when they think of your business. Sunny and happy? Cool and calm? Clean and modern? Dark and techy?

Pro Tip: Write down three words that you want your brand’s tone to be.

These words will be used to help you come up with the next step.

Choose Your Colors And Fonts

This is my favorite part. Time to be creative! Have you ever noticed that specific colors bring out certain feelings? You want your colors to be in line with your brand’s tone. Typically, graphic designers recommend that you pick up to 3 colors, and then 1 or 2 neutral shades. Make sure that you write down the hex-codes of your color choices. This way, you will always be able to find your color, no matter what program you are using.

Next, you should focus on finding the fonts you want for your brand. Your fonts help set the mood. Keep in mind that you need to choose a font for your heading, body, and logo. There are so many different fonts to choose from, such as Times New Roman or Dancing Script.

Photos

Just like colors and fonts, images evoke certain emotions. Pictures are a great and easy way to tell the story of what you want to deliver to your ideal customers. Remember, they need to be consistent with your tone and flow with the colors and fonts you have already decided on.

For example, if you teach online yoga classes, you will want photos of people doing yoga. You aren’t going to want pictures of people chillin’ on the couch watching Hulu. Or if you are a work from home mommy blogger, you will want pictures of women at a laptop or home office.

Create Your Logo

Next step, you should start thinking about your logo. This is really up to you and how you want to be seen. Some logos are straightforward, just letters or a single image. However, if you don’t feel comfortable, you can always hire someone to create your logo for you.

What was I taught about logos? I was taught that simple is better. However, the logo is tied to your brand and personality, so I really think it is up to your own personal preference. I do recommend to keep the following things in mind:

• You might want to stick to just 1 or 2 colors because too many can be overwhelming and take their eye off of what you really want them to see.
• Also, consider the mobile view, not just the laptop view. Avoid overly complex logos that could be tough to read/see on a mobile screen.

Make A Branding Kit

Something that really helped me when I was trying to put my brand altogether in a “neat little box” was when I made myself a Branding Kit. It was super easy to create in Canva. Below you will find an example of a Branding Kit for a fake business. It is very close to how I made mine. It is nice to have your branding details altogether and close by, especially when you start out. As a stay-at-home mom, doing homeschooling, expanding my business, and working on creating my own online courses…let’s just say my brain is a little scattered, to say the least. So it really helps to have everything written down and close at hand. You should see my desk; it is a sea of sticky notes!

Feel free to print off the example to inspire yourself, or you can subscribe to my email list today and have instant access to my free resource library. It is full of PDF’s that are beneficial for virtual assistants, bloggers, busy moms, and homeschooling parents. I have a worksheet I created to specifically help you find your brand. Click here to subscribe, or you can put in your information at the bottom of this post!

Develop A Tagline

What is a tagline? Simply put, a tagline is a short summary of how you help your clients. For example, my tagline, or brand bio as I like to call it, is “I help moms who struggle with inspiration, finances, and identity crisis by giving them the tools to step out of survival mode and into thriving mode with confidence and grace.” It is a great idea to include your tagline in your bio for your social media platforms.

Create A Mood Board For Inspiration

Have you ever heard of a mood board? A mood board is a collection of anything that connects to what you want to convey in your brand. I have a mood board on Pinterest that I have set to private. Anytime I am browsing Pinterest and find something that inspires me, I add to my mood board. You could try searching for the words you use to describe your brand or the colors and fonts. See what comes up! If anything catches your eye that speaks to your brand’s look and feel, save it to your mood board! A mood board is a great tool to get your creative juices flowing!!

Research Your Target Audience

One of the most important things you can do for your business (brand) is to KNOW your audience. If you want to attract a certain clientele base, you have to know the people you are trying to reach. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Where do they hang out online? Pro Tip: Facebook groups are a GREAT place to start!
• Male? Female? Doesn’t matter?
• What do they do for a living?
• Moms? Dads? No kids?
• Do they have financial troubles? Average? Above-average?
• What are their MAIN frustrations? What problems do you want to solve for them?

Once you have established your customer avatar (ideal client), you will know exactly how to find them and talk to them. Don’t get me wrong. It is still going to take A LOT of work. However, this gives you a great starting point. At least you won’t be trying to sell dogs to cat lovers, or at least that was the metaphor given to me when I started out on this journey.

Create Templates

Creating templates that go with your brand is a huge time saver. Whether you work alone or you are going to be handing over graphics to your staff, templates are a huge help. For your staff, templates show them exactly what you want, which leaves little room for confusion. If you work alone, templates can still save you a LOT of time when creating graphics for your website, blog, social media, etc. As a busy mom, wife, and business owner, I am always looking for ways to save me time!

Consistency Matters

I have probably already said this a hundred times all over my blog. However, it is still the truth! Consistency matters! Your branding needs to stay consistent! It doesn’t matter if it is online or off. Your social media, website, physical store, email sign-off, etc. should all be the same. No matter what, you want to promote the same message. You want your clients, your followers, etc. to always know it is you.

The same goes for your brand voice. Blog posts, books, podcasts, videos, etc. should all have the same flow and voice.

Delivering Is Everything

This last tip is probably obvious but still needs to be said. It is crucial to make sure you deliver on the promises that your brand makes. Word gets around fast, and not delivering on your promise can kill your business before it even gets started. In fact, I try to always over-deliver! However, if I can’t do that, I still make sure I give them exactly what I promised them. To be completely transparent with you, 3 of my 6 clients right now came to me because of my other clients’ referrals. If they aren’t happy with your work, they won’t share your information with their friends and colleagues.

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Branding is so much for than pretty colors, fancy fonts, and a cute logo. It is about creating something amazing that catches the eyes of your ideal clients. The key is to still remain true to yourself. As a virtual assistant, YOU ARE THE BRAND. I interact daily with most of my clients. It makes no sense for me to present a version of me that doesn’t really exist. Be true to yourself, and your ideal clients will find you.

I hope these branding tips for virtual assistants give you the inspiration to really create a brand you can be proud of.

“But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:31

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