3 Marketing Mistakes to Avoid as an Online Entrepreneur

3 Marketing Mistakes to Avoid as an Online Entrepreneur

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

In the past four years of running my online business, I’ve worked with thousands of entrepreneurs in marketing their brand and business.

I’ve noticed three core mistakes that online entrepreneurs are making when it comes to marketing their business.

And, full disclosure, I’ve ALSO made these mistakes - you live and you learn right?

Along with everything I create at Brandmerry.com, I want to give you the insights and tools to brand and marketing yourself online. So, let’s start with the top three mistakes.

For additional tips on what I call SMART Marketing and what I believe the 3 pillars of a solid marketing strategy are, be sure to watch the full video below. These tips start at the 19:32 minute mark.

Marketing Mistake #1: Relying on Social Media

The very first marketing mistake is that you are most likely relying only on social media to grow and market your business. As the online mentoring and course industry expands more and more coaches are utilizing social media platforms and unfortunately the message is getting out there that all we need to do is show up on social media to grow a profitable business.

I don’t know about you, but I quickly noticed it’s not quite that easy, right?

While, this strategy might have worked wonders for them and it probably still does cause they have like 100,000 followers or 25,000 followers, for those of you that are just starting out and in the trenches of that first and second year maybe you've realized that you've hit a ceiling and that you can't create more content.

Showing up on social media daily to engage and create content takes a lot of time. When you go about using this strategy only, you’ll start to create less and less content because it starts to get harder to keep it consistent. Then over time you notice you’re going weeks without anything.

I got to a point in my business where I had reached six figures, and although I felt accomplished I also didn’t know how I was going to keep growing. I realized I couldn’t make more than this a year, if I was going to keep getting clients and then still show up on social media every single day. 

The reality is by relying on this strategy I was limiting myself and you’re most likely doing the same. It’s not scalable to rely on social media to grow your community and profits.

The other piece is that you don’t own social media. If you're relying on Instagram to promote your business and Instagram doesn't work, how do you promote your business?

If you're relying on Facebook or even your Facebook group to show up and promote your business and for some reason that's not working in the middle of a launch or a sale, what happens? 

That’s why it’s so important to have these other avenues in place to consistently build your audience. 

**If you’re curious about my favorite strategy which is SEO (Search Engine Optimization) be sure to check out this post here.

You should not be relying on social media to constantly attract new leads and grow your business. Social media is where we go to be social, to build relationships, to nurture the community that's already there.

Marketing Mistake #2: Not Generating Leads

This mistake makes me hurt a little inside, when I see an entrepreneur who has no efficient way to collect leads from prospects on their website, watching a live video or following them on social media.

This is all about list building. The idea is that if someone is taking the time to consume your content, you want to give them a way to join your “inner circle” i.e. your email list.

To kick it off, I highly recommend Convertkit to grow your email list because it has all the tools you need including landing pages, segmenting, forms for your website, tags, funnels and more. You can try it for free with my link here.

The beautiful thing about capturing your ideal customers information is that they are committing to your business. It’s essentially their first investment in you and your brand. Even though you're not getting an exchange of money, somebody is saying, “Okay, I trust you. I like what you're about and want to hear more from you. I want to welcome you into my inbox!” 

I don't know about you, but my inbox is a sacred space. This is a big deal!

So to generate consistent leads to your business you want to have advanced marketing strategies in place like, SEO, podcasting, YouTube, blogging and Pinterest  where you’re putting out a piece of content and every single day people are finding it and saying yes to joining your list.

Now, here is the kicker!

There needs to be an exchange that happens where you give them a free gift in exchange for their email address. This is the very beginning of the lead generation process.

If you’re new to list building, here is the overview below. If you want to learn more about list building, check out this blog here.

So you start with a free gift. If you’re a service-based business this can be a PDF, video training, audio training, a quiz...there are a ton of different options here.

If you sell a product, this might be a coupon code or a discount on their first item, but it could also be something really cool like a quiz. If I were selling a skincare product, I might create a free quiz that tells people their skin type and recommends the best products. In order to get the results and tips, they would have to give their email address.

That’s the free gift, something of value in exchange for their email address. Then you show up for them regularly in their inbox, providing value and time to time asking for the sale.

3 TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR FREEBIE (FREE OFFER)

1. Your freebie needs to be something your audience knows they need. If they are not aware of it, then it’s going to be really hard to market.

2. It needs to provide value to your audience. If after they consume the content, they walk away with something to implement, having learned something new or being inspired it’s valuable.

3. Your free gift needs to be a clear pillar of your brand. For instance, a skincare quiz sounds super cool, but I wouldn’t do that as a free gift because it doesn’t directly connect to my brand message or paid services. 
   

Marketing Mistake #3: You’re Blaming the Algorithm

I call this the blame game. 

My marketing isn't working because of the algorithm…
My marketing isn’t working because my industry is saturated…
My marketing isn’t working because my ideal client isn’t on [insert platform]...

That is not why your marketing isn’t working, but it's really easy to fall into this rut. It's really easy to fall into this thinking and then stay there.

I can teach you all the strategies in the world, but if you're stuck in a mindset that no one cares or no one sees it or it doesn't matter, then you won't get results.

And that's the truth. 

I’ve had those moments in my own business, especially in the beginning. If I was promoting a challenge and there were 5 people who signed up, and in my mind it was nobody cared.

EXCEPT 5 people! 
5 people who signed up, who had never heard of me before, who had never bought from me before, who were giving me an opportunity to show up for them.
That’s 5 potential clients.
It’s all in your mindset.

Such a big part of showing up is creating content! If you don't think people will find it, if you don't think people will find value in it, then what are the odds that you’re going to consistently show up?

Your mindset will take over and you’ll feel there is no point...no one sees it
...the algorithm is out to get me.

No, the algorithm is out to challenge you...accept that challenge and become better.

If your marketing isn’t working change your mindset, accept responsibility and find solutions.

We cannot play small games when it comes to building our online brand and our business and this belief will keep you playing small. In order to be successful, we need to think big picture and big picture responsibility, taking responsibility for things, not working and finding solutions. 

CONCLUSION

The first part to improving your marketing is understanding the mistakes you’re making and my guess is you’re now super aware of three. 

From here, you can create a course of action to fix them so you can continue to grow your online business. If you want to learn more about SMART Marketing and the three pillars of a successful marketing strategy watch the video people (these tips start at the 19:32 mark).

If you’re ready to take action to improve your marketing, grow your audience and grow your profits, then I encourage you to check out Brandmerry Academy and join the waitlist for when the doors open again.

Learn more at brandmerryacademy.com

P.S. If you want to learn more about my repurposing strategy, check out my 3 tips here.

P.P.S. Are we connected on Instagram? No? Well lady what’s happening here we’ve got to fix that. Come hang out with me on my favorite social media platform. Follow for inspiration and send me a DM to know we’re connected.

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

Improve Your SEO in 3 Steps

When I started implementing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) it was by accident. I didn't really know what I was doing, and I was kind of DIYing it every step of the way.

You know the feeling of just piecing together information as you find it? It definitely took longer than I wanted it too, but I slowly started to see results.

I remember being in New York City in 2018 and my cousin messaged me and said, “You know, you're on page one of Google, right?” and I knew at that moment it was working.

It was crazy that with some work on the backend, I was ranking on page one of my industry.

Whatever I was doing, remember at the time it was totally plug in play strategies, was paying off. I knew I needed to fine-tune my strategy to start seeing an increase in leads and sales.

Why is SEO important for online business owners?

I don't know if any of you were like me where you spent all of this love and time and energy creating your website just to find out that people wouldn't actually stumble upon it. 

In my case, five people were finding my website every single month. Can you relate?

This is why SEO is so important for every type of business. We have these awesome websites, but no one is landing on them. And with 3.5 billion Google searches a day, it seems silly that so many entrepreneurs are missing out on free traffic, quality leads and sales. 

In my own story, when I began to get more strategic with my SEO (some of the strategies I’m sharing with you below) we started to see not only an increase in traffic every month, but also an increase in conversions to my higher-level programs.

New clients that were investing between $5,000 - $10,000 were coming from Google. This was happening because women were specifically looking for a branding coach or business coach (i.e. ready to invest) and finding my website on page one (often in spot one) and booking a call...some booking directly on the website!

And that trend has just continued and continued to where every single day I'm getting messages from people who say, I found you on Google. 

The reason for that is because I didn't try to go viral for my blog. I put my focus and emphasis on ranking for my industry.

Oftentimes we think about SEO as it pertains to blogging, but we forget that we can also optimize our site for our industry to bring in quality leads ready to invest.  

We want to optimize our blog posts, our title, our bullets, our headers, our images, all of those things play a role.

3 Phases to Improve Your SEO Ranking

Phase 1: Site-Wide SEO Optimization

This is the back-end SEO for your website. It includes not only your site title and description, but also making sure you’ve optimized the main pages of your website as well.

Every website platform has these SEO capabilities, and a simple Google search will help you locate yours. I know Wordpress gets a great reputation when it comes to SEO, but I personally love Squarespace. Squarespace is what we host my website on and love it; implementing the SEO on the back-end is super simple.

On your page titles you want to use the keywords within your industry and what people are searching for. SEO is not about being cute, it’s about being strategic. 

Many businesses use their name or their business name as their site title and that’s just not enough. Unless, people are searching for you specifically that’s not bringing in new leads. You want to add those keywords, like your title there as well.

For instance, my Site Title is ‘Personal Branding Consultant | Branding Coach | Michelle Knight’

After your site-wide SEO is implemented you want to optimize the main pages of your website. The first page you want to focus on is your home page.

>> Inside Brandmerry Academy, not only do we teach you the step-by-step for implementing proper SEO, we also show you how to increase conversions on your homepage with captivating copy, lead magnets and more. Learn more here >>

For each of your pages (Home Page, About Me Page, Work With Me Page and Blog) we want to also optimize the title and description. 

You can spend one weekend optimizing your site and then not have to worry about it again for 6 months to a year. That’s one of the reasons I love starting here with Phase 1. 

Phase 2: Blogging and Quality Content

Blogging and the content on your website is what tells Google that what you claim about yourself in your site description is actually true.

If I’m claiming I’m a Branding Coach and there's nothing on my website about branding or teaching people how to brand themselves, Google's going to be like, “Okay, that's cute, but you know, we don’t really trust you!” 

Creating consistent content, via blogging, will allow your content to rank as well as help you communicate to Google you are legit. It’s important to carry over the SEO optimization to every blog you create. This includes your blog title, description, headers, content and alt text.

So many people struggle with consistency, and they avoid blogging because Social Media seems easier. The truth is when you’re strategic with your content you can spend the same amount of time writing a blog and repurposing it. Learn more about repurposing here.

And your content will last longer.

Phase 3: Backlinks and Brand Exposure
Backlinks are links back to your website! These are another way to show your credibility to Google. The more backlinks, the higher your Domain Authority. 

Now, some people will trade backlinks and that is a NO!
People will also charge for backlinks and that is a NO!

What I encourage you to do and my favorite strategy is to build these backlinks through brand exposure.

This includes being a guest on a podcast, writing a guest post, guest blogging, speaking at conferences, etc...When these platforms feature you they will link back to your website.

So, you’re getting an awesome backlink, and you’re also getting brand exposure in front of a new audience for free. I’m all about that strategic life!

3 Ways to Improve Your SEO This Week

1. Research your main keywords
You need to understand what you want to rank for before you start optimizing your site. 

Conduct research on the product or service you provide so you understand the industry as a whole and what people are searching for. I like to use tools like Keywords Everywhere and Ubersuggest to do a thorough keyword search.

You can also do some industry research through Google. Look for other brands in your industry and see what keywords they are using in their site title and site description. Pair that, with Ubersuggest to see how people are actually doing and you’ll have a great keyword bank to get started.

2. Optimize the Backend of Your Website for SEO
This is what we talked about in Phase One, but now it’s time to do it! After you have your keywords chosen you want to go into the backend of your website and update your Site Title and Site Description.

This should take you no more than 30 minutes and will make a big impact.

3. Optimize Your Homepage for SEO
You’ll repeat the same thing you did in Step 2, and update your Page Title and Page Description for your home page. Also, do a double check of the headers on your page, making sure they are efficient and include your keywords.

BONUS: Go through your images on the home page and add in Alt Text. Make sure the file name for the image includes your keywords and the caption includes a thorough description as well.

Start with these 3 steps and start improving your SEO immediately.

When I started ranking on page one, I was only focused on these 3 steps and then I started integrating more and more blogging, content and backlinks.

If you’re looking for more support with your SEO strategy, we’re guiding you through the entire process inside The Brandmerry Academy. 

Brandmerry Academy is a year-long membership community that gives you monthly marketing mini-courses, group coaching and advanced strategies to increase your leads and profits without spending all your time or relying on social media.

Learn more about Brandmerry Academy at brandmerryacademy.com

P.S. If you want to learn more about my repurposing strategy, check out my 3 tips here.

P.S.S. Are we connected on Instagram? No? Well lady what’s happening here we’ve got to fix that. Come hang out with me on my favorite social media platform. Follow for inspiration and send me a DM to know we’re connected.

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

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- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

The Truth About Growing Your Email List (getting subscribers through your freebie)

The Truth About Growing Your Email List (getting subscribers through your freebie)

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

The truth is we're really obsessed with hitting a certain milestone when it comes to our subscriber count, follower count or email list. 

Like, “When I have a hundred subscribers, I will write.”

“When I have 10k followers on Instagram, I'll have the swipe up feature and suddenly my business will explode.”

Well, you guys, that's not really how it works and in fact what's happening is so many entrepreneurs are just working on getting to this *magical* number, this email list size, this follower count, that they're putting all their energy and their attention on doing that, and therefore neglecting all the people who have already said, yes! 

When you’re doing this, then you're not consistently emailing your community and showing up for them.

Your belief that everything will be better when you have that “number”, is actually keeping you stuck.

So we have to switch our mindset and say, I'm showing up for the people that are already here and I don't care if it's just your cousin and your mom right now.

Showing up and being of service for those people is where I want your energy and your attention to go.

Now, if you’ve been spending all your time on just getting to a specific number, you might be like, “Michelle, how am I supposed to spend all this time showing up for my community and being there for my community? I'm trying to grow my community like it's great if I can show up for two people. But if I'm putting all my energy and attention there, then how do I grow my list?” 

The reason you’re concerned about that is because you’re going about growing your list using social media (and social media is not a marketing strategy).

THE TRUTH ABOUT YOUR FREE OFFER (OPT-IN)

I see this a lot online. You spend time creating a free offer that is going to be of value to your ideal client. Then you start marketing it, most likely on social media, from the start and you notice that nothing's really happening. 

So you say, “Oh, this freebie does not work. I need to create a new freebie.” 

And you create a new freebie and you go through the same process and you show up on social media and you're posting as many times as you can post without spamming your audience and you're using all the hashtags on Insta Stories. 

And still nothing is happening and you repeat the cycle.

It's not the freebie, it's how you're marketing the freebie.

You most likely lack an understanding of how to create the content to actually sell the freebie and what platforms are going to serve you at the highest level.

So here is the thing with Facebook and Instagram - you should not be relying on these social media platforms to grow your business.

The goal is to grow your community using evergreen strategies so you can show up on social media and be “social” with your audience.

ADVANCED MARKETING STRATEGIES TO GROW YOUR SUBSCRIBERS

Advanced marketing strategies include:

• Blogging

• Pinterest

• Youtube

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• PodcastingGuest Expert Feature (guest blog, guest on podcast, guest interview, interview feature)

• Facebook and Pinterest Ads (investment)

The content on these platforms not only lasts longer than social media, but allows your content to consistently be seen and drive traffic to your website, freebie and ultimately paid offer.

The Lifespan of Online Content

Blogging has a lifespan of 2+ years.
Pinterest has a lifespan of 6+ months.
Instagram ONLY has a lifespan of 21 hours.
Facebook ONLY has a lifespan of 5 hours.

It would take you about the same amount of time to write a blog for your website, as it will to post on Facebook and your content will last longer.

Having these advanced systems of marketing in place allow you to consistently create a stream of leads to your business. 

Example: My website, every single month, gets thousands of people visiting from Pinterest. I am ranked on page one for multiple keywords in my industry on Google. So I'm getting tons of people from there as well. 

I focus on creating one piece of content a week on my blog, which helps with SEO on Google and the content is optimized for Pinterest. As a result, every single day people are finding my content online and my email list is growing.

They're also following me on social media as a way to stay connected with me. So rather than relying on social media to grow my new audience, I get to show up here and have fun with you guys. I get to show up and do a video and post things about my travels and the things that I love that build a deeper relationship with my audience.

All the while, my community is growing without me having to post on social media.

THE GOAL

First, we want to create a free gift, just one, for your audience. An incentive to join your community. Learn more here.

Next, the goal is to use those Advanced Marketing strategies above to consistently lead new people to your website (or landing page) where they can consume your content and grab your gift.

As your email subscribers grow, your social media platforms grow and you switch your focus to building relationships and nurturing your new audience. This is where sales come from!

When you have those marketing strategies in place, you can focus on doing what you do best - serving your audience and making an impact.

Learn more about implementing these strategies inside Brandmerry Academy!

P.S. Here is a helpful blog on improving your content marketing. Read it here.

P.S.S. Are we connected on Instagram? No? Well lady what’s happening here we’ve got to fix that. Come hang out with me on my favorite social media platform. Follow for inspiration and send me a DM to know we’re connected.

---

- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

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- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

How to Spend Less Time on Social Media as an Entrepreneur in 2020 and Beyond

You’ve probably heard marketing is changing and while that is somewhat true, I personally don’t agree with this scare tactic. 

The truth is it’s not really changing, but it is going back to its core…

RELATIONSHIPS

And this scares a lot of people because they started their businesses using sleazy marketing tactics and automation rather than focusing on the people who will buy from them.

But, that’s not working anymore. Consumers have become smart. They (we) are constantly bombarded with messages every single day. Think advertisements, articles, videos and more telling us what and what not to do and to buy their product.

Personally, I’ve always focused my business on relationships with my community. Building strong relationships is the core of my business, so I’m not scared.

In fact, focusing on relationships is the new age of marketing. It’s about getting referrals, word of mouth from friends and family, warm searches online that lead to sales on your website because of strong storytelling and so much more. 

Of course, automation still works and I truly believe in automating a large portion of your website, but you can’t automate human connection and that’s what content creation and social media are truly about. 

2 WAYS TO BUILD RELATIONSHIPS IN MARKETING

1. Create valuable content. If you’re just starting out this should focus mostly on teaching/ educating your audience and storytelling. This will allow you to position yourself as the expert and go-to brand for their needs.

2. Be Available. It sounds so simple, yet too many entrepreneurs are obsessed with automation that they are missing little opportunities to connect with their audience. Carving out just 10 minutes a day to engage and connect with your audience can increase your profits.

The future of marketing truly is focused on building your community.

SPENDING LESS TIME ON SOCIAL MEDIA AS AN ENTREPRENEUR

Now, that we’re once again focused on relationship marketing, we need to spend less time doing everything else so we can focus on actual conversations.

This is where automation in your social media strategy comes into play. There are multiple places to automate in your business and this is one of my favorite hacks for 2020.

3 Step Plan to Spend Less Than One Hour on Social Media

1. PLAN YOUR CONTENT.
   If you’re not doing this you’re going to keep struggling. There are so many methods and strategies available online. My personal favorite is my 30-day Content Calendar which is free to download right here. 
   
   Before the end of the month, you should map out your content for the next 30 days. This doesn’t include making every post, it just means choosing the topic and putting it on a freaking calendar. Decide when you’ll show up and what you’ll be talking about so you can go into the month prepared.
   
   

2. SUNDAYS ARE FOR PLANNING. 
   Use Sundays to plan your content for the week. Again we’re not writing the posts, we’re just taking 15-30 minutes every Sunday to look at your calendar and plant the seed in your mind. 
   
   Did anything change? Can you finalize topics and photos if possible? The idea here is to get your brain prepared and thinking of the content you need to write. This should take no more than 30 minutes every Sunday.
   
   

3. CHOOSE TO BULK SCHEDULE OR POST DAILY. 
   Personally, I prefer bulk scheduling, I find it is the most efficient way to write your content. Many of my clients do this, but if you’re just starting this can be intimidating so I have two scenarios for you.
   
   Option One: Bulk Scheduling. 
   The goal here is to spend 2-3 hours once a week to write, design and schedule your content. This is important - the goal here is to not just write but to also design and schedule. We want to make it so that if something comes up or you’re needed elsewhere your content is still ready to go, without you having to show up. I use a tool like Later to schedule my content and then take just 10 minutes daily to engage.
   
   I like this best because it shortens my daily time that I’m needed on social media. I also find that when I bulk create it takes me less time to write my actual content. 
   
   Option Two: Post Daily.
   In order for this strategy to work you need to be very disciplined with your daily schedule. Be sure to schedule 30-45 minutes daily to write your content. If it’s taking too long at first, that’s ok, the more you’re consistent with it the better you will get.
   
   Schedule 30-45 minutes to write your content, post or schedule (depending on the time of day) and 10 minutes to engage. I recommend engaging around the time you are posting since you’re already on the platform.

When it comes to marketing strategies I’ve got a little secret for you.

You can know all the hashtags to use, engagement secrets, live video enhancements and so much more, but if your content sucks it won’t matter. 

When it comes to creating high-quality and engaging content here are... 

4 Content Creation Hacks to Remember for 2020

1. Be Consistent.
   Consistently showing up will change your business. Recently I read the book Atomic Habits by James Clear and speaks of a study that was done with photography students. Half of the class was assigned to produce as many photos as possible in a semester (quantity). The other half of the class was assigned to produce one piece of work (quality). What happened was the “quantity” group created the best quality. Why? Because they practiced, learned, fine-tuned and improved every time. The same is true for your content.
   

2. Survey Your Audience.
   I know some people don’t encourage surveying your audience because we don’t want to risk you losing your authenticity, that’s not what this is about. This is about high-value content and there is no better way to produce content your audience wants to consume than to ask what they want.
   
   Every 30 days ask your audience via market research survey, Instagram Stories, Instagram Feed, Facebook Groups, email and more what type of content they need most in their life right now Then create it. 
   
   By doing this, you’ll not only remove the pressure to constantly come up with content ideas, but you’ll also build trust with your audience. Don’t underestimate the power of this.
   

3. Create Brand Containers.
   This is another strategy I teach for free in my free Content Planner, which can be found here. Essentially, you’re deciding on 5-7 containers for your content that are in alignment with your brand and the desires and needs of your ideal client.
   
   Hint: These should not just be focused on your product or service and should be more about the brand experience you want to create for your growing audience. 
   

4. Repurpose Your Content.
   Repurpose. Repurpose. Repurpose. I truly can’t say it enough. Stop wasting your content by posting online once. If you’re using social media you’ve got a 24-hour life span for each post, unless you repurpose. For instance, this blog post started as a live video and was turned into this blog, multiple graphics for social media (Facebook and Instagram), posted on Pinterest, IGTV and an email to my community. That’s a lot of content from one hour of live streaming.

By the way, this is why I’m obsessed with platforms outside of social media - think blogging, Pinterest, Search Engine Optimization, Youtube and more.

Implement these hacks and watch your content strategy grow your community without having to rely on showing up every single day on social media.

Don’t forget to grab the free Content Planner here.

Happy creating.

P.S. Are we connected on Instagram? No? Well lady what’s happening here we’ve got to fix that. Come hang out with me on my favorite social media platform. Follow for inspiration and send me a DM to know we’re connected.

---

- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

---

- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

---

MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

3 Simple Steps to Choose Your Brand Colors

3 Simple Steps to Choose Your Brand Colors

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

Choosing your personal brand colors can be the biggest headache of your life, trust me I know! 

I spent months, and this is not an exaggeration, trying to decide on my brand colors. Turns out I was doing it wrong, by looking at others in my industry first and not following this simple 3-step process I quickly found myself with a brand that didn’t light me up.

Why Branding Colors Are Important

The power of the aesthetics of your brand are based on first impressions. As an online entrepreneur, you’re most likely using social media to build your community, spread brand awareness and make sales.

Well, in case you haven’t noticed, the social media space is crowded and first impressions matter. This is where the aesthetics of your brand come into play and color is front and center.

If you want to stand out on social media, rather than blend in, it’s important to understand how to choose your brand colors and the psychology behind color as it relates to your audience.

1. Brand Color Tip #1: Look at Your Daily Inspiration

The idea of personal branding is that you are the center of your brand and use your own personality traits, authentic voice and stories to create a brand that resonates with your ideal audience. If you don’t already know my stance on personal branding, be sure to check out this article here.

So with that in mind, why don’t we start with the things you already love?

When starting to create the aesthetics of your brand it can be really easy to get lost in what other people are doing, other professionals and other brands. The result is a loss of personal brand identity and blending in with others in your industry.

Rather than first looking outside yourself for inspiration, I recommend taking a look at two areas in your life: your closet and your home.

We buy things that inspire us and often that is associated with the psychology of color (more on that later), so why not use this personal color inspiration as a tool to choose your branding colors?

Start by looking at your closet and making a list of the top five colors you see most prominent.

Then repeat the process, by walking around your home.

Do you see an overlap in the specific colors, tone of color or color palette you tend to gravitate towards? This is where you should start when thinking of your branding colors.

2. Brand Color Tip #2: Identify Your Brand Emotions (Emotional Branding)

Just like with all things branding, after you’ve connected with the purpose and story behind your brand (aka you), it’s time to think of your audience.

We never want to create a brand that only takes our taste or style into consideration and we never want to create a brand solely for others that doesn’t connect deeply to ourselves.

So, after you’ve identified the colors you enjoy most, it’s important to think of how you want your audience to feel.

This is referred to as Emotional Branding and is something I teach my clients in my signature programs. You can learn more about Emotional Branding and the process here.

When thinking of your brand colors, you need to know your ideal client very well, the reason for this is if you don’t understand their pain and pleasure points you won’t be able to use the power of psychology to choose your colors.

For instance, if I know my ideal client is feeling overwhelmed, is highly-stressed and struggles with time management, I won’t choose a color that tends to elicit a feeling of anger.

On the flip side, if I know my client is driving to feel pleasure in her home and her health and loves the eco-lifestyle, then I would choose a color like green, which gives a feeling or serenity and organic.

In order to choose the right colors based on psychology, you need to know your audience and use that information to decide how you want your audience to feel when coming in contact with your brand.

So, before moving on to step three, it’s important to identify 5-7 brand emotions to relay to your audience.

If you need support with understanding market research and why it’s important, be sure to catch my Free masterclass on The Build a Better Brand Method. Sign up here.

3. Brand Color Tips #3: Choosing Your Brand Colors Based on Psychology

Ok, no the REALLY fun part and the part I seriously geek out on. This is why emotional branding is so important, because everything that relates to the aesthetics of your brand: colors, fonts, logo design, website layout, brand photos, etc… can be built on the fundamentals of psychology. 

To overview here are the basic emotions associated with each of the main colors:

RED: Dynamic, powerful, love, strength, passion, excitement, anger

ORANGE: Energy, vibrant, fun, playful, friendly, warm, inviting

YELLOW: Bright, happy, cheerful, positive, spontaneous, warm

PINK: Pretty, feminine, soft, playful, sweet, sincerity, gentle, romance

GREEN: Fresh, balance, earthy, calming, envy, organic, healing, wealth

BLUE: Masculine, dependable, corporate, tranquil, calming, peaceful

PURPLE: Creativity, authority, sophisticated, abundance, spiritual, vibrant

GRAY: Calming, sleek, natural, modern, conservative, neutral

BLACK: Power, elegance, formal, bold, classic, dramatic, expensive, fear, boldness

I’ve even created a fun image you can Pin or save for future reference (see below).

PIN THIS

I recommend choosing three brand colors as your main colors and explore complimentary colors to play around with on social media.

Conclusion

Choosing your brand colors can be simple when you follow this 3-step process. 

If you go into choosing your brand colors blindly you’ll feel overwhelmed and waste a lot of time trying to decide what “looks good” rather than choosing colors that will make a bigger impact.

It’s a very similar process to choosing your fonts for your brand.

At the core of branding, you must remember it’s really not about the aesthetics or look of your brand. 

Seth Godin defines branding as, “...the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.”

And of course choosing your brand colors plays a role in that, but it isn’t the only piece.

If you’re ready to create a strong foundation for your business and create a brand that truly stands out on social media and builds a community of true fans, then be sure to watch my free training on The Build a Better Brand Method. I’m sharing my 3-step method to create an authentic and revenue-generating brand. Sign up here.

Tell me in the comments, what is your favorite tip from above?

P.S. Are we connected on Instagram? No? Well lady what’s happening here we’ve got to fix that. Come hang out with me on my favorite social media platform. Follow for inspiration and send me a DM to know we’re connected.

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.