Long-term Branding and Marketing Methods for Soaring Sales

If you’re leading a service-based business, think of all the things you need to convey the value of your services.

Some business cards? A website? Printed or digital ads?

To boost the return on these investments and many more, you’ll need substantial branding and marketing strategies that combine all of your promotional products into cohesive creative packages. Shaped by empathetic yet determined creative professionals, these packages will show that your team members are committed to supporting their customers. As a result, you can expect measurable results showing increased customer loyalty and repeat sales.

Start With Your Brand’s Identity

Your brand is so much more than a logo; in fact, brands are often conceptualized in human terms!

If your brand were a real person, how would he or she think, feel, and act? What do you imagine are his or her top priorities and preferences? Your answers to these questions inform your brand persona — a set of traits and values that help consumers relate to your brand. This brand persona will likely be similar to your buyer persona, referring to your ideal customer’s traits and values.

A brand persona is the guiding force behind any distinctive brand identity, which comprises all aspects of its visual style. The results of your branding efforts can enhance your brand image, which is the public’s overall perception of its services.

To convey the meaning behind your brand to others who create your company’s print and digital materials, you will need a brand guide. It might be referred to by a number of names, such as a brand kit, visual identity guide, or style guide.

If you work with Laurelow to form a new brand identity, you and your team will receive invites to create mood boards that contain the colors, textures, fonts, and overall visual personality your company might represent. Then, at the end of a collaborative discussion, you’ll receive your very own multi-page Brand Style & Strategy Guide.

This is one of the most comprehensive documents available that delves into what distinguishes you from your competition based on your marketing plan.

Define Your Marketing Methods

Brand guides and marketing plans work hand-in-hand, which is why they are often developed simultaneously.

A multi-page marketing plan, however, focuses on the methods you can use to meet your overall goals. Based on secondary and primary research into your niche, it often includes:

• A short executive summary of your needs and objectives, as well as how to reach them
• Your team’s values, mission, vision, and additional explanation of its need for data-supported marketing
• What sets you apart based on your USP (unique selling proposition) as well as a competitive analysis
• A SWOT analysis listing your current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities for improvement, and threats based on existing automated measurement or manual findings
• Your target customer explained through buyer personas and market segmentation
• KPIs and other specific targets reachable within a reasonable timeframe, along with a visual timeline
• How — and how often — you should use, monitor, and update media, including but not limited to the following:
  • Paid media: digital and printed advertisements
  • Earned media: online reviews and public relations outreach
  • Owned media: your website, SEO, social media accounts, and email list
  • Converged media: influencer marketing and branded content
• A summary of your budget allocation to most efficiently use your marketing dollars
• How you will record your results through several forms of measurement

Both the brand guide and marketing plan tend to be usable for one to five years — until your business requires a refreshed look or significant updates to its sales methods and goals.

Get What You Need With Print & Digital Essentials

Once you know how your brand will represent itself, it’s time to put those representations to paper — and to screens — so your team can share its personality with the world!

Starter print and digital packages vary greatly between creative professionals, often based on their clients’ needs; that’s why Laurelow offers customization to the following bundled media if needed.

Print Starter Kit

• One hour-long digital advising session to establish what exactly you want the printed products below to look like
• Print-ready files, created with industry-standard software but available as user-friendly editable Canva documents if needed:
  • One business card
  • One letterhead with a matching envelope
  • One flyer
  • One brochure
  • Up to ten electronically-fillable forms or worksheets for in-house and customer-facing needs

Digital Starter Kit

• One hour-long digital advising session to define the look, user experience, and fine-tuned strategies of your digital media
• One content calendar for the web-ready files (created with industry-standard software but available as user-friendly Canva documents if needed) listed below:
  • One PowerPoint Template and one completed pitch deck
  • Multiple social media banners
  • Multiple social media posts and stories
  • One welcome email integrated with your website’s forms
  • One thirty-second YouTube introduction* made from your own footage; incorporates a voiceover from your team or Laurelow

*not available in Canva

Website Design & Development

• One hour-long digital advising session to provide direction for your website
• Multiple sets of mockup options
• One accessible, mobile-responsive, SEO-optimized website built in Webflow or WordPress

Your brand is more than these singular creations, too; it’s always growing and evolving.

Continually Create Quarterly Marketing Campaigns

While your marketing plan consists of your overall marketing strategies, your quarterly campaigns should reflect the changing needs of your customers.

You can do this by creating content calendars to plan which types of content should be published on particular dates.

If you need assistance, Laurelow will keep you up-to-date each quarter of the year by learning your wants and needs for each three-month-long campaign. Then, you’ll receive comprehensive content calendars covering social media posts, blog posts, website updates, eBlasts, and various print media.

You’ll also see a single-page Quarterly Campaign document that summarizes the campaign’s explanation of its unifying theme and how it relates to your brand as a whole. Expect measurable goals you hope to reach at the end of the campaign, descriptions of deliverables that will help you achieve these goals, and a glimpse into how you will measure KPIs.

Measure Your Online and Offline Results

Ensure that your team has access to short- and long-term data revealing leads from numerous sources, email opening rates, online or in-person purchases, and more. Doing so can alert them to potential sources of problems they wouldn’t have known about otherwise. On the contrary, measurement can show which areas of your business are responsible for the most growth!

Leave Your Brand’s Legacy Throughout Your Workspace

The personal touch of custom fine art beautifully complements data-driven marketing strategies.

A cohesive collection of art rich with detail and symbolism can promote serenity in the workplace, boost employees’ creativity, personalize company culture, and indirectly attract new talent.

If you invest in Laurelow’s branded office artwork, your team will look forward to creating mood boards depicting the themes, colors, and textures they hope to see more often in their workspace. After they’re done, we’ll all join one hour-long digital advising session to learn their rationale for creating their mood boards and share more ideas that align with your brand. Expect one preliminary drawing per finished piece, then up to 10 pieces of hand-drawn, hand-painted, or digitally-created artwork totaling up to 1,000 square inches.

I can also make recommendations for prints both in and outside of my shop, as well as other elements of your office decor, beginning with wall paint, flooring, couches, seating, and lamps.

I hope to ensure that every aspect of your workspace exemplifies the charm of your visual identity!

If you’re ready to take an integrative approach to your branding and marketing, I’m here to help. Form a new connection today to learn more about how creative packages can magnify the efforts of your service-based businesses.