Now you might wonder, is this a good time for me to invest in a brand or website? Is DIY branding, right for me or should I hire it out? Now for me personally, there are 3 categories that I would divide this question into.
- E-commerce or Physical Product Businesses
- Service-based businesses
- Personal Brands.
The DIY Branding Question for Physical Product Businesses
In this type of business I would highly suggest not DIY branding and investing in a professional from the start. E-commerce and physical products depend highly on branding and design to increase sales. When you visit a store, where are your eyes drawn to? One, brands you already know and love (who have brand recognition), or two, brands that the design catches your eye. This is why for this particular type of business, you want to invest pretty soon.
One note here though, before hiring a designer, you will need to talk to your manufacturer to get the dimensions of your prototypes so that you can hand those off to the designer to make sure the designs are correct, otherwise, you will risk both time and money.
Another note here, make sure to start this process early. Good designers take time. Usually, when looking at a brand, labels, and website, you are talking about a 12-week process and designers are often booked out. So start looking for a designer about 6 months before you are going to launch your product.
Service Based Businesses
My recommendation is to make sure that you are making money and that you know what services you are offering first. When you first start your service-based business, like me, you often offer a wide range of services. You do this because you are not sure of what services you like the most. Once you are in business for a while and are getting clients, you will become more clear about which services and who you want to work with. Once this happens, that’s when a designer can really come in with a brand strategy and hone in on that so that you can have a strategy that is based around that service, and that your copy, your design, and everything else match for your website.
You want to make sure to invest in your branding eventually, but make sure that you are making money and you are sure of what you want to do first.
Personal Branding
Now personal brands can get away with DIY branding for a long while. These are influencer-type brands. When they are making good money and are ready to invest in branding that is when they will see a huge take-off in brand collaboration opportunities.
So, DIY branding? Yes or no?
If you are an e-commerce, you are going to want to do that pretty quickly. If you are a service-based or personal brand here are the reasons that you are going to want to hire out branding once you are making money.
Good design is going to attract the right people and give you better opportunities because you are being seen as an expert and professional. Good design will display your heart story so that you can really connect with your audience. It will be built with your audience in mind as well as being authentic to you and your brand.
When you are ready to reach that next level or those dreamy opportunities in your business, that is when it is a great time to invest in branding.
But again, you are going to want to make sure that you are already making money and that this wouldn’t be a total stretch and a burden for you to invest in.
Having a mindset that “if I just had a better brand or a better website, I could sell more”… That is not the right mindset to go into a branding project with. You want to go into a brand project being very passionate about what you are doing and that you are helping people, you are already making money, you have a passion for this, and it’s going to be long-lasting. Having that mindset is going to make the branding process so much smoother. We want to build a brand that lasts. We don’t want to waste your time or your money building a brand that isn’t tested to make money or that you are not sure about.
Once you are sure that this is who you are, and what you are doing… that is when it is a good time to invest, otherwise, just keep DIYing until you are sure!
If you are saying, “yes! I am ready to invest in branding” I would love to have a complimentary chat with you to make sure that you are ready for professional branding.
If you are not ready to invest, it’s okay to DIY branding… you heard it from a brand strategist yourself.
