A solid brand identity is a key component in growing a successful online business. It can set you apart from the competition, promote your value proposition and build trust with your audience. However, there are four questions that you should answer at the beginning of branding your online business. It’s not recommended to proceed with branding your business before you have answered these four questions.

1. Who Do I Serve?

This one is so important when it comes to business in general, not just when you are rebranding. You need to ask yourself who are your clients and who do you want your clients to be. Are your ideal clients already finding you or are your enquiries from not so ideal clients?

It’s easy to think that in business, you can serve everyone but that’s not the case. The more you niche down in your business, the better you will be able to serve your audience. For example, my ideal client for my main offering, The Flourish Experience, is a female online service based business owner who has been in business 3 or more years. They are a creative, coach, consultant or educator. My ideal client is someone who is ready to take their business to the next level and needs support and guidance in doing so. They know that they aren’t reaching the right audience with their business and they want to refocus their branding and marketing activities so that they can connect with more of their ideal clients.

Now I know this about my ideal client, I am able to target my branding, messaging and marketing in order to attract them. I can build the know, like and trust factor which will lead them to contacting me.

I also have two other offerings for newer business owners however my overall message is the same. I provide a complete branding and marketing consulting offering to online business owners.

Have a think about who you want to serve. The important thing is to make sure you are clear about who your ideal client is and the value and expertise you can offer them.

2. What Value Do I Provide?

This question refers to your value proposition. Your value proposition is what your clients can do because of the service you provide. For example, if you are a health coach, what is it that your clients can do because of your services? If you’re a business coach, what value do you provide?

Why is this question important? The answer to this question will make sure that when your ideal client finds you, the pricing of your service becomes less important if at all. After all, when you’re growing a successful business, you don’t want price to be the main decision making factor. You want you promote the value that you provide to your ideal clients throughout every touch point so that when they know the value that they will receive from you, they know they will get the results that they want.

Your answer to this question must be clear and concise in order to grow a successful brand. For example, I help female online business owners create thriving, visible and profitable brands through a complete branding and marketing experience.

3. How Do I Help My Clients Achieve This Value?

This relates to your services. What services do you provide that allow your clients to obtain the value mentioned above? For example, I provide value to online service based businesses through one on one services including The Flourish Experience, Consulting Power Hours and Monthly Strategy Sessions. I also have plans to further increase my services to include a group coaching programme, webinars and more. This allows me to grow my audience to include those who may not be ready to invest in The Flourish Experience but they still want to benefit from my branding and marketing expertise.

With this question, you want to make sure you are clear about how you can deliver the value to your clients.

4. How Do I Differentiate Myself From My Competitors?

In other words, what advantage do you have over your competitors? Why should a potential client work with you instead of a competitor? What steps do you or can you take to exceed the value provided by your competitors? How is what you do different from your competitors? These questions are not easy ones to answer so don’t worry if you can’t think of anything straight away. Keep coming back to it and the answers will come. Or work with a consultant such as myself to work out the answers to these questions for you.

For example, when I launched Fleurir Creative in 2016, I provided purely branding and web design services to female entrepreneurs. So do 10,000 other branding and web design companies out there. I was doing okay but there was a lot of competition. Of course my style was my own but I often found myself competing on price. So when I conducted my end of year review at the end of 2017, I asked myself how I could set myself apart from these other companies. What could I do that makes me different? What additional value could I offer that exceeds that of my competitors and the answer was marketing. I have over 10 years experience in marketing and I’m so passionate about it so it made sense to combine the two and here we are.

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So there you have it, the four questions you must answer when branding your online business. By answering these questions, you will have a brand identity and a brand that sets it apart from your competition. You will be unable to create a successful online brand if you are unable to answer these questions.

These four questions are just some of the questions I ask my clients when they start working with me. If you need help in answering these questions and more, then do get in touch to see how I could help you grow your online business.

About Fleurir Online

Fleurir Online is a brand design and marketing strategy studio for online service-based businesses. I work with creatives, coaches and consultants to define their brand, increase their visibility and ultimately grow their business online. My signature offering, The Flourish Experience, is a three-month branding and marketing experience for women in business who are ready to grow a successful brand.