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Hey, TPT sellers, ready to see growth in your business? You’re in the right place. Welcome to the Savvy Teacher Seller. I’m Kristen Doyle and I’m here to give you no fluff tools and strategies that will really make an impact on your sale. Let’s get started y’all.
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Hey, y’all, welcome to this episode of the Savvy Teacher Seller. I’m your host, Kristen Doyle. And today we are continuing our website series with a chat about branding.
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Branding is this big concept. And I know most likely, when I mentioned the word branding, your mind darts straight to your logo. But it really is this bigger concept that is way more than just your logo, your fonts, and even your colors.
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Your branding should have an influence that stretches across your entire website, your social media, your storefront, really your entire business. Alright, let’s dive in and talk about what branding is, and some practical things that you can do to make your branding better across your business and specifically your website.
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So like I said, your mind probably immediately goes to either your logo or your fonts and colors when I talk about branding. But it really is this big umbrella topic that covers so much more. Your brand is your voice, kind of spreading across your website.
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It’s those images that grab people’s attention, shapes, backgrounds, even little tiny details can be part of your branding. And it’s important because your branding builds your unique identity. It makes you recognizable. It’s like spotting one of your best friends across a crowded room.
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Earlier this week, actually, I took my son to his ninja class. And it takes place at our local gymnastics center, where one of my neighbors takes her daughter’s for gymnastics class on the same day, at the same time. And so we tend to look for each other, this gym, you guys, it’s huge.
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They just built a brand new one. There are probably 200 kids in that gym during each one of those classes. Plus all the parents it’s spread out really big and we are on opposite corners. Of course, the ninja kids are back in the back corner. And most of the floors taken up with the gymnastics classes because that’s their primary thing.
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So my friend and I usually when we come in first thing, we are kind of on opposite corners of this giant gymnasium. It’s about the size of, I would say maybe two basketball courts, maybe a little more. And I was looking for her the other day, and I glanced across the room and couldn’t believe how fast I found her.
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And the reason is because I know her so well. I know her style, I know the way that she carries herself, I know the way that her posture usually is, I recognize the way she was wearing her hair. And so I picked out my friend across this crowded room very quickly, just because I recognized the way that she carries herself, the general look that she has. And that is like branding.
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When you have your branding down pat, it really elevates your professionalism, and it makes you stand out in a crowd. It means that people who’ve seen you on social media recognize you when they see you on your website, or people who know you from your website recognize you when they see you in your storefront.
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And so that’s really why it’s so important that we have consistent branding, and that we extend that branding beyond just fonts and colors and logos.
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Let’s break that down just a little bit more and talk about some specifics. First up, we are going to talk about your fonts and colors because choosing the right ones is important, not just because they reflect your brand’s personality, but also because they have to appeal to your target audience.
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You want to make sure that you are picking easy to read fonts and colors that stand out but they work well together. Keep in mind, less is more. You don’t need a color palette with as many colors as the rainbow. Choose a handful of colors, I recommend three to four colors that really represent your brand and stick with those.
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In fact, choosing too many colors really can just turn your website into a kind of a whirlpool of shades and not give it that polished, cohesive feel that you’re looking for. So I recommend that you pick three to four colors that are going to be your brand colors. And of course you’ll have a white and a black or a charcoal gray, something like that for your text, but just pick a few other colors to compliment with.
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Same is true when it comes to your fonts. You want to make sure that you are choosing just a couple of fonts that work really well together. Ideally on your website, you need one font for your headings, one font for the rest of your text and then maybe an accent font that you use just a few places here and there.
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Another really important aspect of your branding is the imagery and the graphics that you’re using, whether it’s photos of yourself, classroom shots, product photos, those all need to be in sync with your brand. Keep in mind, the idea here is to make everything look like it’s part of the same family.
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So the colors in your photos should complement your brand colors, and the colors and the feel of your website overall. So if you have brand colors that are solid, primary and secondary kinds of shades, we’re talking about red, yellow, green, blue, then you want to avoid photos that are full of neon colors or pastels.
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And vice versa, you want to make sure that the colors in your photos complement the colors on your website and in your brand. You’ll also want to choose graphics that go really well with your branding. So when it comes to choosing things like the icons you might use on your website, choose an icon style that looks like it belongs to the rest of your brand.
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If your fonts and your logo are very heavy and thick and bold, then you probably want solid, bold looking icons as well. On the flip side, if your branding is lighter and has a more airy feel, then you might want to choose icons that use a lighter line and an outline style as opposed to those heavy filled and solid icon.
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And then you can also choose other graphics to put on your website and throughout your social media posts and your product imaging, other small graphics that you might not even consider to be part of your brand, but they just become a part of it.
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Things like little sets of polka dots, or a certain rectangle that you use. You might notice if you’re looking at my branding, squares and rectangles make very frequent appearances, that is because one of my brand graphics is a rectangle.
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And it is specifically an outline of a rectangle, the weight of that outline is always about the same. And if you look at my different posts, elements that are on my homepage, you’ll notice the weight of that outline is even pretty consistent from one place to another.
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These little small elements like that can really just help your audience identify your brand and they contribute to that consistency that you want to portray across all your different platforms. But like I said, it can be something as simple as a square or a rectangle.
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Another important piece of your branding that a lot of people tend to forget about is using a consistent brand voice. Now, if there is anything you should be taking away from this episode, consistency is key. I feel like I have said that word 20 times already. But you really do want to be consistent.
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You want to settle on a tone, that is a good blend of confidence and setting yourself up as an expert, but also very approachable and friendly. You don’t want to be that high and mighty expert who knows everything. You want to appear more like a wise friend, who’s already walked the day in their shoes and their intent to help them with their journey.
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So when you’re creating content, or you are writing the words that are gonna go on your website, ask yourself, does this sound like me? Would I say this in real life? Does it sound like the things I say to my friends? And if the answer is no rewrite it, and let everything that you write whether it is going on your website, or your social media or an email, let it sound authentically you.
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Sometimes I find the best way to do this is to actually read it out loud to myself, it feels a little silly. But that really does help to give you a clear picture of whether the content you’ve written rings true to your voice and sounds authentically you or not.
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When you’re thinking about your brand voice, don’t forget about your call to action buttons. I know it is easy to go with default options, like learn more or shop now or even click here. But those don’t really resonate with your audience the same way that a more personalized call to action in your voice and that’s targeted to the thing that they’re clicking on can resonate with them.
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It’s a great opportunity to inject more of your brand personality, and to call them to engage with that button. So don’t forget about your brand voice when you’re writing the call to action buttons.
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Alright, there you have it. That is our deep dive into branding way beyond just your logo. I’m giving you some small changes that you can make to your website, to your branding, to the way that you are writing social media posts. And even though they’re very small changes, they really can make a world of difference.
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Today’s action step is for you to do a quick brand audit. Start with your website or if you don’t have one, then look through your storefront and your social media. Look at your pages and make note of what is working well and what maybe doesn’t quite line up with your branding.
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Take a few minutes to make some of the quick and easy changes, like maybe changing some of the language so that it sounds like you and make note of anything that you might need to talk to your designer about or make some bigger changes on down the road.
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Keep in mind, each element on your site really should speak your brand language, and it should speak to your target audience. Even those tiny little tweaks can really make a big difference in your online presence.
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If you enjoyed this episode, I would love for you to take a second to rate and review the show. It really helps us to reach more sellers like you and help everyone to grow their business. Talk to you soon friends.
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I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If you did, please share it with another teacher seller who would also find it helpful. For more resources on Growing Your TPT business. Head to Kristendoyle.co/TPT. Talk to you soon.
