Start Up Branding Tips and Tricks with Katinka Kernutt

EXPERT CHAT – Do you have a clear brand Strategy for your business?

by kkernutt | Brand Photography, Brand Refresh, Brand Story, Start Up Branding

Do you feel aligned with your business brand?

In this video, Katinka, a Melbourne-based photographer and visual brand expert, launches the idea of a mini-series of expert chats to help small-business owners grow their businesses and brands. The first guest is Darby, a brand strategist, and the discussion is around the importance of having a strong foundation for your brand, it highlights the difference between a brand strategist and a logo/graphic designer, and when you might need these services.

Darby explains that her ideal customers are service providers, including finance experts, bookkeepers, designers, and psychologists who have been in business for a few years and are feeling disconnected from their brand or ready for a change. She helps them refresh their brand strategy, align it with their business strategy, and take their business to the next level.

Free download:
If you’re unsure about your business brand strategy and would like to check what your next step is. Please scroll down to download our Brand Strategy checklist.

Contact or follow us online:
Do you need help with your Brand Strategy? Please contact and follow Derby.

Darby Lyndon
Brand Strategist & Content Marketer
www.darbylyndon.com
@darbylyndon

Is it time to refresh or create a visual brand for your business? Please contact or follow Katinka

Katinka Kernutt
Visual Brand and Personal Brand Photography
www.katinkakernutt.com
@katinkakernutt

Do you have a clear Brand Strategy for your business?

Download our quick checklist to help you decide if you have a clear brand strategy or if you need help defining it before you engage a Graphic Designer and Photographer to create the visual aspects of your business brand.

Is it time to refresh your 2021 vision?

by kkernutt | Brand Refresh, Brand Story, Start Up Branding

In today’s competitive marketplace it is becoming
increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd.

Trying to project a different image from competitors can
easily become time consuming, overwhelming and distracts you from what’s really
important: doing what you do best and running the business you have worked so
hard on.

The best way to ensure your business is seen is simple, and
getting back to basics is key.

This is done by really looking at what you actually want to
achieve in your business and consider if your current branding situation is
doing its best to serve your vision.

Visual branding includes all your visual content, including
your logo, colour scheme, font, image styles and photographs.

You may discover that what you currently have going on
visually isn’t serving your overall business vision at all. When this happens,
you have two options: rebranding or refreshing.

You may consider rebranding if:

Your business name no longer serves your vision
or reflects your brands image or goals.
You want to transform your business into
something completely different.
You don’t like your logo or graphics and want a
complete design overhaul.

Rebranding is a good way to get a nice clean slate and start
off fresh with a new, more coherent vision. If you’re happy with your business
name and vision and just want a bit of an update, you might only need a
refresh.

You should consider a brand refresh if:

You currently find yourself not properly connecting
with your customers.
You don’t have consistent visuals in place.
You feel your logo needs slight tweaking, such
as different colours or font.
Your website, social media pages and business
cards all look completely different to one another an you want a more
consistent, professional look.

One of the most important things about visual branding is
consistency. Are you giving your business the best possible chance at being a
consistent, easily recognised brand that people will be able to connect with?

If you’re tired of your current branding but don’t know how to fix it or where to start, a Visual Brand Review can help. If you’re ready to build your visual brand in 2021 and start attracting your ideal customers, contact me today to book a FREE 20 MINUTE CHAT and let’s make 2022 your most visually stunning year yet!

Top 5 time saving tips for creating visual content for your small business

by kkernutt | Brand Story, Moodboard, Start Up Branding

Saving time is my number one priority these days. I am not sure about you but as I get older I just seem to leak time out my ears. The less time it takes to create the images and graphics to promote my business the more time I have to spend on making money, working on my business and enjoying my family and friends. Here are my top 5 time saving tips for creating visual content for your brand.

1.Create a mood board

Which should include:

Your fonts
Brand colours (including Hex, RGB and CMYK value so you can easily find the right colours.)
Brand visual style (a selection of images that sums up your brand’s style.)

Tip: Put your mood board on your wall so you can easily see it.

2. Templates

Create templates for all your common visual elements so you only have to add text and sometimes an image to create the visuals for your posts. Some of the common visuals you may use are:

Promotional post
Blog posts
Business tips
Testimonials
About Me
Facebook banner

Tip: Use Canva to create your templates. It’s free and easy to use.

3. Selection images that work for your brand

Spend some time coming up with a selection of images that work for your brand and that you can use across your visuals. What is the element or two that ties all the images together?

Tip: Get a photoshoot done at your office which includes professional headshot and office shots plus some more relaxed images of you at your desk, on your phone, on the couch and being silly. Change your outfit and the items around you on your desk a few times to give it a different look.

4. Save new content and inspiration as you find it

Always be on the lookout for any relevant content, text or images that you may be able to use. Save the images and text in one place so you can easily find it when you are creating your content.

Tip: Use Evernote or something similar to save all your source content in the same place. I love Evernote as you can easily find what you are looking for by searching using tags or text.

5. A plan

List all the visuals you need each week and put aside 1 or 2 hours a week to create them and write the text. Use scheduling tools or a spreadsheet so you can easily find the content your need.

Finally, add all the details to one document or file and keep it somewhere that you can easily refer to it. I have mine on my computer but you could also print it out and put it on your wall.

Do you need help finding your brands visual style?

Contact me to find out how I can help you.

Book a FREE 15 min chat

How to use visual branding to amplify your brand

by kkernutt | Start Up Branding

Would you like to know how to use visual branding to amplify your brand? In this video, I am going to talk about my top three tips for creating a consistent and strong visual brand that will attract your ideal customer and become recognisable online.

Your brand style guide. How to use it to create a consistent visual brand.
Personal brand and personal brand photography and how to use this to create an authentic and recognisable brand for your business on and offline.
How consistency is the key to everything.

Download your free Brand Guide template.

Do you need some help getting your visual brand attracting your ideal customer? Book a free 15 minute chat to discuss how I can help you achieve your goals.

(more…)

Emmylou: personal brand colours

by kkernutt | Brand Photography, Start Up Branding

Emmylou has hit Instagram in a big way with her big parties, TV show, fun personality, epic videos and authentic personal branding. Her followers love her real ‘say it as it is’ attitude.

Someone commented “You did that well—your outfit matches the ribbon colour on the car.”

Emmylou replied “Those are my brand colours!”

I loved that answer! Her perfectly thought out personal branding helped create beautiful on-brand images of the special event.

I was excited to be part of the “Emmylou CAR” story.

I’d expected to get a few ‘red carpet’ style shots as Emmylou arrived, but no: she, and Bec and Kara from Social ConXN were early. The Social ConXN girls and I went inside to set up the shoot, and then it was time for Emmylou to come and get the keys.

Emmylou was totally overwhelmed and the guys at Werribee Mitsubishi were amazing. The gift of a car is going to really change Emmylou’s world and she was blown away by their generosity. Instead of getting her three children to school on foot and tram in the Melbourne winter, she’ll be able to drive to drop-off and pick-up.

Like every great photoshoot most of the time is taken up by re-creating that perfect moment and videoing and photographing every detail from every angle. And then the real work starts. Thanks to modern technology images and videos were transferred on site. We all went to pick up our kids and at the perfect Insta worthy time the event was broadcast to the world (with one tiny tech issue).

Thank you Social ConXN for inviting me to be part of this exciting event!

Get unstuck by finding your ideal customer

by kkernutt | Start Up Branding

“I don’t need a target market, I’ll just target everyone. This way I won’t restrict my market and I’ll get more sales.” Does this go through your head whenever someone talks about target markets and your ideal customer? For a very long time this was the issue I faced and it still plagues my thinking. However, knowing your target market is important as it makes your job easier when creating online content. The right content will attract more customers and this will sell more of your products. So how do you decide on your ideal customer?

First you need to determine a target market: the section of the population your product appeals to. What are their values, needs and wants? How can you help them? Your product should fulfil a need or solves a problem that they have. Then, thinking about this target market, pick your ideal customer: one symbolic person you can keep in mind when promoting your product or creating your brand. Give them a name so that when you create content you can ask “Would Sam find this content interesting and useful?”. Everything you publish should appeal to this person.

You may feel that you have multiple ideal customers. Fair enough, but, try to create just one for each area of your business and keep that one in mind when creating content related to that area.

Here is a list of questions you should ask and answer when framing your ideal customer.
Gender?
Age?
Occupation?
Location – inner city, suburbs, rural?
Education level?
Style – clothes, hair, house?
Single or married?
Do they have children? What ages?
What are their hobbies and passions?
What do they read? (blogs/magazines/books/newspapers)
What are their values?
What do they lack that you will provide?
What is their pain point?
What makes your customer feel happy?
Where do they hang out?

Make a poster that captures all these qualities – you can even give your ideal customer a name and grab a random face from the web – and put it up somewhere so you have a reminder of your audience whenever you need to create content.

Tip: If you already have a Facebook following you can check out the analytics section. This will give you some information about the people who already follow you. Do they fit with your ideal customer?

If not, how can you start engaging them?