Best Brand Blueprint is the DIY training program based upon Barry Edwards‘ premium brand development and lead generation services
BBB is the 3 Module process that Barry uses when developing a new (or re-brand) online presence that needs to get found and convert more prospects into customers. It covers every major aspect of getting your Best Brand in place so that you can get found and get profitable as quickly as possible.
If you’re spending money on Facebook ads, Google Adwords… or even traditional advertising, and you’re not converting these prospects into customers, than this is the program for you.
This is the step-by-step base program put together by me, Barry Edwards, that contains everything needed for many local businesses (meaning businesses that obtain their customers in a 5-30 mile radius of their business) to begin converting prospects into customers.
While I offer more services to my customers with Edwards Communications, such as prospect building campaigns like Google Adwords, Facebook ads, trade show design, direct mail and so on, I wouldn’t suggest investing in these lead generating phases until you have your Best Brand in place. It will help you define your:
- Best niche and target audience
- Best Unique Personal Avatar (or Target Persona)
- Unique Value Propositions – that best define your products and services
- Credibility, credentials and personal brand story
- Professional look and UX (user experience)
The better focused you are on your industry niche and target audience, the better you are relating to the customers that you value the most.
Gone will be the days of battling your competitors for lowest price.
Let’s take a look at each Module
Module 1: Finding your place
Like building a house, we have some important questions to answer before we can just start excavating, such as:
- what do we want our surroundings to be (brick and mortar or virtual offices)
- our lifestyles (how much money do we expect for the effort we’re willing to put in)
- who we want in our community (our partners and target audience)
We need define exactly what we want before we get started.
Whether you’re embarking on a new entrepreneurial career right now, or simply overhauling the company that you started some years ago, the questions and answers at this stage will define our company’s brand and its effectiveness to connect with our potential customers.
Getting to the heart of the matter
When we embarked on our chosen career paths, there was a reason it excited us… an angle or passion. But, sometimes we’ve misplaced our passion (I’VE BEEN THERE) at which point, we need to revisit this and discern if:
- We simply lost our way – lost track of WHY we chose this job – and need to correct course (or at least better define it).
- Or, sometimes it’s been so long that we’ve been performing our duties, that we’ve taken for granted our learned expertise.
Either way, Module 1 is an introspective phase where we get back to our WHY and build a solid and simple solution of which we’ll be excited and proud.
In this Module, we’ll explore and define what we most want from our new brand (or re-brand). With these results we’ll be able to define:
- Our target audience and Unique Customer Avatars
- The niche that we’d like to laser focus on, so we get more of the customers that we want
- Our Mission Statement that keeps us, and our staff, focused on what matters most
- Your Signature Services and Unique Value Propositions that differentiate you from your competition.
Module 2: Establishing the structure
Now we’re sure of what our new home means to us — within our means and value systems — so now we begin to build it!
We all know the importance of a strong foundation and sturdy frame. The same is said for our company as we break ground to build our Best Brand! I’m going to lay out a couple of VERY IMPORTANT pieces of advice before we get started:
- Don’t get distracted by the shiny objects (design… and remember, this is coming from a lifelong brand designer)
- Don’t let technology sidetrack you indefinitely
- Know when to back away to regain perspective
There are a lot of creative decisions that we’ll be making on this journey and you can second guess them for the rest of eternity if you go down that rabbit hole. Likewise, I give a lot of suggestions of new free software that is supposed to make your life easier, but it can sometimes be overwhelming. So, I will make suggestions along the way of how you may want to outsource your logo or website (inexpensively) in order to get you back on track, because we need you making money — not spending all your time and brain power learning how to be a professional production artist.
In this module, I’ll walk you through the How To’s and How NOT To’s of coming up with your:
- logo and slogan
- business card design
- website structure
Module 2 is a very important continuation of Module 1. Your logo and slogan define your company (often the first impression) in one second – so make sure it exudes professionalism. Its hard to overcome a bad forst impression.
Business cards?? Who needs a business card today?? We all do unless all of your clients are remote. Networking is a VERY important aspect of business development – ESPECIALLY post covid. People have been slow to get off their couches and that means more opportunity for you and me. But, honestly, the business card for me as a brand designer is more important as an interim step in designing the website than it is anything else.
Website structure. If I had a dime for every website that I’ve seen that couldn’t possibly pull in a lead, I’d buy something dumb like Twitter. Seriously, the UX (User Experience) is a serious matter of communication super clearly and providing trust factors where needed.
I’ll get you down these windy roads as we build our Best Brand together.
Module 3: Adding the contents
In keeping with our home building analogy, we’re now at the point where we have a beautiful structure, but we need to move in. We need to add the right flooring, furniture and decor that makes this YOUR home – not just anyone’s home.
With our essential design elements in place, we’ll use our established logo, colors, fonts and services to build out the content of our website in it’s best light possible, so your target audience:
- knows that they’re in the right place — within two seconds
- find the credibility that they’re looking for next
- find easy-to-read excerpts of your services next
- and then find the trust-building content that they’re looking for next
We’ll wrap this package in an SEO-friendly wrapper:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is extremely important so that our website is getting found for exactly what we intend in our geographic location. In other words, we now have this gorgeous house — we just need our neighbors (target audience) to be able to find it!
So with this final module I’ll teach you the basics of creating a site that Google likes and trusts. If we can get you on the lauded first page of Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), your new brand will be competing with your competition and may the Best Brand win! So here we’ll make sure that we:
- Claim and register your brand with Google
- Add your branding content to your site with best SEO practices in mind
- register with necessary mega directories and social media that will increase your street cred with Google
Module 3 will guide you threw proper content development and employment, so you can regularly add content that will increase your credibility and visibility online and help generate those leads we need to turn prospects into customers!