Branding is just one more thing that you should have in place for your wellness business. And it's one of the things that you could end up spending way too much time and money on when you are just getting started.
Let me start this with a disclaimer: I’m not a branding expert. But I know that branding is one of the things that could be holding you back from moving forward with things like your website or your online program. In this blog post I’m going to walk you through some simple steps you can take to create a brand that will get you started.
What is branding?
Branding is the look and feel of your business. It includes things like the names, colours, fonts, slogans and logo of your business. It also includes photography you use and even the tone you use in your copy.
Why is branding important?
Branding is how the customer recognizes they are in the right place. You wouldn’t use dark colours and lots of sweaty muscular bodies for a website that is geared to menopausal women. On the other hand, if your target market is body builders, then it might be what you are looking for.
Brand also provides a way for your audience to recognize you. If all your blog posts look the same, then they will come to feel comfortable in your space.
Remember that although you want your branding to be appealing to you, ultimately you want to appeal to your ideal client.
How to keep your brand consistent
You can keep your brand consistent by using the same colours and the same fonts everywhere. You also want to try to keep the same style of photos. And the harder part is keeping the same voice through everything you write and say.
How to choose brand fonts
In order to keep your branding consistent, it’s important that you choose 2 or 3 different fonts to use. These are the fonts that you will use on your website, social media accounts, free downloads and paid products.l
For your website you can have a heading font and a regular font. You can also add a script font to use for emphasis in some places. But keep in mind that script fonts are not always easy to read, so should not be used where meaning is important.
You want the fonts you choose to go together and represent your brand. Here are some articles that offer some ideas for brand combinations:
Canva gives some options is this article, showing you how they look together and where they are good options: https://www.canva.com/learn/canva-for-work-brand-fonts/
In this article you’ll also find several font combinations that work well for websites:
https://www.reliablepsd.com/ultimate-google-font-pairings/
Make sure that the fonts you choose are available or can be downloaded to every platform you use.
How to choose brand colours
You will also want to choose some colours to use for your brand. Here are several resources to help you with this.
Use Canva to create a colour palette
Even with a Canva free account you can create a Brand Kit. In your brand kit you’ll be able to choose fonts and colours. If you click on add and discover palettes, you’ll see options for colour palettes.
Use Coolors for colour inspiration
coolors.co is a website I love for colour inspiration. They have thousands of colour palettes you can use or you can search by a colour hex code or even a style to find colours that work for your brand. They even allow you to create a palette from a photo. So if you have a picture of you that you really like, or a stock image that is perfect for your brand you can pick your colour palette based on this.
See a colour scheme you like?
The ColorPick Eyedropper chrome extension is a great way to find out the hex code of a colour you see that you like. You can hover over a colour you see on a website that catches your eye and find out what the hex code is.
Just be careful that you don’t copy too much from a brand especially if they are well known. Not only is this illegal, but it makes your brand harder to recognize.
Psychology of colour
Every colour creates different feelings. You may not consciously realize it, but companies choose their brand colours for specific reasons. This article from Crazy egg is a great summary of the emotions of colour.
https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/website-color-palettes/
Contrast
The other thing that is important with colour choices is contrast. Make sure you are not choosing colours that don’t show up on the screen very easily. You can use a tool like https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/ to check to see if there is enough contrast with the colour scheme you have chosen.
https://www.websitebuilderexpert.com/designing-websites/how-to-choose-color-for-your-website/
Logos
You can create a simple logo using Canva, have a logo created by someone on Fiverr, or just start out with your company name in one of the fonts you’ve chosen and not worry about the logo to start with.
Business name
Your business name is an important part of your branding. But I’m leaving this to the end, because you have probably already chosen this. If you haven’t or you are looking at changing yours, then keep reading.
There are two options for your business name - come up with a catchy name that reflects what you do, or use your name. When I started with my health coaching business, I choose a name that reflected what I thought was my ideal client. But after a few months I changed my niche and had to change my company name. So I ended up going with my name.
The hardest part is finding a name that fits and has a domain that isn’t taken. And you probably don’t want a name that doesn’t have a .com available. Especially if it’s used by a well known brand. Something like mindbodygreen.xyz is out of the question.
Since my name was already used, I had to come up with a new company name for my virtual assistant business. Luckily for me, my first idea simplewellnesstech.com was available.
Summary
I know branding is something you can easily get stuck on. When starting out keep it simple and don’t get too stressed about it. Try not to spend too much money on anything that can’t be changed.