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Ep. 3: Brand Clarity: What it is, Why it matters, & How to Achieve it
40 Plays1 year ago
Join hosts Chloe and Darci as they talk about an essential ingredient that’s easy to overlook when you’re baking your brand from scratch: Brand Clarity.
This episode takes listeners beyond the buzzword, explaining why brand clarity is a critical first step towards building brand awareness and sharing practical ways to prioritize it in your creative process, even when you’re learning as you go.
So, if you’re building your brand on a budget and things feel a bit muddled, there’s no need to worry. Brand Jam has your back!
Follow Brand Jam:
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/brandjampod/
Threads https://www.threads.net/@brandjampod
Website https://www.brandjampod.com
Follow Chloe at Chloe Arielle Design:
Website https://www.chloearielle.com/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/chloearielle
Threads https://www.threads.net/@chloearielle
Follow Darci at Sweet Tooth Creative
Website https://sweettoothcreative.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to Brand Jam and Solo Entrepreneur Branding
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to Brand Jam, the brand strategy podcast for colorful and compassionate brands. I'm Darcy, the candy-fueled copywriter behind Sweet Tooth Creative. And I'm Chloe, owner of Conscious Design Studio, Chloe Ariel Design. On the show, we'll be talking about what it's really like to build a brand from scratch when you're a business of one. And how to find what works for you so you can create a brand that grows with your business without burning yourself out. At Brand Jam, we believe there's no one right way to be, and embracing our differences enhances the experience for everyone.
00:00:32
Speaker
So if you're a fan of bold flavored branding and are trying to do business better, come hang out. We're so glad you're here.
Authenticity vs. Sales in Branding
00:00:40
Speaker
The permission to not have to be making aggressively salesy posts every single time can help build those real relationships. We don't do perfectionism here. Perfect clarity is not the goal. Clarity needs to be, I guess, the intention.
What is Brand Clarity?
00:01:00
Speaker
Welcome to Brand Jam. I'm Chloe. I'm here with my co-host Darcy. And today we are talking about brand clarity, what it is, why it matters, and most importantly, how to achieve it. And I know we love to define buzzwords when we use them. So to start with, when we say brand clarity, we're talking about how easy you've made it for your audience to understand your brand's identity.
00:01:24
Speaker
So when someone sees your content, how quickly and easily can they understand what your brand is about? What you offer? Who is it for? Why does it matter? Exactly. So because when you're interacting with content, whether it's a social media post or someone's website, all of these things are happening in a split second in your brain.
Why is Clarity Crucial for Engagement?
00:01:44
Speaker
And the very first thing that happens is comprehension. Our brains always seek to understand first emotional and cognitive processing.
00:01:52
Speaker
comes after. And it may only be a split second after, but how many times have you looked at something and if you can't quickly understand it, you click away. Yeah, I mean, I think it ranges, but some people say you get half a second to grab someone's attention, you get three seconds to grab someone's attention, but it's not a lot. And especially in this day and age, it's even less. Exactly. We're inundated with so much
00:02:17
Speaker
content so much for our brains to process, we cannot seek to understand everything that we come across. We have to prioritize. And so you want to make it as easy as possible for people to consume your stuff. And that starts with comprehension and brand clarity and making that simple.
00:02:36
Speaker
Bottom line, if you confuse your audience, you're going to lose your audience. The goal of your brand is to act as a mental bookmark in the brains of your audience. And if they're confused about what you do, you don't get the chance to do the repetition that you need to become that bookmark. They're not going to bother. Right. If you're super confusing, you're just kind of sending something out into the void that's not helpful.
00:03:01
Speaker
Exactly. Like you can't even get your foot in the door if it's not clear from the start.
Prioritizing Clarity Over Cleverness
00:03:06
Speaker
And that's, that's why another thing I tell my clients a lot is, you know, clear over clever. Like ideally your copy is going to be both clear and clever. Like that's always the goal. We want both, but especially when you're DIYing, like sometimes you can't have both. And if you have to choose one, I want you to prioritize keeping everything clear.
00:03:28
Speaker
But that doesn't mean we can't throw in a food pun every now and then, right, Arcee? Hey, I will never. You can pry food puns out of my cold, dead hands. So yeah, no. Like I said, I am here for both. But sometimes when you're still learning or building your skill at writing your own copy or designing your own designs, I know for me, as someone who is self-taught,
00:03:56
Speaker
in terms of design, I had to be like, okay, I know I want all these pretty flourishes, but maybe I need to keep it simple because I'm not quite there yet to execute it.
Integrating Personality While Maintaining Clarity
00:04:06
Speaker
Yeah, it's the same with me with copy when I start writing something. I well, I first I do like the stream of consciousness thing and then I write it super plain.
00:04:14
Speaker
And then I'm like, okay, how can I maybe switch up some of these words to infuse some of my more sparkly language and still have it make sense? But I do always start with the more, the super clear definition to make sure I actually know what I'm talking about. Yes. And that's perfect. That's what, you know, professional copywriters do too. Like, I mean, I can't speak for all of us, but for me, I'm always trying to get it as clear as possible. And then I will go back in and sprinkle in
00:04:41
Speaker
you know, more personality. Sprinkles. The food palms. You already used one. Yes. So then I juj it up. I add some more flavor to it, but clear is the first priority. So that's, that's why we're talking about brand clarity today. Cause if you don't have that, like it's essential. You need it from the start and then you can get to the sweeter stuff.
00:05:05
Speaker
And it's important to make sure that you are clear on what your business does and what your brand is and all of that before you start trying to show your audience. Yeah. And I will say like we don't do perfectionism here. No, no, no. Perfect clarity is not the goal. Clarity needs to be, I guess, the intention. Yeah. We just want you factoring that in. So if you're like, no, I just started and I'm not sure and I don't feel confident in like,
00:05:34
Speaker
Okay, I made some key messages because Darcy told me I had to, but I'm not sure if they're perfect. No, no, these things are allowed to evolve, but it's primarily that we want you to set clarity as an intention, even if
00:05:51
Speaker
it's not executed perfectly because it will improve over time as long as you are keeping it as part of your process and keeping it in mind and prioritizing it. Exactly. Chloe, what does that look like for our listeners who are DIYing their branding? What does setting an intention to prioritize brand clarity look like as they are building their brand?
Avoiding Content Overload for Clear Messaging
00:06:16
Speaker
So it's a combination of a lot of things and it kind of goes back to the previous episodes and the things we've talked about there. So we'll just kind of go into that a little bit. So if you've been listening to episodes one and two, you'll have your day one brand basics, which are your color palette, your font choices, your general aesthetic, your position, key messages, and your values.
00:06:38
Speaker
And you'll also have started to get your ideas out of your head with brainstorming and brain dumping. You're getting organized and you're ready to start creating content for your audience. But now.
00:06:49
Speaker
it's time to start putting your brand out there. We have three things we want you to keep in mind as you're doing that. Darcy, what's the first thing? The first thing is don't overstuff it. I mean, on the communication side of things, that means stay on topic, know what point you're trying to make. You do not have to smash every single key message and little detail into the one section or post or whatever you're creating. It should have a clear point.
00:07:19
Speaker
that you're trying to make, not five of them, one. That's something I have to catch myself on all the time. I'm like, I want to talk about everything. I'm like, no, one thing at a time. Same. I mean, unfortunately, like never fully goes away, but you definitely it's something you want to be aware of.
Enhancing Clarity with Design Elements
00:07:37
Speaker
And again, setting that intention for clarity.
00:07:41
Speaker
And then one other don't overstuff it clarity in communications point is, you know, also avoid jargon or flowery language, you know, again, comes back to clear over clever, you know, make sure it's easy to understand. Right. And again, that doesn't mean you can't have like a brand voice.
00:08:00
Speaker
Right. I will never tell you not to have a brand voice. Right. Okay. So then on the visual side, what does don't overstuff it or not over stuffing it look like for you, Chloe? I mean, it's kind of similar where it's like, don't overstuff the design. So things like white space, it's going to be your friend. Yes, we love white space. And white space doesn't literally mean white space. Yeah. White space doesn't have to be white. Right. It's just space where there isn't
00:08:30
Speaker
some kind of content happening. So if you have a pink background, white space is then pink. Pink space. It's visual breathing room. Exactly. Visual breathing room is how I think of it. Yeah, leaving space for the brain to process and find out what's most important.
00:08:48
Speaker
So you don't want clutter, but then you also that factors into like visual hierarchy, right? Exactly. Visual hierarchy is the arrangement of elements in a design in a way that guides the beaver's eye and kind of tells a story, so to speak. In easier terms, it's just the most important information is going to stand out and your eye is going to jump right to that, followed by the next important information and the next important information after that.
00:09:15
Speaker
Yeah, so it's basically like engaging the instinctive way that your eyes move
00:09:22
Speaker
and using that to your advantage, right? Yeah, exactly. OK, so let's say we're making an Instagram post. In theory, your most important information is going to be in the headline. So that's going to be, again, in theory, the biggest, easiest thing to read on your image. Next, you're going to probably have a subheading that gives more context to the headline and then body text comes after that. It's going to be a little bit smaller and you can have a longer
00:09:51
Speaker
So like your headline is there to grab your eye and give you an idea of what the topic is and why you should want to keep reading. Subheading is maybe going to expand on that a little bit. And then body text goes into more detail.
00:10:05
Speaker
for people that want to read more. Exactly. And you don't necessarily have all of these things all of the time. Like an Instagram post probably won't have a lot of body text. That's probably going to be in your caption instead of on your visual image. Yeah, but the idea is just to keep those things in mind. Think about how your eyes interact with a post.
00:10:25
Speaker
and what do you read first and then follow that. And because this is don't over stuff it, don't cram all the words into one place, like use a heading and that's it. And use line breaks, don't use walls of text, make it so that their eye wants to stay on it. Pay attention to things that make your eyes want to skitter away. Yeah, yeah. And then do the opposite.
00:10:47
Speaker
I mean, I learned in high school, I don't know if this stands the test of time, but the study of the time was that the eye drops off the line after 39 characters, which isn't a lot, so it's a very narrow width. But just keep that in mind. If you have a super long line of text, the eye is probably going to get tired about halfway through and want to stop reading. Yeah, everybody uses things differently, but definitely I have learned a lot just from examining how my eyes behave, how I interact with content, and then
00:11:16
Speaker
thinking about that when I am creating.
Readability and Typography in Brand Clarity
00:11:19
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Okay, so what else makes, from a visual side of things, what else makes a design too full, Chloe? The biggest one I think would be fonts. Limiting the number of fonts you use. I know a lot of people like to say like the two is a party, three is a crowd. In this case, it's
00:11:42
Speaker
Yeah, I kind of would agree with that. The more fonts you have, the more confusing it's going to be for the eye and the brain to figure out what the heck is going on. And going back to hierarchy, what is the most important? And that also leads into the type of fonts that you use. If you're using a script, which is like a cursive font or a more decorative, which is like a lot of those like
00:12:01
Speaker
Melty you know modern fun funky fonts you see around for using those they can be really hard to read so avoiding a lot of that is helpful for readability. I can't tell you how many times I and this shows growth on my part I choose the really boring font.
00:12:20
Speaker
for the sake of clarity, even though like I'm like, ooh, but pretty, but like, yeah, it seems pretty in my brain because I know what the post says and what it's about. But to someone with fresh eyes, it's just confusing. And then they don't stop. Yeah. And it's kind of the same thing with like the clear over clever where it's like, I'm not telling you, you can't have a font with a personality.
00:12:45
Speaker
I'm not telling you that, but you do want to make sure that legibility is at the forefront of your decision for your fonts. Right. Right. And if you do want to have one that has, I don't know, maybe a little more flourish, just be careful how you use it. So like only use it in headlines and only use it for like, I don't know, the read a four words maximum.
00:13:06
Speaker
Yeah, I mean like I have an accent font and I love it and I think it's pretty but there's definitely times even it can come down to like the letters in the word I'm using. If in that font that one letter is kind of hard to read then it may be a time that I decide well not going to use it there even though visually I might like that if it's just not worth it if it makes it unclear. Exactly.
00:13:33
Speaker
All right, so Chloe, what is number two on our list for setting brand clarity as an intention as you create? Number two is keeping context in mind. So thinking about who are you talking to? How are they interacting with the content? Are they scrolling through social media? Are they skimming your newsletter? Is it audio? No audio.
00:13:57
Speaker
Yeah, a super common mistake that I see people making in their marketing and when they're writing for their marketing is writing the same way across all mediums. And not that you don't have to like reinvent your writing for every medium, but there are things that you're going to need to tweak.
00:14:16
Speaker
based on how people are interacting with that type of content. So you're gonna format your text and maybe tweak your writing style based on is it gonna be part of a reel or is it in your email newsletter, is it your website? All of those things, you need to just adjust your approach. Again, it doesn't have to be drastic, but taking that into consideration will make a huge difference.
00:14:45
Speaker
You don't have to be an expert in writing all these different types of content, but even just thinking about it a little bit can have such a huge impact. I mean, I think that the visual side is a little more simplistic in this same thing, where it's like different platforms require different ideal sizes for your images.
00:15:05
Speaker
You do have to consider that and optimize for different things that you're doing. The visual world, it's your kind of rearranging things. So they fit better in the different format, but in the copy, you're doing the same thing, aren't you? Yeah, that's the, just even the different dimensions for different platforms is such a great little analogy for this. It's like you have to adjust the dimensions. Okay. You also have to just tweak your formatting, tweak
00:15:30
Speaker
your design so that it can be its best on that platform.
00:15:35
Speaker
Okay. So if you're listening to this and you're like, but wait, how the heck do I actually, like, how do I know how to change it from my website or for a real or for newsletter? Think about how you personally interact with these things. Start to pay more attention when you're reading other people's newsletters, when you're on other people's websites, when you're on Instagram, interacting with reals, what makes you scroll away? What makes you stay and tune in more?
00:16:01
Speaker
Exactly. Not everyone uses something the way you do, but starting there is a really good way to start understanding how these different things work. And then you can build on that rather than falling down a rabbit hole blog post about like best practices for X type of content.
00:16:21
Speaker
I mean, maybe I like it just because it's like, well, I can kind of do it while I'm doing other things because I'm like, oh, I'm reading newsletters and I'm kind of in research learning and factoring it in like, yay, multitasking all the time. But for me that it feels like a less pressured way to, you know, grow your skills without being like, I am just endlessly trying to teach myself everything.
00:16:46
Speaker
And then the other thing to keep in mind in terms of context is for that piece of content, what do you want them to take away from it? If they can only learn or remember one thing from what you're creating, what do you want it to be? It goes back to, you know, don't overstuff it with all your key messages. Know the point you're trying to make. Know what you want them to take away from it. Know what you want them to do next. Like, do you want them to sign up for your newsletter, book a call with you, or follow you on threads?
00:17:15
Speaker
And the goal of the post doesn't necessarily need to be a specific or salesy kind of call to action. Yeah, it doesn't have to be specifically a call to act. It doesn't have to be like a, well, you want them to buy now. Maybe the entire point of a post is that you wanted to make them feel good, feel better about something that they are maybe struggling with. Like that's fine too, if that's the point, but you want to know what it is that you're trying to do.
00:17:43
Speaker
I love that so much, Darcy. As someone who runs a values-driven business, sometimes my number one goal isn't necessarily to be making constant sales with people.
Fostering Genuine Connections over Sales
00:17:55
Speaker
Yes, I want my business to be successful, I want to make money, but my top priority as a business is to help people. I want that to come through in my marketing,
00:18:06
Speaker
And I also believe that the way to a successful business is by building real connections and relationships with people. And yeah, the permission to not have to be making aggressively salesy posts every single time is really helpful and can help build those real relationships that will likely later lead you to sales.
00:18:29
Speaker
And all of that leads us into our third and final thing we want you to keep in mind as you're studying your brand clarity and tension, which is that it's an ongoing process.
Evolving Brand Clarity Continuously
00:18:40
Speaker
Again, things aren't set in stone. Try something. Reflect on how it went. Try something else. Make adjustments.
00:18:47
Speaker
Just as Jessica Day says, in New Girl, keep taking small planned steps like an old arthritic dog and just keep plugging away at it. Just keep going little by little. Just know it doesn't need to be perfect. It can always change. Exactly. Keep coming back to it. Again, we don't do perfectionism. You're not going to nail brand clarity from day one, but if you are keeping it in mind,
00:19:14
Speaker
trying to apply these things as you're creating your content, you're going to make progress so much faster than if you are, you know, nine months into it and kind of setting your ways or I don't know why I went with nine months, apparently a pregnancy on the brain.
00:19:31
Speaker
But, you know, until you're, you know, years into your branding, you're like, um, I really, really need to make clarity a priority because people are confused. Like do it a little bit at a time, letting it evolve, keep reexamining your process and trying to improve on it. And, you know, baby steps are going to get you there a lot faster than trying to long jump your way to perfection, to mix metaphors.
00:20:03
Speaker
That's it for this episode of Brand Jam. Check out the show notes for links to the resources we talked about. If this episode hit the spot, be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. It helps Brand Jam reach more listeners, so we really appreciate it. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll see you next time.