Level Up Your Branding

Kirsten 0:00

You're listening to the creative teacher podcast, a show for busy teachers looking for ways to engage, inspire and make an impact in their teacher businesses. I'm Kiersten, a teacher business owner who is all about simple and actionable tips, strategies and resources that result in wins, big or small. If you're looking for that extra spark of creativity, you've come to the right place. Let's dive in together.

Hey there and welcome to another episode of the creative teacher podcast. This episode is all about that lovely analogy related to the Great British Bake Off. But this time, we're going to focus on one specific challenge in each episode. And that is the signature challenge. I'm going to compare the signature challenge to branding in our business. So today's topic is all about ways to level up your branding, as well as I share with you some myths in branding in general, and how it's even related to the Great British Bake Off. If you have not heard of this show. It's on Netflix. It's amazing. It's wonderful. I love watching it. And I think just recently, they released the last episode of the most recent season as well as their great holiday Bake Off. And they also have an episode for the new year. So it's always fun watching that.

But the point of this topic today is that in order to create a successful business, you need to have a strong and unique brand. Your brand is what sets you apart from the competition. And it's what makes you memorable. That's why it's so essential that you take the time to create a signature that represents your business well. So just to recap what the signature challenge even is, if you have not seen the show, this is for the amateur bakers to show off their recipes for bakers that they might make for their friends and family. In the same way you have the signature challenge.

The signature for TPT sellers is your unique and tried and true brand. It's everything that makes you memorable and stand out in the crowd. This can be your brand values, your story, your personality, your visuals, and there's so much more that goes into a brand. I'm going to share with you three common branding myths. And I will share with you three tips to level up your signature game.

So common branding Myth number one is that branding is just for big businesses. This is absolutely not true. Any business no matter how big or small the business is, is a brand, we should be able to treat our brand just like the big corporations we see everywhere such as Target or Starbucks or Amazon. We are treating our brand as a business.

The second common myth is that branding is just a TPT logo and banner and you're done. That's it. That's all you have to worry about. A TPT brand is not just the visuals, it's everything in between your values, your story, your personality, everything. And they all come together cohesively to make up a brand identity. There's different things to consider when you're creating or revamping your brand, not just the colors that you choose or the fonts you select.

And the third common branding myth is that branding is too time consuming or expensive. It does not have to be exhausting to brand your business and you definitely don't have to shell out a lot of money if you don't aren't able to. There are plenty of resources out there to DIY your brand or you can hire a professional if you're able to do that.

Alright, so now that we've knocked out those three myths, I'm going to share with you a few tips to level up your signature game or your branding. The first tip is to think about the message you want to convey to others. You can do this through your visuals, but you can also do this through your messaging the wording that you use, you can do this through the adjectives that you describe your brand with and who you sell for. So this can be a quirky vibe, quirky message, or it can be something really raw, vulnerable, super professional and polished. Whatever you do, make sure you're consistent across the board and you're using it to attract your people, your audience, you're not trying to cast out a big net and try to see what happens. You want to be purposeful in who you attract. And that can be done really well through your messaging.

The second tip is to consider a TPT store style. So there are three common TPT store styles. There's the minimalist, which you know, lots of you know, not as much coloring, very simple text, it's very easy on the eyes, there's a scroll stopper, with flashy and bright colorful graphics, and all of that good stuff. And then there's the trendsetter that you know, is always modern, keeping up with the trends as far as the different colors and what's going on in the world. So think about which one might fit you the best. As you sift through your brand. Think in the specific store style that you have in order to be consistent and cohesive across the board, on your Instagram, on your Facebook, in your email list on your blog. And in your TPT store. I do have a brand style quiz that's completely free that you can go and take if you go to the southern teach.com forward slash store style, you can take that quiz to see which TPT store style you might be.

The third tip I have for you is to take it on gradually. If you are looking to change up your brand, don't revamp it all at once, start playing around with the different colors and templates. And start you can start slowly by sharing more relatable or connecting stories. Something I've kind of gradually started doing to kind of shift where I'm you know, who I'm targeting, in my teacher side of the business is to share more social studies, blog posts, and social studies, Instagram posts, and all of that good stuff relating to a specific subject. One post that did really well, was something I was kind of afraid to post but it was on, you know, three Thanksgiving myths, and what actually happened. And it got a lot of great responses. And it was something that, you know, a lot of people ended up liking. That was like the first time in a really long time that I had a pretty good post that gained a lot of traction as far as people sharing it and likes and all of that stuff. So it is just you know, it's a little scary to change things or where you're going in the direction of your brand. But it can still be worthwhile. If you want to take it even further.

If you're like I really need to step up my game level at my branding. I do have the branding your teacher business workshop that will help guide you to make your TPT branding specific and focused so that your business can get more Paul Hollywood handshakes, which is equivalent to converting one and done customers to raving fans. You can go to the southern teach.com forward slash workshop to learn more. And you can also check out any of my blog posts related to branding or any of the podcast episodes because I do have quite a bit of branding tips on that as well.

All right, well, that is the end of this short and sweet episode. I hope you've gotten some great reminders on what to do as far as you know where you want to take your brand and just things to remember best practices for branding in general. All right, well, I will see you guys again soon.

Thanks for tuning in to the creative teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode, feel free to subscribe and leave a review. I'd love to hear your feedback. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach. I cannot wait for you to join me in the next episode for more tips and inspiration. Have an amazing day