As creativepreneurs, one of our goals is to have a sleek, consistent brand that stands out against the millions of businesses out there.

Your brand identity is the sun around which the rest of your operation revolves, so it must be understood and implemented not just by you, but by all your team members.

This is where a brand style guide comes in. If you don’t have one or have never heard of one, you’re not alone. A brand style guide is pretty much a rubric that all of your branding (written, verbal, and visual) should follow.

How to Use Your Brand Identity

Here’s how you can use what you already know about your business to create the perfect style guide.

1. Brainstorm Your Brand’s Essence

Really think about what you want your clients to perceive about your brand. Some questions you can ask yourself are:

• What are my business values?
• Who is your target audience and what do they want?
• What is your personality?
• Do you want to be similar to your competition or go a different direction?
• What sets your business apart from others?

After answering these questions, you’ll get a clearer idea of what your brand’s essence is, and you can use this information to begin assigning key attributes to your business.

For example, if you’re a coach that works with an older clientele, you may attribute sophistication, authority, and poise to your brand, while if your focus is the younger clientele, you may attribute modernity, boldness, and innovation.

When you have a list of about five or so key attributes, you can begin setting your brand’s tone.

2. Set Your Brand’s Tone

Using your key attributes, it’s time to determine what tone you want your brand to bring to your audience.

This is where you want to get very specific about your definition of each of your key attributes. While you may have a certain understanding of what “boldness” may mean for your brand, it doesn’t mean your team will understand it the same way.

So, for each of your key attributes, define the tone that you want to radiate.

For example, if you have the word “sophistication”, you can say the tone is elegant and formal. For the word “modernity”, the tone might be free-spirited and nonconformist.

Once you have an idea of what tone each of the attributes gives off, you can start coming up with rules for you and your team to follow for all of your branding.

3. Create Guide Rules & Dos and Don’ts

Now that you have your key attributes and their tones set in stone, you can build your guide rules and list of dos and don’ts.

Both the rules and dos and don’ts will serve as a guideline for your whole team to use in any instance your brand’s voice will be heard.

Be as specific as possible when setting these rules so that there is no confusion about how to use the branding. Some things to keep in mind when making your rules are:

• How you’re speaking to your audience: formally or colloquially? Actively or passively?
• Your verbiage: will you be using proper grammar rules or be more conversational?
• The content’s readability: long-form or skimabble? Will you be using lists and bullet points or sticking to paragraphs?

With these rules set, you can establish dos and don’ts.

For example, if you choose to speak formally, you can say, “do: speak with authority, don’t: use any modern lingo”. Having a comprehensive style guide is crucial in transmitting your message to your audience, and Letters By Reesi can help you achieve that goal. Join me for a Brand & Content Style Guide Writing Session and I’ll help you build your brand guide, from start to finish.