How to build a brand equity that sets you apart from the crowd

Step 3: Brand Equity, Learning to Put it All Together

Hi guys! If you’re just popping in, I’m partnering with Fiverr to launch a new line of apparel for the freelance lifestyle and my very first product are these “work from home shoes”. Over the course of 8 weeks I’ll be building out a blueprint that you can follow to launch your own brand. Last week we dove into our brand story and how we start to talk about our brand. This week we’re going to go through how we use that work to develop our brand equity. Ok, so what do I mean by that?

Remember what we talked about last time? People don’t fall in love with brands because of what they sell. They fall in love with what a brand promises to do for them and how that brand makes them feel. In marketing lingo this is what we mean when we talk about a brand’s equity. It’s what a brand stands for in the hearts and minds of consumers. So how do you begin to stand for more than what you sell? That’s a great question. It’s about delivering on your mission statement through your words and actions. It’s how you talk to your customers, the content you put in their social media feeds, the bigger impact you have on the world, and ultimately every little interaction someone has with your brand.

The 5 Steps

To figure out what your brand equity is I like to use this 5 step framework:

First, list the tangible products and services your brand creates or provides. In my case this would be my work from home shoes.

Second, write out your brand’s unique points of difference – the reasons someone would choose you over another brand. I might list out how my shoes are handmade, super soft, really cute, the style is totally unique, and they come in a variety of awesome colors.

Third, decide how you want your brand to make people feel. I want my customers to feel comfortable but more than that’s it’s about feeling free to be creative, to be curious, and to explore.

Fourth, describe the traits your brand would have if she were a person. I’d say she was optimistic, free-spirited, an adventurer, and selfmade.

Lastly, summarize this all in a short statement that describes what your brand stands for. The way I feel I can best describe my brand is with the line ‘Free to Be’.

Don’t worry, if you didn’t catch all of that, below there’s a link to a free downloadable template that lays this all out for you!

It’s All Coming Together!

The important thing to know is that going through this process will help you see how the different parts of your brand all come together. You can then use this framework to evaluate whether something like a new product, partnership, or even a social media post helps or hurts the equity you’re working to establish.

At this stage, I also like to do competitive research to check that the brand I’m building truly has a distinct positioning versus others already in the market. For this project, this provided another great opportunity to hire help from Fiverr. I identified a few other brands who I believe my customers are likely already buying slippers from. I then worked with someone from Fiverr to get an understanding of how each positions itself. As I think about my pricing and messaging, I’ll be able to use this research to make sure I’m setting my brand apart.

The other way you’ll use this information is to develop our brand identity. Your brand colors, font choices, and name should all work together to bring to life this brand equity we’ve created. And that my friends, is exactly what we’ll be getting into next week!