If I were to let you into the "Watch Later" playlist on my Youtube right now, you’d find a mix of ankle mobility routines (don’t ask), bicep and shoulder workout routines, and productivity review app videos.
Not videos around “how to be more productive” or “how to better manage your time”. The problem I’m actually trying to solve is my issue with time management. I, like any others, have a misguided belief that the right tool is the key to “maximum productivity”.
But the tool is not the solution, the solution comes from within.
It comes from how I approach time management, task prioritization, energy management, and more. Those are philosophical elements that no tool can help me fully understand.
This same logic can be applied when answering the question of should you invest in copy or design first. And the answer is, neither...sort of.
Brand strategy is the first thing you should invest in.
Why? Because brand strategy comes from within.
Have you ever felt scattered, unsure of who you're addressing, what to say, or how to visually package your message for your business? Have you felt stuck when it comes to communicating what it is you do, why you do it the way you do, and why people should care?
If so, you lack a strategic understanding of what your brand is at its core.
That understanding traditionally comes from brand strategy.
What is brand strategy?
Think of brand strategy as like the process of sketching the blueprint of a house.
Blueprints give a house shape; it details the foundation of the entire structure. Giving structure and dimensions to each room in relation to its surroundings. Without blueprints, you’ll have a hard time building a house in an efficient and organized way.
The same goes for building a brand: if you don’t have established boundaries set up, you’ll lose direction, consistency and lasting power.
The brand strategy process attempts to answer this question:
With my services/skills/offerings - who are the right people that would benefit from working with us and how can we talk to who they are NOW and to who they wanna be in the future?
Answering that question is positioning you (the keyword here is positioning) in the right direction to understand the space that your brand is accompanying in your industry in contrast to your competitors.
That space that you’re occupying and HOW you occupy it is called your positioning (and/or perspective).
When you shape the perceptions people have of what your brand does, who it speaks to, what it believes, and the bigger impact it wants to make on the world, you position your brand in their mind for future recall when they need you.
That memorability is a major deciding factor between businesses that thrive and businesses that close their doors.
Your brand identity designer should be guiding you through the brand strategy process BEFORE design anything for your brand.
This foundational piece of the puzzle is crucial in the brand building process.
Most identity designers go through some sort of brand strategy process, and each designer’s process is different. The goal is to make sure that you (as the client) is as open, honest, collaborative and inquisitive in your communication and that you leave the brand strategy phase feeling confident that you and your designer deeply understands the shape of your brand.
Investing in your brand identity design should only come after deeply understanding who your brand is.
Your brand identity’s design, we’re talking about logos, colors, typography, etc., can only come about after deeply understanding who the brand is, who it wants to talk to, how it wants to talk to them and why.
With that understanding, you’ll be in a better position to understand how you can effectively communicate with your audience in a way that attracts them consciously and subconsciously.
The issue many entrepreneurs face as they start and grow their business is that because their identity isn’t rooted in strategy, isn’t unique in how it presents itself, and isn’t emotionally tied to them as a person - they become detached and less confident in how they’re presenting themselves to potential clients and their audience.
Copywriting is the bridge between your brand strategy and how you express it verbally.
Copywriting is the art of organizing your brand's message into something people can read, relate to, and remember. It's the natural progression from ideation to communication, just like how we as humans write down our big ideas or new inventions.
Copywriting can not be efficiently and strategically written without a deep understanding of what makes the brand unique, who it’s talking to, why it wants to talk to them, and how.
Those answers are discovered during brand strategy. That’s why brand strategy always has to come before everything.
Through the copywriting process, you'll:
- Discover multiple ways to communicate your positioning and perspective
- Develop and refine primary and secondary messages for your brand
- Craft sentences, hooks, and phrases that authentically represent your brand's voice
Whether you choose to do your copywriting yourself or work with a copywriter - this step of fleshing out your messaging is crucial.
Why you should invest in your website design LAST
Building comprehensive brand ecosystems for your brand is like building a snowball.
Each step builds off of the previous one and sets you up in the future for success. When thinking about that snowball effect, designing and launching a website - which needs brand identity assets and copywriting to come to life - is the logical final step of the process.
Developing a website strategy (because yes website strategy is different from brand strategy!), is a key component to making sure that your copywriting is being amplified and impactfully used and that your brand identity really drives it home of what makes your brand unique.
If you’re working with a copywriter before finding a web designer, your copywriter may take you through their version of the website strategy process so they know which sections to write and the flow of each section from top to bottom.
Once that strategy and copywriting is developed, your website designer can build an online home for your brands that tells your audience what uniquely positions you to do the work that you do, show off how well you do it, and make it easy to get in contact with you.
And that can’t be done in an effective way without strategy, identity, and copywriting firmly in place.
Juggling separate brand identity design, copywriting, and website design projects can be a lot to take on. Copywriters aren’t designers, and designers are not copywriters. Removing that stress is a big reason why we combine those strategy, design and copywriting projects into one here at Standard Operations. We understand the importance of being guided through this process with a group of people that you trust and have camaraderie with. With multiple services and packages to choose from to fit a variety of budgets, we’re dedicated to making sure that the right people in your audience see working with you as a no brainer solution right off the bat.
Frequently Asked Questions:
How much should brand identity, copywriting, and website design cost all together?
There’s no hard numbers to give here! Each service is gonna depend on the experience level of the person you hire and what the services they provide. Depending on your budget, you can invest heavier in certain things more than others to offset the overall investment.
What are some alternatives to hiring someone for these services?
For brand strategy: some brand designers offer strategy as a standalone service or offer condensed versions of their full brand strategy process for smaller budgets. Many designers offer brand strategy as a part of their identity process, so you may not need to hire an additional person for this.
For brand identity design: while you can buy premade logos and such, it’s really not recommended for practical and legal reasons. It’s not 100% certain that you can trademark the logos you customize or purchase in those premade logos which can hinder you down the line. The key issue with those premade logos is that there is a damn near 100% chance that someone else has the exact same logo as you, and they could even be in your same industry. This muddies the waters between the two of you and harms your chances of truly standing out among your competitors.
For copywriting: many copywriters offer courses, templates, audits, etc to make the investment of copywriting a bit easier. We always recommend that if you’re writing your copy yourself, that you at least have a copywriter audit it for you to make sure that it’s SEO friendly and effectively communicates the message you want to convey to your audience.
For website design: there are many website templates out there that are pretty affordable and of decent quality, so you should be able to do a bit of saving here if needed. Keep in mind though that website templates are built to accommodate all types of businesses in mind - meaning that they have to be general and basic at their core. Using website templates when starting out is fine, but as your brand and business grows and you encounter the need to differentiate yourself more and more from your competitors, you’ll need to invest more in your website to make sure your message is being delivered correctly to the right people.
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