What is brand and branding?
Confused? Don’t be! A brand and branding is simply the way you define your business and the way you express your business identity to the public.
Think of branding and making your business known to your customers. How does your business stand out from the rest? When you identify how your business is special, that’s your brand.
Your teacher brand and branding
I’ve spoken with hundreds of teachers and the vast majority, if not all of them want to increase their income.
With the ability to sell digital products, online courses, and teach online you have to find a way to differentiate yourself if you want to have a successful teacher business.
Want more students? Establish your teacher brand.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to establish your brand:
- Who am I serving? -> Get super clear and choose a niche that’s not too broad or too small.
- Survey your community to find out what they want. What are they struggling with and what outcome do they want?
- Once you know your community’s struggles and desired outcome, speak to that in your content.
What content should you be putting out there? My favorite two options are blogging and YouTube. Choose one so you can gain traction on your website or channel.
Brand Development
Having a blog or YouTube channel helps with brand development.
What exactly is brand development? It’s getting your customers acquainted with your business identity:
- who you are
- what you do
- how you help your community
It allows your audience to get to know you and your brand (business).
What is brand strategy?
Your brand strategy is speaking to your community in a way that resonates with them.
Speak to their pain points and their desired outcome.
How will your help get them from pain to gain?
Product Branding Strategy
As a teacher you could offer digital products or courses.
The price of your product influences your product branding strategy.
The higher the price the more specific, detailed and lengthy your branding strategy needs to be.
Service Branding
As an online teacher or in person tutor you need to focus on service branding.
Service branding typically requires a profile describing what you offer and how you transform your students’ skills for the better.
Testimonials, word of mouth, and creating a profile on websites that connect students and teachers is helpful.
I’ve used WyzAnt and I also have an affiliate link with TutorID.
Branding vs. Marketing
Branding and marketing go hand-in-hand.
Think of branding as your business identity and your mission.
Think of marketing as getting eyeballs on your brand and using strategies that help you get customers.
Marketing strategies include:
- Connecting with your audience on your website, via video (YouTube/FB/IG Live), and via e-mail
- Communicating in a way that resonates with your audience
- Sales skills
Individual Branding
As teachers, you need to focus on individual branding. You are a one-woman or one-man operation. Focus on how you can present yourself in a way that resonates with your community.
I’m all about genuine connections. Helping my community is the highlight of my day! Whether your prospective customers buy or not, if you helped them, that’s what counts.
When it comes to sales, only a certain percent will convert. That’s something you need to get comfortable with from the get-go.
Online Branding Strategy
Don’t overcomplicate your online branding strategy. Let me simplify it for you.
Choose one platform.
Post weekly.
Have a lead magnet to stay connected with your audience. If you don’t know what lead magnet is, read last week’s post here.
Send a weekly e-mail.
Have a plan for how and when you will share your offer.
Brand communication strategy
Once you have your online branding strategy in place the last step is to stay in touch consistently.
In order to stay in touch you need to have a brand communication strategy.
You’ll communicate in two ways: your blog or video and via e-mail.
Again, speak to bridging the gap between your community’s struggles and their desired outcome.
To ensure you stay in touch come up with a list of 50 to 100 topics to share with your community.
Organize it and set dates to publish your content.
Ready? Go!
Accountability: Tell me one goal you have for your teacher brand in the comments.
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