The Power of Brand Guidelines: Elevating Personal Brands and Small Businesses

When I was first writing website copy for clients as a copywriter, I was drawn to these beautiful presentations I had discovered through my research called “Brand Guidelines.” I dove deep into understanding their significance and quickly learned of their massive value for any sized business. 

Later on, while freelancing for a global fitness brand, I was given a copy of their company Brand Guidelines so that I better understood their tone of voice, their values, and their messaging. It was then that it became crystal clear to me that these guidelines were incredibly valuable in so many ways and on so many levels. 

I began offering Brand Guidelines as an additional service when writing website copy or supporting new brands with social media marketing strategy, and clients were loving them. The process itself of uncovering the things that make up the content of the Brand Guidelines was often therapeutic and supported clients in bringing their brands to life.  

They’re the ultimate cheat sheet and go-to doc that’s necessary when creating customer-facing content, as they support the establishment of a strong and consistent brand identity. Their purpose is to maintain consistency and cohesiveness so that you build a trustworthy and authentic brand. 

So, what are brand guidelines, exactly? 

What Are Brand Guidelines?

Brand Guidelines are an incredible tool to have in your business.  They house all of the elements of your brand’s messaging and design, and they act as a guide for your content creation and capturing your brand personality. 

Brand Guidelines outline your brand messaging in one concise and beautifully designed place, showcasing your brand values, key messaging, and voice so that all business content can be guided to be consistently on-brand. 

They include information pertaining to your brand design and personality, like:

• Unique Selling Proposition

• Mission Statement 

• Brand Values

• Brand Story

• Brand Messaging Keyphrases

• Brand Voice & Tone

• Content Pillars

• Visual Elements- brand colors, typography, logos, imagery, and graphics

Brand Guidelines vs. Brand Style Guides

If you’ve worked with a graphic designer or web designer, you might have a beautiful set of brand style guides. So what is the difference between Brand Guidelines and Brand Style Guides? 

Brand Guidelines include your brand messaging strategy, whereas Brand Style Guides focus on the aesthetic design of your brand elements. 

Typically, Brand Style Guides are a brief version of the Brand Guidelines that include the color, logo, and fonts. These are perfect for designers, partners, or media who are creating graphics for your business, or who are sharing the content of your brand. 

Some Brand Style Guides can include more visual language elements, like the layout of text, imagery, emojis, and any design patterns. 

But Brand Style Guides are not thorough enough for professionals writing content or copy for your brand. They lack the depth and direction needed for understanding the personality, voice, and essence of the brand. 

So if you are outsourcing any content creation that requires copy, Brand Style Guides are not providing enough information for the creator to know how to capture your brand voice and tone.

The Importance of Brand Guidelines

Brand Guidelines are important in establishing brand consistency. When you are reaching your audience on various platforms through various means of media — long-form video content like YouTube, short-form like Reels and Tiktok, podcasts, posts on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, ads, organic website traffic, email marketing, and so on — the ways in which your audience experiences your brand can be insurmountable. 

So, it’s important that no matter where your audience is experiencing your brand, it sounds like, looks like, and feels like your brand. Why? Because establishing brand consistency helps your audience trust you. It also builds brand recognition and differentiates you from your competitors.

The importance of Brand Guidelines are:

- Establish brand consistency

- Build trust and recognition

- Differentiate from competitors

Case Study: Trader Joe’s Branding vs. Whole Foods Branding

If you are a Trader Joe’s nut like me, you know that the brand is sassy, edgy, artistic, friendly, and playful. They carry products that are also sassy, edgy, artistic, and playful. Their newsletter content is also sassy, edgy, artistic, and playful. Their customer service is super friendly and personable. The vibe is warm and fun. 

Now, you might also be a fan of Whole Foods. Although both Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods supply customers with unique, high-quality, artisan foods, each of their brand strategies creates an entirely different vibe for each mega-grocer. 

Whole Foods doesn’t have the playful cheekiness that Trader Joe’s has in its branding. They have a more sophisticated tone, focusing on food as nourishment and life-sustaining, and an emphasis on environmental stewardship.

We know these two brands have very different voice and tone because each one of them are consistent in showing up anywhere customers encounter them using their distinct voice and tone, imagery, and messaging. They have both established their own unique brand and created content that aligns with their brand elements.

This is why you won’t mistake Whole Foods for Trader Joe’s and vice versa. Sure, they offer a similar unique grocery experience, yet their branding is night and day. 

And each grocer’s reliability on its own brand personality has given comfort to loyal customers. Customers know what to expect from each mega-grocer. And this consistency also lends to customers’ trusting the brand to deliver on what they promise. 

How Brand Guidelines Support Personal Brands & Small Businesses

You might think that Brand Guidelines are only effective for the big names who have millions in revenue and thousands of employees. But that’s simply not the case. 

Solopreneurs and small businesses alike can develop a unique brand identity through visual elements, voice, and values. They establish a strong brand that’s strategic and full of messaging that can be used throughout content again and again. 

Just like the importance of Brand Guidelines for large corporations, personal branding boosts credibility and attracts opportunities for collaborations and sales, increases the likelihood of effective visibility, and can support efforts in building relationships with your audience. 

How to Use Brand Guidelines as a Personal Brand or Small Business

Many solopreneurs are doing their own marketing — creating content for social media and email, writing sales pages and ads, writing blogs, and outlining podcasts and long-form videos. As a DIY-er, it’s important to have the full concept of your brand established so that the messaging you use at every customer touch point is consistent. 

Having every part of your brand outlined — the story, the key messaging, values, mission, design elements, etc. — will help content creators refer to something tangible and strategic to help guide the direction of their creation. They’re the perfect tool for to keep your own content creation strategy streamlined and on point.  

For business owners with a small team or contractors, Brand Guidelines are the perfect tool to give your supporters an overview of your brand so they know how to align their creations to the brand essence, voice, tone, and personality. They’re a wonderful tool for onboarding employees and outsourcing business content creation, summarizing what your brand stands for and its personality in one place. 

Even website copy benefits greatly from Brand Guidelines as they provide the key messaging to inform readers about the brand and improve the overall user experience. Sharing your brand story, having a defined voice, and speaking directly to the target audience are all website copy strategies derived from the research that goes into creating Brand Guidelines. 

Practical Uses of Brand Guidelines Include:

Writing marketing content and customer-facing content

Outsourcing marketing content

Building marketing strategy

Onboarding employees and team decision making

Website content and the user journey experience

As your brand evolves, you can adjust and update your brand guidelines to adapt. Brand guidelines are a living document that should be re-examined as your business grows, your offers change, your mission and values evolve, and your attracted audience changes.

How to Write Your Brand Guidelines

Brand Guidelines are the compilation of everything in relation to your brand strategy and vision. When writing your brand guidelines, you need to think about the purpose for your business, who you serve, what you’re fighting to change in your industry, what you’re needing to teach your audience, how you want to show up, and where it is your envision your brand going. 

This requires a business owner to do a lot of unpacking, deciphering, question answering to get the core of the brand’s mission, purpose, story, values, and vision. 

Because the process of writing your Brand Guidlines takes time and a lot of research to create and can be especially effective with a professional’s support, like a brand strategist who specializes in brand messaging and storytelling.  

If you are not in the position to hire someone to support your brand strategy and messaging, then you can DIY your Brand Guidelines.

When I work with clients, this is the process for uncovering the essence of your brand:

1. Uncover your ‘whys’ or your purpose

2. Define your core values

3. Identify your brand archetype

4. Build your customer profile

5. Outline your brand mission

6. State your brand promise

7. Refine your positioning strategy

8. Create your brand story

9. Determine your brand voice

To get the essential elements of the content of the Brand Guidelines, I’ve created a Brand Messaging Framework Workbook that outlines the prompts and examples to guide you through the process of creating your guidelines yourself. Learn how to use the framework here. 

Create Your Own Brand Guidelines

Not every business owner or personal brand can afford to partner with a brand strategist on creating their brand guidelines, nor should everyone! If you’re still playing with your offers, it might not be a great time to invest in your brand strategy anyhow. 

But if you know what you’re offering and ready to define your brand strategy, and build a consistent and cohesive brand identity, then I suggest you venture to create your own brand guidelines. 

Which is why I wanted to make it easy for you! 

I’ve created a Brand Guidelines Canva Template to put all the information together in a document that seamlessly outlines the content of your brand guidelines. 

The Brand Guidelines Canva Template is ready to be customized to your unique brand.

Personalize the Guidelines with your brand messaging, images, fonts, logos, and colors to make these beauties all yours.

This template is ready to host your brand messaging strategy including your

• Unique Value Proposition

• Mission Statement

• Brand Values

• Brand Story

• A detailed description of your target audience

• Brand messaging keyphrases

• Brand Voice research & chart

• Content pillars

• Plus, all the brand identity details that highlight the beauty and vibe of your brand essence. 

You can download your free template here. 

If you’re looking for some entrepreneurial connection, branding inspiration, and some girl’s girl rapport, connect with me on Instagram.