Personal brand vs Professional brand - which is right for your digital stationery business?
If you're thinking of starting an online business selling digital planners, there are a lot of decisions you have to make.
One you might not have thought about yet is how you're going to market your brand. We're not talking about where you'll be showing up or your content strategy, but your business name and how your brand is going to come across to potential customers.
A strong brand identity is built on strategy, so we're going to talk all about the what, why, and how behind personal and professional brands!
Personal vs professional - what's the difference?
Think about Amazon, a professional brand. We know Jeff Bezos is the founder, but in our minds, he's just the business owner and not the business itself.
On the other hand, think of Jenna Kutcher. She is her brand! Jenna Kutcher is both her business and her identity, making it a personal brand. A personal brand is about who you are while a professional brand is about the identity you've created for your business.
A professional brand doesn't have to be associated with your name if you want to stay behind the scenes. So which is better for you? And how can you make the most out of your decision?
What's a personal brand?
Personal branding is typically built around the person who founded the brand – people like authors, artists, coaches, and service providers. Personal brands are super flexible because it's built around who we are, and that's always changing! It's a great place to start with your brand because it's easy to build a brand around who you, because all you have to do is show up as yourself! The one downside that comes from a personal brand is that your business name doesn't tell people what you do, so you have to make sure your content and messaging are consistent with what you want to tell the world about your brand.
A personal brand might be the right choice for you if...
There's already recognition around your name that attracts the same people you want to purchase from your new business idea
You plan on keeping your business small and not expanding into an agency business structure
Your business mission, vision, and values align closely with your personality and you're planning on putting your all into your business
If digital planning is one of your biggest passions and hobbies
What's a professional brand?
A business brand is separate from your personal identity. If you'd rather stay "hidden" behind your business, this is the choice for you! This doesn't mean that your business doesn't take a personal interest in people.
Think about your favorite brands that you're constantly ordering from, you know they care about their customers, even if you don't know the names of every person that played a part in getting that package to your front door.
It can take more work to set up a business brand because you can't make it up as you go along or jump between niches until you find the perfect spot.
A professional business brand might be the right choice for you if...
You're starting a side-hustle that you want to keep quiet before you can take your business full-time
You plan on scaling your business and having multiple people making decisions for the business
You've decided on a specific industry and niche you want to serve
Now you may have an idea of which type of business you want to build, but how do you get eyes on your business and convince people to buy from you? It all comes down to your marketing strategy!
Marketing your digital stationery business
There are different ways to market yourself depending on how you want to position your business online, but there are a few key steps that we all need to consider:
Choose a niche - the first thing we need to know is who we're targeting! We can't create content if we don't know who is going to see it. Think about the kinds of digital products you want to create, who is going to appreciate them the most? What gaps are there in the market? What products are missing from the online space? If you have similar answers to these questions, then you may have just found your niche!
Identify what makes you different - it's no secret that there are quite a few digital planner businesses out there, but there's no one like you. Whether you choose to show up as a personal or professional brand, you won't stand out in your target audience's mind if they don't know why they should purchase your products instead of what your competitors are selling!
Set up an online marketplace - your marketing strategy ends with your prospective customers purchasing your products! But where are they going to find them? You need to build an online home for your digital products! We suggest starting with Etsy, where there are nearly 82 million people using the platform to shop for the perfect products (source)! You can also create your own website to create a completed branded experience for your customers.
Those are just three steps of the marketing process for professional and personal branding. If you want to read more about creating best-selling digital planners, click here! To personalize things a bit more, there are a few different marketing strategies we wanted to talk about that may work better for different branding approaches.
✨ Looking for for away to plan your stationery business launch? Check out our launch planner that’s designed specifically for digital products and stationery business.
How to market as a personal brand
When marketing a personal brand, it's super important to show your face! People want to get to know the person behind the brand, so we recommend video content if you choose to build a personal brand.
Video marketing can look like anything from filming Instagram Stories to using TikToks and Instagram Reels as your primary marketing platforms.
What kind of digital stationery video content can you share that your audience is going to resonate with?
Behind-the-scenes content: people love everything from seeing the process of building a digital planner to home office tours!
Tutorials: if your audience is just discovering the world of digital planning, they're going to need some educational content to use their new planners!
Relatable: we all love a funny and relatable reel! You can use these to relate to the struggles of your audience and share your personality with your followers.
How to market as a professional brand
When it comes to marketing a business brand, a hands-off approach has more potential! Our favorite marketing platform is Pinterest. Pinterest is more of a search engine than a social media platform where people search for niche topics and inspiration. You might first think of recipes and home decor, but it's also great to direct traffic to your blog or increase sign-ups for your email lists.
But how can you leverage Pinterest in your digital planner business?
Optimize your account with an on-brand profile picture cover image, create boards that relate to your industry, and add a link to your shop in your bio
Create visually appealing Pins with your brand color palette and fonts
Include a CTA inviting people to read your blog, subscribe to your newsletter, or shop your products
Do keyword research before you start pinning so that your Pin titles and descriptions can have the same words and phrases that your audience is searching
If you want to learn more about the Three Musketeers of digital planner marketing – email marketing, Pinterest, and blogging, you can click here! We'll also teach you how to use all these tools in our extensive, signature program, Digital Planner Academy®. You'll also receive templates for email marketing sequences, Pinterest templates, and keyword research tutorials. If you want to learn more and enroll, you can click here!