How to brand your business + flagship products

Once you are ready to transition your personal brand (whether it be a service-based income, blog, consulting, or any other type of business) into info-products, you will most likely encounter some sort of branding quandary.

• How do I portray my same message, yet appeal to this new audience?
• Do I need a new logo for each of my products / courses?
• Will this transition confuse my existing audience?

These questions are completely natural, and totally understandable for your business. You don’t want to lose the integrity of your brand, or the core message behind it when making a shift. I went through this myself when adding on digital products + courses to my existing graphic design service-based business. Things get a bit tricky when expanding your business into new territory.

Because so many of us are expanding into selling products + courses, I’m sharing my insight as a brand designer on how to create a cohesive brand within multiple products.

Stay tuned for the end of this post to sign-up for a free lesson from my upcoming Share-worthy Design course, diving into more specifics on branding your products.

Understanding flagship products

Before getting to the meat of this post, you are probably wondering what qualifies as a “flagship product.” I’ll be honest, I don’t even really like that term… it sounds so technical! You can call it signature offering, flagship, or just plain ole products/courses (which is how I will refer to it as).

Essentially these products/courses are your premium offerings. They consist of your best material, and offer high value to your customers. Whether they are physical products, digital downloads, online courses, or e-books, these products showcase your best work.

Simple one page PDFs, opt-ins to your newsletter, or smaller products are not what we are discussing today. Those certainly have their place within your brand, but aren’t necessarily the types of products you will want to brand separately from your business.

Why brand your products/courses?

Maybe branding your products hasn’t even crossed your mind. You might have assumed that in order to maintain a cohesive brand, all of your sub-brands, products and courses need to look the same. That can certainly be the case for some brands, however you might find yourself in a dilemma mentioned above.

Branding your products allows them to stand out, get noticed online, and most importantly — sell. You’ve done the hard work of pulling together a premium product, the last thing you want to do is neglect the design that draws people in. Think of it in terms of a quality, beautifully written book. Unfortunately, sales will suffer without a compelling book cover. Cheesy example, but you get the point. Design matters.

How I manage my primary brand + sub-brands

Whew — you are putting me on the spot here! Rather than talk in theory, I’ll share a glimpse into how I brand Spruce Rd. and all of its products/courses.

Classes: Currently I offer one class on Mastering Content Upgrades (from a design point of view, as well as how to use LeadPages), but plan to offer a few more in the future! Though these classes are packed with value, they are not my most premium products. They go super in depth on one specific topic, rather than an entire course. Because of the nature of these classes, I have branded them under the same look + feel as the Spruce Rd. brand.

Lunch + Learn: This workshop series brings together fellow creatives to learn something new during our lunch breaks — whether that is design, branding, business or freelancing. The series also falls under “Spruce Rd. branding” because it isn’t a premium offering. I did create its own icon for the series, but that serves as a mark more than a logo.

Free downloads + workbooks: Again, these fall under the “Spruce Rd. branding” and not as separate brands. I don’t want them to lose connection or dilute my primary brand. These products provide value, but aren’t my most premium offerings.

Physical products: I’ve been working on something BIG behind the scenes, that I’m hoping to launch next year. It will be my first physical product, and I seriously can’t wait. This product will be premium and specific, so I’ve opted to create a separate brand for it (logo, colors, etc) yet it will still feel connected to the Spruce Rd. aesthetic. That’s all I can share for now!

Share-worthy Design Course: This online course teaches students how to design their own branding. There are two tracks: Infopreneurs (opens in a few weeks!) and Freelancers (coming this summer). Both courses offer a very specific and premium education to the students, and therefore I’ve created its own brand. The Share-worthy Design course currently lives on its own domain, has its own logo + colors, yet still maintains a cohesive design aesthetic as Spruce Rd.