Are you a Freelancer and stuck working on online freelancing platforms and only manage to earn passive income from freelance activities? Then now it’s time for you to take your freelancing skills to the next level! Let’s convert your freelancing services, products, and skills into a Brand and learn how to build a brand as a freelancer.

Table of Contents

What is a Freelance Brand?

“Freelance Brand is the representation of the products and services that freelancers offer to customers” It creates an identity and a symbol that distinguishes it from other sellers.

How to Build a Brand?

“Building a brand is a process of converting the idea into products and services and represents them as a brand” and establishing a brand is a process of developing and maintaining the brand. The whole process includes creating, developing, establishing, and maintaining the brand.

It seems difficult in the first place but trust me, once you step into it, the procedure is pretty simple and straightforward. All you need is hard work, determination, consistency, and patience to build a brand as a freelancer.

Build a Brand as a Freelancer

Step by Step Guide to Build a Brand as a Freelancer

Let’s build a brand as a freelancer in a step-by-step process. Follow the guide and see your freelance brand and freelance business building yourself.

Stages of Building a Brand as Freelancer

There are 4 main stages of building a brand as a freelancer:

  • Creating a Brand
  • Developing a Brand
  • Promoting a Brand
  • Establishing a Brand

Let’s understand each stage and the steps of each stage to build a brand as a freelancer.

1- Create the Brand

The very first step to building a brand starts from creating a brand itself. We have to take some important decisions at the beginning of building a brand that will have a long-term impact on the brand. It requires planning and a vision to develop a brand that stands out in the crowd and establish the brand identity.

Below are the steps of creating the brand.

Step 1) Choose a Brand Name

It’s time to give your brand a name or identity. It’s your choice and decision how you want to name your brand. If you want to attach your name and identity with your brand or give it a unique name, it’s up to you and your vision of the brand. Name your brand wisely since it will have an impact on the customer mindset while they recall your brand.

Consider giving it a professional, rememberable, and easily pronounceable name so that customers easily remember and share it with others.

If you are unable to decide the name, try competitive research and see how your competitors have named their brands. Or you can also use the online tool Business name Generator to get some unique ideas.

The next step is to create a brand logo. It is another very important step towards building a brand. Your brand logo is the first impression of your brand. Hire a professional logo designer and design the logo that defines the brand.

The logo is a representation of your brand image, therefore keep it unique, identifiable, and elegant to get the maximum attention of the customer.

Create-a-brand-logo

Step 3) Establish a Brand Tagline/Slogan

This is again a very important step. Think and come up with a creative tagline/slogan for your brand that is catchy, memorable, and perfectly defines your brand vision. Like e-g For Nike, “Just Do it” is the brand association. Whenever somebody says “Just Do it”, the next thing came to our mind is Nike, this is how you should create a slogan for your brand that associates with the brand.

Step 4) Define Mission and Vision of Brand

In order to build a brand and establish the brand identity, we have to define the mission and vision statements. Both of them are equally important to achieve short-term and long-term objectives. Without the mission and vision of the brand is like sailing in an open sea without direction.

What is a Mission Statement? The “Mission Statement” defines short-term objectives which are targeted to be achieved in a short term.

What is a Vision Statement? The “Vision Statement” defines the long-term objectives which are targeted to be achieved in a long run.

The vision is the position or standing that the company wants to achieve in the future, e.g “We will be a leader in customized ERP solutions”. Or “I will lead the construction industry as a Freelance Engineer“. This is how you set the vision of the brand. The mission drives you towards the achievement of your vision. Short terms goals are set to achieve long-term goals.

Set your short-term goals and transform them into a mission statement. Similarly, define long-term goals and transform them into the Vision statement of your brand. Set your mission and objectives that lead you to achieve your vision. Work hard for it to measure your success and failure.

2- Develop the Brand

In the last step we have successfully created the brand, now it’s time to develop a brand.

Step 5) Select your Top Services/Products

Select the best of your products/services that shall represent your brand. Carefully select the products/services, since your brand reputation will be built on the quality of your products/services.

If during the idea stage you decided to offer 10 products/services, refine the list and select the best ones that you can serve well to the target customers.

Step 6) Create Customized Packages

Once you finalized the products/services, it’s time to set the prices and develop the packages for the target market. The best way is to offer customized packages keeping in view the need of the customer and to attract more and more customers by offering attractive packages.

Step 7) Create a Website

Every brand must have a website these days. Since we are living in a digital era where it is important for every brand to keep the web’s existence. The website gives your customer confidence, and it improves brand reliability.

Hire a professional web designer and buy a domain of your brand, preferably the same as your brand name. Try to build a website with e-commerce capabilities where you can offer online purchase options to your customers.

If you are only offering online services/products, then the website is your main selling point. Since your brand is mainly online, therefore, spend as much time and money on the development of the website as you can.

Add online payment and user management capabilities to your site along with SSL Certificate. Always choose a good, reliable, and fast hosting server due to the fact that if your website is slow you may lose a potential customer.

Step 8) Create Procedures

Like every business, you need to define processes and procedures for each process. E-g, what happens when you receive an order? How the order will be processed? How it will be packed and delivered? Etc.

You need to define all processes and procedures related to the operation of your brand. Also, develop your proposal templates and other documentation.

Step 9) Define Policies

Another important factor to consider and required your attention is to define the policy of the brand. Under this section, you should define and mention your sale policy, refund policy, and terms and conditions of sales, etc. Everything shall be clearly defined and mentioned in your brand website and catalogs.

3- Promote the Brand

We have successfully created and developed the brand, now it’s time for people to know our brand. This is the most important and critical stage of building the brand. It will decide the brand position and acceptability.

Pay full attention to this stage and keep your budget high for marketing and promotional activities.

Step 10) Create Awareness

We need to create awareness of our brand to the masses. If nobody knows about our brand, how do we produce a sale or build a brand image? We need to create an awareness campaign for our brand to the target market and reach out to the masses so that people are aware of our brand’s existence.

And how do we create awareness and promote our brand? Simply by using marketing and promotional techniques to grab the attention of the target and possible customers. We use all types of tools and platforms to create awareness and try to reach the maximum audience.

Step 11) Use your Existing Network

The first and easier to start is from family, friends, and colleagues. Start introducing your brand to your family members, your friend, your social circle, and your colleagues.

Step 12) Promote on Social Media

Use social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Quora, Reddit, etc. to promote your brand. Keep your existence on all the popular platforms because these platforms are the best source to reach the maximum possible customers.

Step 13) Create Paid Ads on Social Media Platforms

Use your marketing budget to promote your brand, especially using Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, and YouTube Ads. These ads will help you secure some customers. If you can do it yourself it’s fine, otherwise, hire a professional social media manager.

Step 14) Promote on Local Listing Websites

Don’t underestimate the local listing websites. Search for all local listing websites and list your brand and products to promote your brand. It is still an effective way of reaching the customers. Also, it creates brand reliability if you are listed as a brand on those sites.

Step 15) Offer Discounts & Promotional Bundles

Offer some freebies or reduced-priced promotional packages to new customers. It will help you to attract new customers to try out your products/services if they are shy of purchasing a product due to the price tag and availability of competitive options at lower prices.

4- Establish the Brand

We have successfully built the brand now we have to establish it as a brand. It is relatively easy to build a brand, but it is far more difficult to maintain and establish the brand as a top-quality brand.

You need to put extra effort to establish your brand and maintain the brand’s reliability, otherwise whatever you have achieved so far will be lost.

Below are some important factors to focus on while establishing your brand.

Step 16) Focus on Timely Deliveries

It is a critical success factor to match supply and demand. Always deliver your customer on time and build your reputation to increase the brand’s reliability. No matter whether you are selling products or services, you have to deliver on time as per customer requirements and timelines.

If you are offering services then always take it seriously since if you delay the completion you will lose the customer for repeated orders.

Step 17) Maintain and Improve the Quality

This should be your top priority after building the brand. You need to constantly improve and maintain the quality of the products and services.

If you want to retain your existing customers and want more and more customers, the only way to achieve it is by improving the quality of your products and services. Invest in R&D, training, and commit yourself to the continuous improvement of your brand quality.

Step 18) Introduce new customer-oriented Packages and Products

To maintain brand quality and establish brand loyalty, you need to focus on the new product development. Try to offer new and improved products and services to the customer according to the need of the customer.

In order to increase brand loyalty and gain more customers, create new customer-oriented packages and services.

It is always easy to sell once but retain the customer and to get a repeat sale you have to think like a customer and create new packages that fulfill the need of your customer.

Step 19) Provide Exceptional After-Sale Support

Provide exceptional after-sale support to your customers in order to establish the brand. Take extra cushions for sales returns and unhappy customers. You can win the trust of a lost sale or unhappy customers by providing good after-sales support.

Conclusions

It is not a difficult task to build a brand as a freelancer. If you are focused and determined to build a brand and establish the brand identity, then follow the development process explained in this article. Brand establishment is a time taking process, you cannot establish a brand overnight, it requires hard work, consistency, dedication, and patience to build a brand and establish the brand. You can also make money online as a source of passive income while you are building your brand.

Ali Najaf

I am a Freelancer, Self-Employed Businessman, Entrepreneur, and Founder of many organizations. I have started my journey as a Civil Engineer 22 years ago, and after completing my MBA, I worked for some multinational organizations. In 2008, I decided to work for myself and started the journey of Freelancing and Business Management as a Self-Employed Owner. In the few years of my journey, I founded many organizations and continue to invest in different startups. I am a self-employed owner of multiple organizations and provide Project Management, Solar systems, and Cold Room Solutions. I also provide Freelance Consultation Services for Startups, Business Strategy, and Business Restructuring. I am also associated with many universities as a Visiting Faculty and teaching Supply Chain, Business Management, Project Management, and Financial Management to Masters and Bachelors programs.

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