THE MICRO BRAND STRATEGY EVERY SERVICE PROVIDER SHOULD BE USING

Our relationship to brands has changed with every decade. What was once a simple tool for identification has been evolving alongside technology, culture, and consumer behaviour. More recently, when social media took over the landscape, brands began leading with distinct personalities and values. To earn consumer trust, brands prioritized what made them human.

Now, as consumers are faced with a plethora of choice, brands have become the proxy for decision-making and knowing who or what to choose. But branding isn’t about going bigger, it’s about going deeper and specificity reigns supreme.

In this blog, you’ll learn how consumer behaviour has changed and why the shift towards micro brand experiences may just be the ticket for shortening the gap between brand awareness and purchase.

CONTENTS

• How consumer behaviour has changed

• What is a micro brand?

• Enthusiasm doesn’t sell but micro brands do

• Examples of micro brands

• Tips for creating a micro brand for your offer

• How micro brand experiences help earn trust faster

HOW CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR HAS CHANGED

The way we interact with brands today is more experiential. The traditional funnel businesses have shaped their marketing around for decades has evolved to more of an experiential playground for their audience.

In 2020, Think with Google published a report that spoke to what they call “the messy middle”. As they put it, the messy middle is where “consumers loop between exploring and evaluating the options available to them until they are ready to purchase. This process takes place against an ever-present backdrop of exposure – effectively a substrate representing all of the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions the shopper has about the categories, brands, products, and retailers.”

image from Decoding Decision: Making Sense of the Messy Middle; Think with Google 2020

You and I both know that this accurately describes the landscape today. While there’s still value to the simple marketing funnel that guides a potential client from awareness to interest to decision, that mid-section has become far more exploratory instead of direct.

The reason why is because of the increase of options available to us, literally at our fingertips, and it’s made trusting in our choice that much harder to do.

So what can you do as a brand to make their decision to invest in you that much easier?

An increasingly popular strategy is designing micro brand experiences that keep your ideal clients engaged, that keep them coming back for more so when they’re finally ready to buy, it’s your business they turn to.

Learn the 7 attributes of memorable brands that keep them top of mind

WHAT IS A MICRO BRAND?

A micro brand is a uniquely crafted brand experience designed for a specific offer, category, or niche segment of a business’s audience. Think of a micro brand as a sub-brand with its own distinct vibe and messaging.

If you’ve ever launched a course, started a podcast, or hosted a webinar for your business, chances are you created your own version of a micro brand around it.

Here are a few examples of micro brands within a business:

• courses

• membership programs

• signature offer

• lead magnets

• training series

• podcast

• masterminds

• summits

• newsletters

• digital products

• the list goes on…

Just like you branded your business to make it easier to attract and appeal to your ideal clients, a micro brand developed around a specific service or product within your business is designed to more effectively grab attention, convey value, and convert.

Because in a world full of choice, an offer that feels hyper-targeted to you, makes your decision easier to make.

ENTHUSIASM DOESN’T SELL BUT MICRO BRANDS DO

Micro brands aren’t new but they are becoming a popular strategy to make an offer or product stand out to the right people.

Let’s suppose every small business out there is trying to sell at least one service or product—but let’s be real, that’s a conservative number—that means getting eyes and interest on your new offer becomes a lot more difficult.

While you may know how incredible your offer is and the very real impact it will have for your audience, the bad news is that your enthusiasm alone won’t sell it. But a tailored experience will.

This is the strategy behind micro brands: it’s about giving your offer a brand experience of its very own.

Let’s look at a couple of micro brand examples I’ve designed to help illustrate what's possible.

EXAMPLES OF MICRO BRANDS

Micro Brand Example No. 1

Back in 2023, I created a program called the Pilot Brand Program. The micro brand I designed around this offer was entirely aviation-themed. The program was targeting solopreneurs who were thinking about rebranding but were still nervous about embarking on that next move. If selected, they would get to test pilot a new brand direction before deciding if they wanted to move forward.

logo design for the program

micro brand experience example

a page in their connecting flight document

The overall brand experience used my brand’s own colours and fonts but everything from the visual storytelling and the offer language—which was full of aviation puns—shaped a really distinct experience for the offer.

The waitlist became the standby list.

Participants became passengers.

Their client portal became their flight gate.

Every email and social media post tied into this theme of aviation, which made marketing the program more intentional, engaging, and memorable.

Marketing this micro brand was so much more fun—both for me and my audience.

Micro Brand Example No.2

Allow me to rewind to early 2024 when I was hired to rebrand The Main Stage. My client was finally ready to give her business a professional brand identity but she also wanted to create a brand for a course and community she planned to launch called Queens of Coin. This is a great example of a micro brand opportunity.

After we designed the new brand identity for the primary business, we adapted those brand styles and designed an entirely unique logo collection for the program. While the micro brand used the same colours and fonts as the primary business, it had its own distinct brand guidelines. This is one way a micro brand experience serves to amplify not just the value of the program, but also the caliber of the entire business.

Micro Brand Example No.3

I’ve been working with Brenda Terry, NLP Master Coach and business mentor, to design micro brands for her extensive library of signature programs over the years. She has created everything from group coaching programs and courses to podcasts and everything in between.

Long before people were calling them micro brands, Brenda understood the value of creating distinct yet cohesive brand assets to sell each unique program. Here’s how she described it:

"Thanks to you my clients and students know what to expect. Every sub-brand is cohesive and complete and provides a feel-good experience. Because everything is interconnected, this leads to flow from program to program, which means that each program helps sell other programs under my brand."

Each new offer under the Brenda Terry Co brand would get its own micro brand equipped with its own logo collection and a tailored micro brand experience using the familiar brand styles her business is known for.

She just recently launched the Empowered CEO Society, which brings together many of these incredible business and mindset programs into one place. Be sure to check it out.

TIPS FOR CREATING A MICRO BRAND FOR YOUR OFFER

In both of the client examples above, I designed the micro brands to feel like direct extensions of the primary business brand to leverage familiarity. Let’s look at a few subtle ways you can maintain brand consistency while designing a distinct micro brand for your offer.

• design a unique logo collection for the micro brand (this is a must)

• use one brand colour as the micro brand’s signature colour

• introduce one new colour or typeface that would be used exclusively for this micro brand

• design a set of unique illustrations or graphics exclusive to this micro brand

• curate an image library with a distinct theme for your micro brand offer (read my blog on visual storytelling to learn how)

• design signature patterns for your micro brand

Micro brands are your opportunity to be creative within your own brand universe. If you need help strategizing the best plan for your offer’s micro brand, I can help with that.

HOW MICRO BRAND EXPERIENCES HELP EARN TRUST FASTER

Because micro brands are often designed for a specific segment of your larger target audience, both the messaging and the visual brand experience for the micro brand will speak directly to this audience segment’s values, pain points, and goals. That clarity helps shorten the path from awareness to conversion. The added benefit worth highlighting here is that by giving that offer its own distinct micro brand experience, it improves perception and associated value which earns trust faster.

Why You Should Use Micro Brands in Your Business

• they increase brand equity by amplifying the value of your offer

• they boost offer appeal and improve memorability around your brand

• they can increase visibility with the right audience

• they lead to more strategic and intentional marketing

• they serve to distinguish your brand as top tier and worth every penny

• they increase brand loyalty and word of mouth sales

If you’re a service-based business ready to strengthen your identity and attract the right clients to your next big offer, micro branding is your next power move. But you don’t have to do it alone. Join me for an intro call and tell me about the offer or program you’re eager to boost sales around and we’ll craft a plan to do exactly that.

Pin This

---

Jenny Henderson Studio develops memorable brand experiences and strategic brand foundations to improve recognition and revenue for service-based small businesses.