In part two of the Awakening Your Brand Magic mini-series, Beverly Cornell dives into the next step: activation. If you’ve sparked clarity around your brand, now it’s time to breathe life into it. This episode covers how to align your values, visuals, message, and systems to create a brand that feels like you—bold, unapologetic, and magnetic. Ready to activate your brand magic? Let’s dig in and turn your brand into the living, breathing experience it was meant to be.
Three Key Topics Discussed:
- Brand Messaging that Connects: Your brand’s message needs to speak your customer’s language. Beverly walks through how to refine your messaging, making sure it sounds like you and speaks directly to your audience’s needs.
- Visual Identity that Reflects Your Energy: It’s not just about looking cute. It’s about aligning your visuals with your brand’s energy. Learn how to choose colors, fonts, and photos that feel like you and draw in the right people.
- Systems that Make Your Magic Flow: A beautiful brand needs smooth systems behind the scenes. Beverly explains how to build simple, streamlined processes that allow your brand to shine without burning you out.
Check out Part 1 of the Mini-Series here!
Transcript:
Beverly:
Hello sweet friend. Welcome back to the Spark and Ignite your marketing podcast. I’m your host, Beverly Cornell, brand clarity fairy godmother, marketing therapist, and the founder of Wickedly Branded. If we were curled up on a couch in my house right now with some fuzzy socks and chai tea in hand, I’d be looking at you in the eye and saying, you’ve already got everything you need. We just need to activate it. This is part two of the mini series, awakening Your Brand Magic, and today’s episode is all about activation. What happens after you spark that clarity that we did in episode one? How do you bring it to life? What happens after you spark that clarity that we did in our previous solo episode? How do you bring it to life? Let’s dig in to all of the goodness. How do you bring it to life? So let me share a quick story. Years ago, I worked with a brilliant life coach. Her name was Maya. Maya had this powerful gift for helping women find their voice after decades of people pleasing, raising my hand here, totally me. But when she came to me, her brand looked like a soft, very watered down version of who she really was. She had a really light pink logo, a vague tagline, and a website that said things like empowering women to embrace their potential. And it wasn’t wrong. It just was not her. Maya wasn’t soft, she was fierce, she was funny, and she was even a little spicy. The kind of woman who could hold space for your tears and then lovingly call you out on your self-sabotage. During our work together, I said to her, let’s create a brand that feels like your home, your living room, bold colors, big hearted unapologetically you, and that’s what we did. her tagline, became helping women stop apologizing and start owning their power. Gosh, so different, right? We updated her visuals to deep plums and really rich golds and used her real language, added client stories that sounded like testimonials from her best friends, and within weeks she started getting more aligned clients and more joy in her business. That’s what activation looks like. So if you take the spark from the awakening your brand magic first episode, and you build a fire around it, so what activation really means, so let’s break it down. Activation is the step where your brand stops being an idea and becomes a living and breathing experience. It is all about alignment between your values and your visuals. Between your message and your offers, and between how you feel and how your audience feels when they meet your brand. When systems flow, your brand spark becomes unstoppable energy and fuel for everything else. So here is the wicked truth. I wish more marketing folks said this out loud. A brand isn’t just colors and copy. It is energy. And when your brand energy is aligned, you start attracting the right people with ease. The three core areas of activation that are super important and where really activation begins to happen is one, your messaging. You want to speak their language, your customer’s language messaging is where this magic happens. It’s the words on your website, in your emails and your social media, and it’s how you introduce yourself. So ask these questions to yourself. Am I clearly telling people what I do in a way that feels natural? Does my copy sound like I actually talk? Does it sound like me? And could a new visitor instantly know how I help and why it matters? Again, I want you to go back to that third grader test, if your neighbor’s 9-year-old asked, what do you do? Could you answer in a sentence that they would understand? Try this. This is a great formula. I help your dream client, whoever that is, women, parents, moms, whatever it is, go from what they’re struggling with that their pain points are to the transformation that you create. So instead of, I do intuitive coaching, try, I help women release the stress that’s keeping them stuck and feel light, calm and confident again. I feel light, calm, and confident again. See how much clearer that feels. A strong brand isn’t about perfection, it’s about connecting to the person you wanna serve, connecting to how you can help them. So the second thing you wanna think about is your visual identity. Make it feel like you. We don’t want visuals that are just trendy or cute. We want branding that feels like an extension of your particular energy. if you’re a joyful, grounded yoga teacher who teaches self-compassion, your brand shouldn’t look like a bold tech startup. Please don’t. If you’re a financial coach for single moms, we want trust, hope, and empowerment, not stiff corporate fonts. Think about the colors that evoke how you want people to feel, fonts that match your personality, photos that show you not just some pretty stock image. A branding photo shoot for you is one of the best investments you can make. I do one at least twice a year, but I would even say every season would be nice. That way, you just have lots of photos to use. Your brand should feel like an invitation into your world. The third thing you wanna consider is your systems will let your magic flow way easier, less stressful. This part is often skipped, but it is everything because a brand that looks magical, but feels chaotic in the background behind the scenes. That is exhausting and that’s what leads to burnout. I want you to feel energized and not burned out. So part of activating your brand is having a simple, welcoming client process. A website that guides people to action automations that do the heavy lifting behind the scenes. We call this a brand ecosystem where everything works together seamlessly and like magic. Simplified systems will is what fuels bold transformations. So you don’t need to do all of this at one time. Again, I’m gonna pause here and I’m gonna say this’cause this is really important. You do not need to activate your whole brand overnight. I see you. You’ve got client calls, a grocery list, a kid with a school project. That’s probably late or last minute. So just breathe one bold step at a time. Start with your about page. Write an Instagram post that actually sounds like your voice. You send an email from your heart, not your head. That’s activation, small steps that lead to big transformations and starting today. So I want you to reflect. This is again, you can do this in your journal, on the notes app, on your phone, or even just close your eyes and think about it unless you’re driving. Don’t do that. What part of my brand feels activated and aligned to me? What parts still feel stuck or even unexpressed? And my favorite, what would feel really fun to bring to life? Next, let the answers come without judgment. Don’t push them away. Don’t say that’s not possible. Just notice. This is all part of your evolution. So if this episode really stuck with you, if it feels like this is where you are stuck and it sparked something in you, here’s a couple ways, a couple things you can do next. You can go to our website at wickedlybranded.com and there’s a popup quiz there called the Brand Magic Clarity Quiz. Take the quiz, see where you’re stuck. It’ll help guide you to the next steps that you need to take for your business. Or you can book a clarity call. It’s totally free and it is not a sales pitch. It’s a real conversation to explore what’s possible for you and your business. And if you’re craving more structure and tons of magic and sparkle, then our brand spark, deep dive, 90 minute session is where it all begins. You, your brand magic is meant to be seen, and that’s someday, and that when you’ve quote unquote figured it all out, who does that? Who has that? Who has it all figured out? I don’t have it all figured out. It’s now even when it’s messy, but it’s beautiful and it’s evolving. That is the magic. A brand is not built overnight. It is ignited step by step, and I am here for every single step to help you. So next time we’re gonna talk all about amplifying the brand magic that’s now been awakened and activated, and how to show up to get visible and to create that momentum that’s so important, that feels right for you. Until then, I’m Beverly Cornell. You have the spark. Let’s turn that into a roaring fire. Keep sparking, keep igniting. Just remember, your brand magic is already inside of you.
