If you’re going to be thinking about how to brand your business, we’d better start by defining just what that means. What do you think about when you hear the word ‘brand’? Logo design probably comes to mind. Maybe colour schemes …

Maybe you’re also thinking that branding doesn’t matter much for freelance editors. After all, we’re just the quiet bookish people who concentrate on misplaced commas.

But branding is important. And it’s way more than just logo design.

A brand is every aspect of a business that creates a lasting impression. A brand is an unspoken promise a business makes with its clients. A brand is not just a logo. Not just a product. Not just a business name. It’s all of those things pulled together in a cohesive way – and then some.

Your brand is how other people feel about your business.

You can’t just tell them who you are – they might not believe you. You have to show them – through how your business looks, how it sounds and how it acts.

Big corporations that are made up of hundreds or thousands of people use branding to steer everyone in the same direction so that the company is seen as a unified whole. As a solo business owner, you don’t need to use your brand to help steer a bunch of employees, but you can use it to help define the direction of your business.

Your branding will help you make decisions about your business – from how you sign off your emails to the colours you use on your website. (Okay, so branding is a little bit about colour schemes.)

And because you are at the core of your business, you can use this to your advantage and build a personal brand (rather than a corporate brand).

A personal brand means not pretending your business is larger than it is (which means not writing about yourself in the third-person plural on your website, for one thing). It means not copying what other people are doing, thinking they must have it right. Instead, it means showcasing the advantages you can offer as a one-person business – namely, that you offer what big corporations can’t: a personal connection.

And when your business is about shaping someone else’s work (which is exactly what being an editor is all about), your clients are much more likely to want to work with someone they connect with who they feel they can trust.

Be that someone. A real person – not a faceless entity.

A personal brand has its foundations in a person’s core values and personality.

I don’t know about you, but I find this a very satisfying and fulfilling concept. It means you get to run a business in a way that feels true to you.

Why you need a brand

You’re probably wondering whether all this brand stuff is of any real importance. Well, if you can make the right people feel the right way about your business, you’ll attract the clients and projects you want at the price you want. Sounds good, right? That’s the power of an effective brand.

Editorial business owners are notoriously bad at branding themselves – it feels either unimportant or too difficult for most people to want to tackle it – but that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. In fact, by giving your brand some thought you’ll immediately stand out to your potential clients – and the right ones, at that.

You may have noticed that I often say ‘editorial business owner’ over ‘freelancer editor’. That’s because one of the first things you should do is think of yourself as a one-person business rather than a freelancer. Why? Perception.

Freelancers work for other people. Business owners work for themselves.

Even though you’re editing for your clients, it’s important to remember that you have responsibilities beyond your clients – namely, to yourself. Thinking as a business owner will help you consider the bigger picture and feel more confident taking control of your professional life. Branding is one way of doing this.

Some wonderfully branded editorial websites

A note on 'unique selling points' (USPs)

A common piece of business advice is that you should define your unique selling point (USP) – something about your business that sets you apart from every other business so that potential clients have a reason to choose you.

The trouble is, it’s really bloody difficult to find something that is truly unique to your business. A lot of editorial business owners misunderstand the concept and claim their USP is that they’ve worked in-house at a large publishing company, or that they’ve got a degree in their subject area, or that they’re a published author.

Sure, these things will help set you apart from some other businesses out there, but not all of them. These aspects aren’t completely unique, are they?

However, the general concept is right: you do need to stand out. And you stand out by being different.

Rather than promoting one specific unique thing about your business (impossible), think of your USP as all the individual components of your brand combined to make something original.

That includes your design, your copy, the services you offer, the clients you work with, the ways you specialise, and – most important of all – you. Your values, your voice, your personality. All of these elements combined.

That’s what makes your business unique.