What do we mean by "aspiration"?
Your aspiration is the ultimate goal of your brand. It's what you want your audience to achieve by following you. A good aspiration is clear, concise, and memorable. It should be something your audience can understand and aspire to.
By defining your aspiration, you set a clear goal for your brand and a direction for your marketing and communication efforts.
Characteristics of a well-defined aspiration
Remember, your aspiration should be:
- Clear: Easy to understand.
- Concise: Short and simple.
- Memorable: Easy to remember.
- Motivating: Inspires your audience to follow you.
How to define your aspiration?
To define your aspiration, here are some guidelines to bring clarity:
- Think about your values and what you want your brand to represent: Your values are the principles that guide your life and business. When defining your aspiration, it's important to consider your values and how you want your brand to reflect them. What values are important to you? What is most important to you? What do you want your brand to mean? What do you want your brand to inspire in people? What do you want your audience to remember about your brand?
- Think about your audience: What does your audience want? What would motivate them to follow you?
- Think about what you want your audience to achieve by following you: What do you want your audience to achieve by following you? What do you want to change in their lives? What do you want them to feel?
- Brainstorm: Make a list of words or phrases that describe what you want your brand to represent.
- Narrow down your list: Remove words or phrases that are not essential.
- Draft your aspiration: Write a sentence that summarizes what you have learned from your brainstorming.
- Be specific and concise. Your aspiration should be easy to understand and remember for you and your target audience.
Once you have a good idea of what you want your brand to represent and what you want your audience to achieve, you can start defining your aspiration.
Your aspiration provides focus and direction to your brand. It helps you create content and messages that resonate with your audience and motivate them to follow you. It's something your audience can understand and aspire to.
Take your time to think about these questions and define your aspiration carefully. It's a fundamental part of building a successful StoryBrand.
Once you have a clear idea of your aspiration, you can start working on the rest of your StoryBrand.
Practical Examples of Brand Aspirations
To conclude Step 0, here are some practical examples of aspirations from various types of brands.
- Imagine you have a software company for small businesses. Your audience is small businesses striving to be efficient, productive, and profitable. You could define your aspiration as: "Helping small businesses reach their full potential."
- Imagine you are launching a women's clothing store. Your aspiration could be: "Making women feel confident, stylish, and attractive."
- A coaching brand focused on time management techniques could define its aspiration as: "Helping people have more time for what matters to them."
- Consider a fitness app targeting busy individuals who want to stay fit without sacrificing their lifestyle. This brand's aspiration could be: "Empowering people to naturally integrate fitness into their daily lives, without affecting their responsibilities."
- Suppose you are developing an organic and sustainable food brand. Your aspiration could be: "Improving people's health and the planet's health by cultivating conscious food."
- Imagine an online learning platform focused on professional skills. The aspiration could be: "Sharing practical knowledge that facilitates professional success."
- Consider a healthy food company focusing on providing nutritious and delicious options for busy individuals. Their aspiration could be: "Facilitating a healthy and balanced lifestyle, even on the busiest days."
- For a meditation and mental wellness app, targeting individuals looking to reduce stress and find inner calm, the aspiration could be: "Guiding people towards inner peace and serenity anytime, anywhere."