Building Your Personal Brand with a Unique Value Proposition

It’s now more important than ever to build your personal brand as a freelancer. 2020 was full of ups and downs, but, on a high note, the year did drive many companies to shift toward a remote-first organizational structure. That alone has created more opportunities for freelancers within many industries, from copywriting to graphic design, all the way through to content marketing and sales. 

Despite the surge in demand for outsourced skills, the challenge that worldwide talent now faces is standing out in the sea of freelancers. 

Why is building a personal brand with intent and purpose beneficial to you? It helps you to get noticed and be remembered by potential clients. Think of it as marketing yourself by telling the story of who you are, what skills you possess, and how you can solve a customer’s pain points.

The most effective way to build your personal brand is crafting a unique value proposition (UVP) to companies seeking out your skills. A unique value proposition, or unique selling point, is a positioning statement that explains the benefits of hiring you over a competitor. This showcases your skills, strengths, and attributes to your customers in a simple and effective way. 

To help you create a personal brand that keeps your client pipeline fueled, we’ve put together a few strategies you can implement right away. But, firstly, let’s explore the basics.   

What Is a Personal Brand

The definition of a personal brand entails how you promote yourself to your audience and the image that they perceive of you. This refers to your skills, experience, and personality traits. Professionally, a personal brand could be based on information from your website, LinkedIn, your reputation in a company, and even your in-person interactions. 

A personal brand isn’t about how many clients peruse your portfolio, how many likes you get on social media, or how many subscribers you get on an email list. Your personal brand is a tangible asset that can further your career and increase your bottom line. When your customers feel as if they know you on a deeper level, they learn to trust you and the services you provide, which will have your clients coming to you with work. 

Creating Your Unique Value Proposition (UVP)

Personal brand development should always start with knowing and understanding your audience, from that you can build out your messaging and how you’re going to help your audience. Remember, they have pain points and challenges, that’s why they’re seeking out your services. 

To help you differentiate yourself from your competitors, make your unique value proposition known to your audience. The positioning statement should be the basis of your personal brand and shows your customers that you have what it takes to successfully solve their problems.

For example, a tech Copywriter may have a UVP on their website such as:

“With over five years of B2C experience, I have worked with companies like Google and Apple to develop ad copy for multiple channels. By helping you directly engage your audience, I help you save time, achieve more out of your campaigns and boost your bottom line.”

When crafting your UVP, explain to your customers how your skills are going to help them achieve what they want. If you’re adding value to your client and their company, be concise about how you’re going to do that. 

Market Yourself With a Positioning Statement

Not only do you want your personal brand to tell your clients that you’re just the solution they’re looking for but it can also help them gauge if you’re going to be a fit for each other. 

When conveying your brand’s message to your audience, it’s important to create a positioning statement. Whether it’s a landing page, paragraph, or even a line of copy on social media; the positioning statement reveals all about who you are and how you can help.

Here are four questions that you want to answer: 

• Who are you? Tell your backstory; it doesn’t need to involve every intricate detail of your life but your brand’s story helps to get your audience engaged and emotionally invested. 
• What do you offer? In this part, detail your strengths and what you offer to customers.
• Who’s your audience? Defining your key audience helps to deliver personalized messaging. For example, there’s a big difference with how you speak to B2B or B2C clients, and tone of voice goes a long way. 
• What’s your audience’s vision and mission? Ask them appropriate questions and engage with them in a way that provides you with vital information. 

At first, these questions may provide you with a paragraph of text but eventually, you’ll be able to refine this down to either a sentence or a key point. To help you visualize this, your positioning statement may start with a question like “Is your online store struggling to keep your pipeline fuelled with customers?” which helps your audience relate if they have a similar problem. Then you’re able to divulge details of how you can help with a statement like “After working for Instagram for 5 years, I now help apparel merchants provide personalized UX Design that improves store conversion rates by 300%.”

Why You Need to Create Content Assets

Gary Vaynerchuk drills the message content is king into the minds of aspiring entrepreneurs, freelancers, and business owners. As someone that many Millennials and Generation Z look up to, Gary demonstrates that creating content assets in this day and age helps you to provide value to your audience. Even if writing isn’t your profession you can create valuable articles around the topics you know best.

In fact, not only does it help you to provide value, but through the creation of consistent high-value content, you can build a relationship with your current and potential clients that generates trust and authority. Some of the content that you produce can be posted and shared on places such as a company blog or even on LinkedIn where prospects can see your knowledge in your industry. 

Let’s say for example that you’re a freelance AR Developer and are seeking out new clients. A thought leadership article, ebook, or whitepaper which serves as a guide shows to your audience that you’re adept in knowledge and skill. Top points if you tailor content like this based around current trends such as AR filters on Instagram.

Start Building Your Personal Brand Today

Building your personal brand requires a lot of research and patience. Knowing your audience is key to developing tailored messaging. But, it’s also important to note that your audience can see through a charlatan. Be as genuine as possible, the real you will always be able to develop the strongest personal brand. 

Our Task Manager Tool is designed to help you keep on top of your tasks, especially when it comes to building your personal brand. You can also now add custom branding to your invoices. Take a look at AND.CO’s tools today and make yourself stand out in the sea of freelancers.