A powerful brand platform has five components: building a magnetic Brand Identity, establishing an independent Home Base, utilizing email to build your base, expanding the conversation with social media, and developing a Flagship Product.
By now, you might be wondering: Why does my platform require all five parts? How do I bring them all together?
Built to Empower
Imagine you’re at a beach house with your family for the week, and someone (let’s call him Josh) sees one of your blog posts on Facebook and clicks over to yourwebsite.com. Intrigued, Josh peruses your website for a few minutes and finds a gold-mine of valuable resources all related to a central theme (emphasized by the promise your website tagline conveys).
Fascinated, Josh downloads your template for taking action and receives a welcome email from you, along with a PDF. The initial resource is helpful, and Josh becomes hopeful. He wonders: could you be the guide he was looking for all this time?
Two days later, Josh receives another email from you—this time with a free lesson from your change-your-life course. It’s incredibly helpful, and he’s grateful—but not ready to buy your full program yet.
Josh purchases one of your more affordable, bite-sized courses, and is immediately blown away at how much value he gets. Excited, he rushes to practice the new tips you gave him—and he easily succeeds.
You come back home with your family, refreshed and relaxed, and hit send on a pre-written email announcing a limited window to join your change-your-life course (albeit at a premium price).
Convinced, Josh rushes to be one of the first customers to buy your full program and plans to spend his next Saturday consuming the program and jotting down detailed notes.
That may be a fictional story, but versions of that story play out every week now that platform-builders dominate the web. In fact, at the same time Josh goes through that story, similar stories could play out for Jessica, Jacob, and Matt.
When you complete the platform puzzle, success scales.
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Together, these five pieces form a rock-solid foundation for getting heard in a noisy world. Remember, that’s what building your platform is all about: being heard.
When you assemble the five pieces of the platform puzzle, you unlock the power to build a brand that profitably stands on its own. Let’s review the five pieces and why they matter:
- Magnetic Brand Identity. Your unique values, positioning, and place in the world.
- Independent Home Base. Your blog, website, or home on the internet, free of the terms and conditions of other platforms.
- Engaged Email List. Your loyal audience that actively chooses to read and engage with your content.
- Strategic Social Outposts. Your chance to join your audience’s conversations and reinforce your expertise.
- Profitable Flagship Product. Your life-changing brand promise wrapped up in a clear product your audience can purchase.
These five pieces take work, but when you put them together, something powerful happens. After more than six years with 20,000 students served, we’ve seen again and again, year after year, that the Platform Puzzle works.
