Answer to Quora question:
“What should an individual expect to pay for branding? Not just a logo, but creating an overall image.”
I’m going to focus on “individual” as you stated in your question — NOT a company’s product or service.
I make that distinction because I just completed a proposal for a complicated health care product, and that brand solution requires a lot of hours of research and interviewing.
Branding an individual is much more direct, so it’s a lot easier. Of course, the individual is also selling something — their own product, service or media, so the individual’s personal brand story needs unearthed and tied to what is being sold. And the product, service or media’s value proposition needs to be formulated as well, and this requires a deep dive into the target audience’s problems that are being solved uniquely by the offering.
Both of these are derived from discovering the individual’s deepest passion(s) and developing the above mentioned content from the position of that passion. It produces the purest messaging that will provide the individual and product/service/media with clarity and inspiration. It will be the underlying driver of your marketing efforts going forward.
Proper branding has massive ROI
Excellent branding will save you thousands of dollars in paid advertising for years to come as it will convert more of your prospects into customers and even increase your organic reach as a pure message will naturally garner more of an audience.
If this is understood, than you certainly don’t want a novice creating your brand messaging as mentioned in another answer. The first impression that you make with your target audience will make or break you.
The cost will largely be determined by the complexity of what you are trying to sell, but I would say that your branding effort should cost between 2–4k, US dollars.
