How to develop your brand strategy

When you build a brand, for yourself or a client, you are building an entity to connect your business with an audience. A brand is what people think, feel, and say about your business. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years of working with brands to communicate their stories, it’s that a successful company can’t thrive without a solid brand strategy.

 

When people talk about a “brand,” they usually mean the physical mark (or logo) put on a product to identify the company that made it. A brand, however, is more than just a logo. It’s an emotional mark, an emotional experience that is enhanced or lessened with each interaction with that business.

 

While a brand is defined by the emotional connections people have with it, a brand strategy helps you understand who you are and serves as a roadmap for communicating your personality. This covers your brand heart (the essence of your business), brand messaging effectiveness (how you connect with your audience), and visual identity (the visual expression of your brand). By the end of this article, you’ll have a full strategy that will help you bring your brand to life.

All elements of your business suffer if you don’t know who you are, why you exist, what you believe in, or what you’re attempting to accomplish. A lack of brand strategy generates challenges at every level of a business, from customer communication concerns to staff retention.

 

When you have no brand strategy…

 

• Because you don’t know what your goal, vision, or values are, you make marketing and commercial decisions that don’t reflect them.
• You don’t have a formal marketing strategy in place, but you’re hoping that whatever you’re doing will be successful.
• Employees are finding it difficult to feel involved and interested since your team is hindered by disunity, uncertainty, and conflict.
• Because you lack a clear brand message, your material is inconsistent at best and contradictory at worst. As a result, finding others who share your beliefs is challenging (customers, employees, etc).
• Because you can’t precisely explain your brand, you won’t be able to carve out a distinct niche in the market.

 

In short, without a brand strategy, you lose.

If you’re starting your brand strategy from scratch (or trying to do things the “right” way this time), there are two key pieces of information you need to know beforehand. They are:

Who is it you are trying to help? What do they need/want? How are their needs not being met?

 

You need to know who you’re selling to in order to create a brand strategy that helps you connect with people. Knowing who they are and how you want to serve them will help you clarify who you are (for example, your Brand Heart) and how you interact with them.

Who shares your space? Who will you be competing with for attention? How might they outshine you?

 

This is crucial information for determining who you are and aren’t, how you fit in or stand out, and how you can convey your uniqueness through your brand strategy.

 

1. 1. 1. Develop your brand heart
      2. Establish your brand positioning
      3. Develop your brand essence
      4. Establish your brand messaging strategy
      5. Develop your name and tagline
      6. Design your visual identity
      7. Create your content marketing strategy
      8. Develop your website
      9. Develop your marketing tool-kit
      10. Analyze, optimize, evolve

Every brand has a set of core values that guide everything they do. These beliefs are referred to as your Brand Heart. It’s critical to understand what these principles are and why they matter since they’re a powerful, dynamic force that may either help or hurt your organization. You can effectively bring people together, establish community, and create the future you want when your brand’s principles and business are matched. When you have no beliefs (or those beliefs are toxic), you can easily alienate both employees and customers, cripple your culture, and make decisions that derail your long-term goals.

 

Your Brand Heart is comprised of four elements that help you clarify who you are, what you do, and why it matters.

 

Purpose: Why do we exist? Who are we trying to help?

Vision: What future do we want to help create? What does the future look like?

Mission: What are we trying to achieve? How do we create that future?

Values: What principles guide our behaviour?

Knowing their issues and pain areas is the key to unlocking those emotions, and understanding their emotions is the key to successful branding. Companies that conduct thorough research on their target client group expand and profit quicker. Those that conduct studies more regularly (at least once per quarter) grow even quicker. Research allows you to gain a better understanding of your target client’s viewpoint and objectives, anticipate their requirements, and deliver your message in a way that connects with them and sets you apart from the competition. It also reveals how people perceive your company’s capabilities and present brand. As a result, the marketing risk associated with brand creation is significantly reduced.

 

Once you have a good idea of your target audience and your competitors, you are ready to determine your firm’s brand positioning within the professional services marketplace. How is your firm different from others and why should potential clients within your target audience choose to work with you?

 

The core of your brand positioning is captured in a positioning statement, which is usually three to five phrases long. It must be based on fact since you will be expected to follow through on your promises. It should also be aspirational so that you have something to work towards.

Your brand essence consists of your:

 

Personality
Voice
Tone

 

Identifying these elements can seem intimidating, but it’s not a chore. It’s not even a hunt. Your essence is inherent. It doesn’t need to be manufactured; it simply needs to be unearthed and documented with some intention.

 

1) Identify your personality.

Your personality is basically your brand’s human characteristics and attributes. Are you curious and enthusiastic? Elite and sophisticated? Wild and crazy? Your Brand Heart is reflected in your personality, which is affected by your beliefs and manifested in your actions. You can incorporate your personality into every part of your business, from your customer service procedure to your product descriptions, once you have a firm grasp on it. This is a great technique to set yourself apart and build relationships.

 

2) Identify your brand voice.

This is how your brand sounds and communicates. Keep in mind that each brand’s voice is distinct. A yoghurt brand does not communicate in the same way that a vehicle brand does, and each car brand has its own distinct tone. Your brand voice is already influenced by your personality; all you have to do now is describe it so you can communicate consistently throughout your content.

 

3) Identify your tone.

The tone of your brand is essentially your general attitude. Although your tone is courteous, your voice is authoritative. Consider your brand’s voice as to how you speak and your tone as to how you speak in various situations. You constantly speak in the same voice, yet your tone varies depending on who you’re speaking with.

There are many ways to share with others about who you are, what you do, and why people should choose your brand over your competitors. For the purposes of this brand strategy, we’re starting with: your value proposition, tagline, and messaging pillars.

 

1) Articulate your value proposition.

Your value proposition is a brief summary of the functional and emotional advantages that your product or service gives to clients. It’s not only about who you are and what you do differently (positioning); it’s also about how you solve their problem and why they should select you over your competitors.

 

2) Identify your messaging pillars.

Your messaging pillars are the key stories you want to spread about your brand—what makes you unique and different. Every piece of content you publish should reinforce these core messages across all interactions.

 

• Brand promise
• Brand story
• Manifesto/compact
• Origin or founder story
• Elevator pitch

 

While your core brand positioning must be the same for all audiences, each audience will be interested in different aspects of it. The messages to each audience will emphasize the most relevant points. Each audience will also have specific concerns that must be addressed, and each will need different types of evidence to support your messages. Your messaging strategy should address all of these needs. This is an important step in making your brand relevant to your target audiences.

Choosing a brand name is always a challenge, but you know how crucial this is. Your label will dictate your customers’ first impression and set you apart from the competition. While the formula for coming up with your brand name is not an exact science, there are certain characteristics you will want to include such as evocative, catchy or memorable, simple to spell, and recognizable. Even though your brand goes far beyond your name, it relays reliability and trust to consumers and distinguishes you from the competition.

 

Your tagline is a sentence, phrase, or word used to summarize a market position. Coming up with a great tagline isn’t like the movies. Most companies don’t have a Don Draper to simply feed you the perfect line. It’s usually a long slog through brainstorms and iterations. Luckily, researchers are discovering the keys to a great tagline, offering interesting insights that can help you choose the perfect one according to science.

Keep in mind that your name, logo, and tagline do not constitute your brand. They are an aspect of your brand identity or the methods by which your brand is communicated or symbolized. To make it real, you must live it. Also, don’t make the mistake of circulating the new logo internally to get approval. You are not the target audience for the name, logo, or tagline. They should be rated on how well they communicate with your audience in the marketplace rather than how much the partners like them.

 

Logo

A good logo is one that people remember, and studies suggest that the simplest logos are the most memorable. Yes, it should reflect your brand, but if you want it to stand out, keep it basic. You should also examine how people visually interpret and give meaning to images since research has shown that various shapes are assigned different qualities.

 

Typography

Because typography is an extension of your brand, we begin with logo design. People are ingesting words in many mediums, thus typography is more vital than ever. However, something that works great on packaging may not work well on your website, so it’s crucial to think about not just how your typography matches your brand but also how it will be utilized in a variety of situations.

 

Colours

Colour is one of the most enigmatic and powerful aspects of branding. It tends to have an impact on everything from brand impression to purchase intent, according to research, but it is a complicated science. Because our connections with colour are very subjective, not all colours inspire the same feelings in everyone. Finding the trite colour scheme for your brand will prove to be an important step in how well you invoke emotions from your audience.

In the Internet era, content marketing is especially well suited to professional services organizations. It performs all of the functions of traditional marketing, but it does it more effectively. It attracts, nurtures, and qualifies candidates by providing quality instructional information. In other words, a holistic approach to creating content provides more value to your brand, and in turn, generates strong and longer-lasting relationships with your audience.

 

Keep in mind that the strength of your brand is determined by both its reputation and its exposure. It’s unusual to succeed at increasing awareness without also improving your reputation. That is why traditional “awareness-building” advertising or sponsorships are so often ineffective. Content marketing, on the other hand, boosts both exposure and reputation at the same time. It’s also a great method to make your brand more relevant to your target audiences.

Your website is the most significant tool for building your brand. It’s where everyone in your audience goes to learn about what you do, how you do it, and who your customers are. Prospective clients are not likely to choose your firm solely based on your website. But they may well rule you out if your site sends the wrong message.

 

Additionally, your website will house your essential material. That material will be the focus of your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts, allowing potential customers, employees, and referral sources to find you and learn more about your company. Any current brand development plan must include online content.

The next stage is to complete the remaining components of your marketing toolkit. One-page “sales sheets” that summarize main service offerings or important markets covered should be included. A quick “pitch deck” that overviews the business or major offers, as well as an e-brochure about the firm, may also be included. These are no longer commonly printed items.

 

This marketing toolkit is increasingly inclusive of videos. Firm overviews, case studies, and “meet the partner” videos are all popular video themes. The key service offerings are also quite beneficial. These tools may help with not only business development but also brand development if they are designed properly.

Whether it’s you or someone you’ve hired to assist you, you need a solid understanding of your analytics to know what’s working and what isn’t so you can pivot, optimize, and improve. Obviously, a great brand development plan is useless if it is never put into action.

 

That is why it is critical to keep track of everything. It is highly recommended that your company keep track of both the plan’s implementation and the results. Is the approach being carried out as planned? What happened to objective metrics like search traffic and website visits? What was the total number of new leads, employment applications, and partnership opportunities generated? You can only be confident you’re drawing the proper conclusions and making the appropriate decisions if you follow the entire process and make the right adjustments.