What Exactly Is A Brand Strategy?
A brand strategy is a framework that governs how businesses connect with customers and distinguish themselves from competitors. Your company’s brand extends beyond its name, logo, typefaces, and colors. Consider the overall appearance and feel of your organization, as well as its personality, business philosophy, values, and customer experiences.
According to Lucidpress and Edleman [1, 2], consumers are increasingly choosing firms that provide quality while making a beneficial influence on the world through consistent and values-driven brand actions. With a distinct brand approach, you can:
- Expand your business.
- Reach out to your ideal customers or target market.
- Improve your product promotion skills.
- Increase brand awareness among consumers.
In the sections that follow, you’ll explore your brand’s foundation and begin establishing a brand strategy.
3 Critical Steps To Identifying Your Brand’s Roots
Follow the steps below to finish laying a solid brand foundation and developing a worldwide marketing strategy for your brand.
Create The Elements Of A Business Strategy
A business plan is a written document that defines the goals and strategies for achieving those goals. Consider it a road map that you may use in conjunction with a brand strategy to build a successful business. Use the guidelines below to construct a simple business plan. You can also use your present business plan to investigate ideas for your brand.
- What is your company’s mission statement?
- What advantages does the organization offer to your potential client?
- What are your thoughts on your company’s pricing structure for the items and services it offers?
- What chances do you see after researching these specifics for building a tone, mood, or group of ideas to represent your potential brand?
Make More Precise Buyer Personas
Knowing who your company serves will assist you in developing a brand and providing an experience that appeals to them. A thorough market analysis can provide an in-depth look at a certain market, but for this brand exercise, consider the following:
- What are the values and beliefs of your ideal customers?
- What other businesses do they admire, support, and patronize?
- What are the most typical worries individuals have when considering whether or not to purchase a product?
- How are new products introduced to them?
- What components of their daily purchasing habits best reflect their personalities, issues, attitudes, beliefs, goals, and needs?
Look Into Brand Archetypes
Brand archetypes, which marketers and businesses have developed from psychologist Carl Jung’s notion of archetypes to characterize the human psyche, may appear in your branding study. Examples of brand archetypes include:
- The term “creator” refers to businesses that encourage the use of creativity, invention, and self-expression in problem-solving.
- Outlaw brands are those that defy the status quo and foster revolutionary impulses.
- The term “sage” refers to companies that promote themselves as industry thought leaders and authority.
Investigating brand archetypes and selecting one or more that correspond with your company’s aims is a fantastic strategy for coming up with new notions for the potential of your brand. To obtain these insights, complete an online brand archetype quiz, such as those given by MasterBrand or Lucidpress.
Developing A Brand Strategy
It is now time to develop a plan based on the brand foundation exercises. Each of the following parts of your brand strategy will necessitate your being innovative and analytical, appealing to clients’ emotions and logic, and carefully considering your company aims.
Describe Your Company’s Mission
Your company’s mission statement should convey the inspiration and guiding ideas behind the experiences you are creating for your clients. Use the questions below to help you identify your brand’s mission.
- What prompted you to develop this brand for your company?
- What do you wish consumers to believe about your brand?
- What types of emotions, experiences, new ideas, and opportunities do you wish to provide to your customers?
- What role do you want your brand to play in your customers’ lives? What effects could your brand have?
Define Your Brand’s Vision
Your firm’s vision statement is a long-term, forward-looking goal for what your company will become, where it will be in the world, and what it will be able to do. Consider the possibilities of your brand when developing your brand vision. Write as if there are no impediments or limits in the way of your success.
Use the three examples below to help you write your vision statement:
- To make sure that all kids have the same chance to go to school
- To boost global connectivity
- To position myself as a recognized provider of enjoyable activities
Choose The Main Values Of Your Brand
After you’ve identified your company’s aim and vision, the following step is to settle on its values. What values does your brand stand for? What key beliefs underpin every aspect of the brand? The answers to these questions will influence your brand’s behavior in the marketplace as well as the type of customers you attract.
To complete this area of your brand strategy, name and describe the values you share with your ideal customers. Here are a few examples:
- Empathy and compassion
- Passion and enthusiasm
- Endurance and tenacity
- Dependability and integrity
Determine Your Brand’s Positioning
Careful brand positioning can help you distinguish your company from competitors in your industry and attract the attention of your target market.
- What sets your company’s products and services apart from others in your industry?
- What specific distinguishing features exist, and how do they compare to the competition’s?
- How would customers that fit your buyer profile perceive and respond to these differentiators?
- What will people think of your company, its products, and services?
Make a brand positioning statement based on the answers to the following questions: Because of [audience beliefs], [audience] will choose [product] in order to obtain [benefits and effects].
Create A Personality For Your Brand
Your brand voice will determine the language you use to communicate your beliefs, personality, and mission to the rest of the world. The brand voice will be consistent throughout your messaging, from paid commercials to unpaid social media posts to emails, product descriptions, and customer service websites. It will also help you to create relationships with clients and gain their trust.
Consider the following questions as a jumping off point for your thinking:
- What is it that you want customers to take away from their experience with your company?
- Which terms do you want customers to associate with your brand?
- What do you think your brand’s personality is?
- What tone, language, and expressions would you give your brand if it were a person? What would people think about them?
Create Your Brand’s Identity
Compile all of the information you’ve acquired so far to build the identity of your brand. The identity will include all sensory experiences associated with your brand, such as the visual design of the logo, typefaces, and colors; the taste, feel, or smell of your physical products; the voices, music, and images that appear in videos; and the brand name and tagline.
Subtle changes in font style, size, layout, color shades, fragrances, noises, and other design elements can all have an impact on your brand’s perception. Consider how different design elements could accomplish the following:
- Represent your company’s goals, values, and mission.
- Adapt to the voice of your brand.
- Bring forth the emotions you want your customers to feel.
To complete your brand’s identity, it’s a good idea to work closely with members of your creative team, such as graphic designers and product designers, while developing the appearance and feel of your brand.
More information on creating your brand’s identity can be found in this presentation from the Branding: The Creative Journey Specialization.
Establish Brand Guidelines
One of the most important tools for your organization will be brand guidelines—clear directions, limitations, and regulations that determine how you display your brand and everything it stands for to the public. A brand may easily become unconnected without clear boundaries, which can harm your marketing efforts and muddy your message.
According to LucidPress’s 2021 Brand Consistency report [1,] 68 percent of survey participants indicated that brand consistency contributed to 10% or more of their revenue growth.
The brand guidelines may include the following rules in addition to outlining the visible components of your brand’s identity:
- The maximum and minimum sizes of your logo, as well as the circumstances in which you will use it
- Messaging guidelines, including words, phrases, voice and tone, and terminology to avoid
- Editorial guidelines
- Social media and website design options
- Options for displaying paid advertisements
It may be beneficial to compile the brand rules into a single document, slide show, or booklet that you can then distribute to everyone in your organization. This way, you can ensure that you’re providing a consistent brand experience to your clients at every point of contact.
