Are you thinking of developing a brand strategy for your organization?
Don’t know where to start from?
Do you want your brand strategy to be successful and strong?
You have come to the right place.
It is an established fact that without an effective brand strategy your business will suffer a lot. Most probably, it won’t survive. Therefore, building an effective brand strategy is indispensable.
To all those who are new to the business and marketing field, let me introduce you to the concept of what a brand is all about.
What is a brand?
In the words of Seth Godin, a marketing and leadership expert,
“A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories, and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.”
Thus, a brand distinguishes the products and services of one seller from the other. Whether it be in terms of name, design, symbols, style, etc.
What is a brand strategy?
A brand strategy can be termed as a plan which is devised by an organization. Its main purpose is to attract customers and leave an impact on their minds. It’s not just about making profits, it’s beyond that.
A customer should know the value that a brand brings along with it as this helps in establishing a good connection between the brand and its customers.
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What is the significance of a brand strategy?
Apart from monetary success, the brand strategy helps in aligning your marketing efforts. Your brand gets a clear vision and values. Without a brand strategy, your company will not be able to achieve those goals that you cherish.
A brand strategy supports collaboration across teams. It helps in creating a benchmark whereby a team in a company will be able to measure its success.
How to build and implement a Strong Brand Strategy?
According to Steve Forbes, Editor in chief of Forbes Magazine,
“Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business.”
Since brand holds a significant place in your business, it is essential that the brand strategy should be strong and concrete.
However, it takes time to learn and master the skill of building a strong brand strategy. You need to be patient throughout the entire process.
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Step 1- Build up your internal brand
What are the main components of an internal brand?
A brand’s purpose, vision, mission, and core values are the main components that are included in the internal brand. All these should be defined well and in detail by the leaders of the company so that there is no scope for any discrepancy.
Step 2- Decide your target audience
Have you ever thought about why it is necessary to have a target audience?
Identifying the target audience and then developing its buyer persona (fictional representation) is one of the basic requirements of the brand strategy. Without a target audience, you cannot focus on the emotions of a particular group of people and need to reposition yourself time and again.
Step 3- Understand the competitive landscape
The necessity of understanding your competitors in the market cannot be denied. If you present your target audience with the same choices and offers that are already prevalent in the market, it’s not going to work out.
Step 4- Discover your positioning strategy
Once you know the competitive landscape and target audience, it will become easier for you to take a particular position for your brand.
How can you benefit your audience?
Is there any way to save your audience from stress and spending more money?
All these kinds of questions will help you in discovering your positioning strategy.
Step 5- Developing your brand personality
Brand personality is one of the key factors that decide whether you resonate with a particular brand or not.
Your brand personality should be based on the needs of the target audience so that proper communication between you and your audience can take place.
Step 6- Tone of voice of the brand
A brand’s tone of voice is equally important as the brand’s personality. Delivering the messages to the audience in a positive way can only be possible through a proper tone of voice of the brand.
Step 7- Build up a messaging strategy
What message do you want to convey to your audience?
This question needs to be dealt with with utmost care as your brand should create the necessary impact in the minds of the people. And without an appropriate messaging strategy, no success can be achieved.
Step 8- Hook up your audience with stories
Aren’t you fond of stories?
Stories are ingrained in our DNA. We have been listening to the stories since early times and are fond of them to such an extent that we subconsciously start liking a brand that resonates with our personality.
Therefore, conveying your brand message with the help of stories is a brilliant idea to hook your audience.
Step 9- Create your brand name and tagline
Are you wondering about the creation of a brand name and tagline so late in our development process?
Actually, this is the right time to do so since now we got an idea of who our target audience is, and what is our vision, personality, and voice of the brand.
Hence, the brand name and tagline that communicates your brand’s importance to the audience can now be developed in an effective way.
Step 10- Compose your brand identity
Is brand identity exclusively unique?
According to Germany Kent,
“Brand identity for your business provides an opportunity to create distinction, making your story one-of-a-kind. The beauty of branding is that it gives you the power to create the perception to create an impression for your target audience that is unique and classy. ”
Logo, color palette, typography, image style, iconography, and graphics all are included in brand identity.
Step 11- Strategizing your brand collateral
What are the ways to promote your brand?
Brand collateral provides an answer to the above question.
Brand collateral refers to a group of media that is used to promote a brand. Websites, social media pages, brochures, business cards, flyers, posters, and promotional items all come under the umbrella of brand collateral.
Step 12- Craft your brand awareness strategy
Knowing where your target audience spends most of the time is supreme. After identifying the platform, you can very well execute your strategy keeping that place in mind. This will result in more engagement of the audience with your brand.
Content marketing at the right place and at the right time is very important for a brand awareness strategy.
Step 13- Inaugurate your brand
Next comes the launching of your brand. It also depends on the budget that you have. If your budget is less, you can go for Guerilla marketing which can give you astonishing results.
Step 14- Examine, improve and evolve
Are your strategies not up to the mark?
Then it’s time to change your strategies. Strategies can be changed or evolved by looking at the results they are providing.
Final words
Brand strategy is a very comprehensive topic. Building a strong brand strategy includes a lot of points in its ambit starting from the internal brand to the examination and evolution of the brand.
Moreover, most people are still unaware of these points of brand strategy. As a result, you can fully utilize the benefits of this blog in a concrete way.
Also read: Why it is important to build effective communication skills as a founder?
-Written by Aditi Saini
(Content Intern at NxtDecade)
After pursuing a Master’s in Political Science, she was keen to explore the world of content writing. Apart from art and craft, she is famous for her singing among her friends and family members. Her motto in life is “Live and let live.”
