A BRAND STRATEGY IS THE KEY TO SCALING YOUR BUSINESS!
As we’ve continued to take businesses through our brand strategy program, one thing has stood out: a defined brand strategy has helped those businesses clearly communicate who they are, why their audience should care, and has helped pave the way towards the growth that they imagined.
“If you don’t communicate your brand to the marketplace, your marketplace will create your brand for you” – Elon Musk
On the flip side, we’ve also seen that businesses that do not have a defined brand strategy tend to be confused and frustrated with their current marketing methods.
- They’re not sure how to craft compelling copy.
- They’re unsure how to design a flyer, billboard, or social post, that converts.
- They are not even certain as to where their marketing efforts should be focused.
Hence why we believe that a defined brand strategy is a POTENT marketing weapon that every business should possess.
In this blog:
HOW DO YOU DEFINE “BRAND STRATEGY”?
Our brand strategy definition may differ from others, but here is how we define it: A brand strategy a plan as to how you want your company to be perceived in the marketplace in order to meet business objectives. It takes into consideration your brand’s pulse (purpose, mission, vision, and values), target audience, brand position, messaging, and so much more.
Be it with your target audience or within your internal office culture, having a unified brand strategy, visual identity, and marketing execution helps you communicate clearly and concisely to whoever you’re trying to reach.
Before we talk about a brand strategy, let’s talk about the definition of a brand.
Contrary to popular belief, a brand isn’t just about the visuals you use like your logo, website, etc. A brand is what people think and feel about your business. It’s the emotional connection and thoughts that the marketplace has in connection to your business.
For instance, let’s talk about Walmart.
What do you think of when you hear the word WALMART? What words, phrases, and feelings come to mind when you see their logo, hear a commercial, or see their store?
For me (Nick), I think of the word “dirty”. I think of the word “cheap”, but I also get a feeling of DREAD. I HATE going to Walmart, so I don’t have a very positive relationship with Walmart as a brand. I don’t enjoy my time there. The workers can be very rude or inconsiderate, and the merchandising plan seems to be one step up from a thrift store to me.
I posed this question to some of my friends as well as on our socials, and here are words, phrases, or feelings that came to mind for them:
NEGATIVE:
24/7
Cheap
The smell of armpits and cheap perfume
Hot mess
Disorganized
Anger
Cringe
POSITIVE:
Convenient
Wide variety of choices
Low prices
Now, did Walmart CREATE this brand perception and express it to the marketplace? Yes and no.
When they first started, their tagline was “Always Low Prices”. In other words, CHEAP. They merchandised and designed the stores to appeal to the customer who was always looking for the lower prices.
Did Walmart create the brand perception of “the smell of armpits and cheap perfume”, “hot mess”, “anger”, “cringe”, and “disorganized”? No. Those brand perceptions were formed by people’s EXPERIENCES at Walmart. When you push “cheap” in your messaging, and your stores deliver an experience of dirtiness, disorganization, etc., then the natural BRAND in people’s mind will reflect those terms.
So, yes, the brand was pushed to challenge the market with their pricing strategy, but the brand was formed off of the experiences that the consumers had within the store.
Just like Walmart, your business must have a plan as to what the perception is that you want your audience (and internal employees/contractors) to have about your brand.
WHY IS HAVING A BRAND STRATEGY SO IMPORTANT?
Your brand strategy is a north star for EVERYTHING your company does. Not only does it influence your visual identity, it also influences your copywriting, graphics, blog posts, and ALL of your marketing executions for the future!
A brand strategy helps create buy in from your customers and clients as well as your employees and vendors. When you share your purpose/mission/vision/values, everyone knows what your company is about and where it’s heading. When you share your organizational values with your employees, they know what is expected of them in every interaction with a customer or client.
Your brand strategy serves as a catalyst and inspiration for campaign ideas and marketing executions. You’ll begin to conceptualize campaigns for specific audiences with a certain look to your graphics and a well-crafted story for your copy. In fact, during the brand strategy process, we’ve seen several clients become REALLY excited as the event inspired them to create campaigns they would never have thought of doing.
Your visual identity (logo, website, graphics, etc.) will be HEAVILY influenced by your decisions from your brand strategy. For example, if you want your company to convey elegance, luxury, and simplicity, a graphic designer will choose specific shapes and colors that will create those feelings within your logo, website, social posts, magazine ads, etc.
If you don’t have a brand strategy in place, you’ll be shooting in the dark as to what design elements need to be created and how any copy should be written.
WHAT PROBLEMS DOES A BRAND STRATEGY SOLVE FOR YOU?
Brand strategy is designed to solve a range of problems that businesses may face, including:
Lack of differentiation: A strong brand strategy can help a business stand out from its competitors and differentiate itself in the marketplace.
Poor customer loyalty: A compelling brand identity can help to foster customer loyalty by creating an emotional connection between the business and its customers.
Inconsistent messaging: A well-defined brand strategy can help ensure that a business's messaging is consistent across all channels and touchpoints, which can help to build trust and credibility with its audience.
Ineffective marketing: A strong brand identity can be a powerful tool to support marketing efforts and drive customer engagement and conversions.
Lack of clarity: A brand strategy can help a business to clarify its mission, values, and target audience, which can guide decision-making and ensure that the business is focused on its goals.
Overall, a brand strategy can help businesses to create a strong and cohesive brand identity that will support their success and growth in the marketplace.
WHAT ROI CAN YOU GAIN FROM A BRAND STRATEGY?
There are several ways to measure the return on investment (ROI) from a brand strategy foundation, including:
Increased brand recognition and awareness: A strong brand strategy can help to increase recognition and awareness of a business's brand, which can be measured through market research, surveys, and tracking of brand mentions and interactions.
Improved customer loyalty: A compelling brand identity can help to foster customer loyalty, which can be measured through customer retention rates, repeat business, and customer satisfaction scores.
Increased sales and revenue: A strong brand strategy can support marketing efforts and drive customer engagement and conversions, which can be measured through increased sales and revenue.
Higher customer lifetime value: A well-defined brand strategy can help to create a positive customer experience and foster long-term customer relationships, which can lead to higher customer lifetime value.
Higher valuation: A strong brand identity can contribute to a business's overall value and increase its valuation, which can be measured through a valuation analysis.
Overall, tracking these metrics can provide insight into the ROI from a brand strategy foundation and help to evaluate its effectiveness in supporting the business's goals and objectives.
WHAT MAKES A GOOD BRAND STRATEGY?
There are several different elements that form a strong brand strategy.
1) DEFINED BRAND PULSE (PURPOSE/MISSION/VISION/VALUES)
It’s one thing to think you know what your company is about, but it’s a whole other ballgame to have it DEFINED, written, and communicated to others.
For instance, one of the first questions we ask when doing a brand strategy with a client, is what their purpose, mission, values, and vision are for the company. We can usually tell if they’re creating it on the spot or if it’s a central part of their DNA.
When you can talk about what your company’s purpose (why does our company exist?), vision (what is the future we want to create?), mission (what are we actually here to do?), and values (what standards are we holding our company to?), you will be able to communicate your message clearer to the marketplace. When you can communicate those clearly, the marketplace will be able to buy into what you do.
In fact, if your company’s purpose exists to make an impact on the world that has NOTHING to do with your brand, people who have the same intentions will buy in. For instance, at Red Letter Creative, our defined purpose --- “We exist to help create a future where everyone can live mentally and physically healthy while building a life worth living.”
How do we do that?
Helping brands get the word out about their products and services so that they can impact the lives of their customers, themselves, and their employees
Helping orphans and transitionals (transitions from jail or homelessness back to the world) to build skills so that they can be productive citizens
Helping CEO’s, C-Suite executives, and all workers build the mental and marketing skills needed to drive sales and brand impact
Helping our staff to achieve the goals they set out for themselves and live a life worth living.
You can see above that, yes, part of our purpose is marketing, but it’s SO much more than that. We want to leave an impact on PEOPLE.
Other examples:
Nike: “Our purpose is to unite the world through sport to create a healthy planet, active communities, and an equal playing field for all.”
Target: “To help all families discover the joy of everyday life.”
Walmart: “We aim to build a better world --- helping people live better and renew the planet while building thriving, resilient communities.”
Your purpose is meant to inspire others as well as show the direction that you’re taking your company.
Emotional buy in to your company is EVERYTHING!
2) IDENTIFYING WHAT YOU WANT YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE TO THINK AND FEEL ABOUT YOUR COMPANY
Imagine your company were a person standing next to you.
What’s their personality? Are they witty and outgoing? Are they more sophisticated and elite? Are they raw and unsophisticated? What kind of personality represents your brand?
What’s their brand voice? Think of differentiation here --- a restaurant won’t talk the same way a financial services brand will. A bank won’t communicate in a way that’s similar to a t-shirt brand. Your brand’s voice is created based on the personality that you’ve identified.
What’s their tone of voice? Think of it this way --- when you’re at a networking meeting, you’ll speak one way. But, when you’re speaking at a conference, you’ll bring a different energy and presentation. Consider the context of where you are and who you’re speaking to when deciding what tone of voice to use.
For example, let’s take a look at Wendy’s and their famous Twitter account.
People know Wendy’s as a fast food restaurant, but their personality online is FIERCE and FUNNY! They’re snarky, sarcastic, and LOVE to roast people who tag them in Tweets.
They do such a GREAT job at creating an emotional connection with the public by roasting their competitors and even their own followers… all in fun of course.
Adding personality, brand voice, and tone brings a level of humanity to your brand that your target audience can relate to.
3) STRUCTURED AND CLEAR MESSAGING
We’ve seen too many businesses that creating messaging for messaging’s’s sake (we misspelled that on purpose… if you watch “The Office”, then you’ll understand the reference...)
Your messaging is one of the most important elements of your marketing mix that needs to be defined. Otherwise, you’re shooting in the dark with what needs to be communicated and are creating more confusion in the marketplace.
Your messaging will include your value proposition (the functional and emotional benefits of your product or service), tagline (one sentence differentiator), and a structured outline of the topics and subtopics your brand will focus its content efforts around.
Now, that doesn’t mean that there won’t be off-the-cuff messages here and there. After all, marketing can be very contextual, and content can be crafted around what’s going on TODAY. When you’re riding a trend that’s big, or you want to test out a new audience, there will be times where the messaging structure won’t necessarily be in play. Think of this as peripheral content. It isn’t to be focused on, but it can add to your relationship-building efforts with your audience.
Overall, though, your messaging structure should guide your executions.
4) SOLIDIFIED AND WRITTEN MARKET POSITION.
When you know your place in the market (and your industry), it’s easier for you to communicate why your potential customers should buy from you.
How do you find out your BRAND POSITION? You do so by conducting a competitor analysis.
You can start by:
Researching your competitors. Look at their website, graphics, social channels, ads, and start to piece together where you’re strong vs where they’re weak, and vice versa.
Polling your current customers and clients and ask them these questions as to why they chose your company, left a competitor, their experience with you, etc.
Look at their website, graphics, videos, and images that they’re using in their marketing executions.
Looking at their ads on Facebook (through Facebook Ads Library) and LinkedIn.
Answering these questions will help you find your market position. This can give you a window in which you can start to formulate some of your content strategy as well.
For an in-depth look at how you can gain the competitive advantage over your competition, keep an eye out for our soon-to-be released guide to auditing your competition.
5) IMPACTFUL VISUAL IDENTITY
When we talk about your “visual identity”, we’re referring to items like your:
logo
website
typography
shapes and colors
images
graphics
Believe it or not, all of the items you identify in your brand strategy have a direct impact on your visual identity.
Once you’ve defined, through your brand strategy, what you want to communicate and how you want your audience to feel about your brand, the real work begins.
YOUR BRAND STRATEGY IMPACTS:
- COLOR SELECTION The colors you choose can create a brand perception because the colors you use influence the psychology of your audience.
- SHAPE SELECTION Yes, even the shapes you use in your visual identity can have an effect on your audience.
For instance, when we crafted the visual identity for Springfield Chiropractic, we purposely shaved off the ends of the square because POINTS on the end of a square can convey pain. By smoothing the edges, calmness is now communicated.
- IMAGE SELECTION Did you know that, by sharing photos of smiling people, your brand elicits a positive emotional response? (Salminen/Jung/Santos – 2019)
The photos you use can shape your brand’s perception. Smiling people, groups of product, objects used in the photos, etc., can all add to the emotional response to your brand.
- FONT SELECTION:
Yes, even the FONTS you use and how you use them can shape your brand’s perception.
Serif vs Sans Serif
Letter spacing
Script
Decorative
Stroke vs no-stroke
All of these aspects (and more) matter when creating your visual identity.
Choose your fonts wisely!
When you combine all five of these elements, you will have a strong plan as to where you want to take your brand in the minds of your consumers and employees.
HOW DO YOU USE YOUR BRAND STRATEGY?
Phew! That was a ton of information! But, how do you put it all to good use?
The first thing you’ll want to do is put together brand guidelines so that your marketing department knows how to use your brand. This ends up being a guide that you will filter ALL of your marketing execution ideas through. Your brand guide contains all of the information you discovered during your brand strategy and puts it together in one book.
This guide is one that will need to be referenced any time you do anything related to marketing campaigns and overhauls.
Next, when you think of any kind of marketing execution (website refresh, redesign, rebrand, campaign, etc.), utilize your brand guide as sort of a FILTER… ask yourself:
Does our campaign line up with the purpose, mission, vision, and values that we have outlined?
Who in our customer persona are we trying to target?
Is what we’re wanting to promote a strength or weakness of ours? Even more, is it a strength of our competitor?
When writing the copy, which personality are we wanting to convey? Is our personality/voice/tone reflected in the copy?
When choosing an image, does it line up with the type of images that we outlined we will be using?
Does the main message of the campaign line up with one of the identified topics or subtopics?
Are we utilizing our logo, wordmark, or logo mark (combined icon and wordmark) within the guidelines we’ve outlined?
If the answer is no to any of these questions, you MUST make changes that line up with your brand guide or completely scrap the campaign. Otherwise, you’re not staying aligned with your brand strategy, and you could be causing confusion in the marketplace.
CONCLUSION
As you can see, creating a brand strategy is a very in-depth process that requires a lot of thinking, writing, rewriting, more thinking, frustration, and could lead to drinking… but it is a POWERFUL tool that will make your marketing campaigns more focused and a lot more potent.
It’s more than worth your time to take your business through a brand strategy process!
If you find yourself short on time or resources, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We can take your business through the brand strategy process.
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