A branding strategy is like the blueprint to a building, the tactics on a battlefield—it shapes the way you build, move, and share your brand. Whether you’re a small startup or a legacy brand that’s been around the block a few times, a strong brand strategy is the best way to ensure the growth and health of your business. Unfortunately, many brands have an incomplete or ineffective strategy—if they have one at all.
What makes this such a glaring problem? Without a documented brand strategy (and by extension, a cohesive vision), companies end up with a misaligned mess of people, processes, and directions that plagues marketing departments with:
- Siloed communication
- Ineffective marketing
- Messaging inconsistency
- Execution challenges
- Inefficient use of resources
If any of these issues sound familiar, keep reading to learn how to succeed with a brand strategy.
7 Ways to Succeed with a Brand Strategy
In order to build a healthy company with a strong creative culture that makes your customers loyal to your product, service, and brand, you need a well-articulated brand strategy. Here’s a list of seven ways a brand strategy can help you navigate the most common pitfalls to building a brand in order to benefit both your business and the people around you (customers and employees alike).
1. Define Your Purpose
Why you exist as a business is fundamental to everything you do. People don’t just care about products and features, they care about investing in a brand that reflects their values and has a clear purpose.
Brand Values > Product Features
In the wake of the 2020’ Pandemic and social unrest, Varity research found that:
- 55% of consumers said they pay more attention to brand values than they did pre-pandemic.
- 52% said they have bought from a brand for the first time because of its values.
- 82% said they would pick one brand over another—and pay more—because of their brand values.
A brand strategy helps you share your Brand Core (purpose, values, mission, vision) with the world and, more importantly, communicate it effectively. Not only is articulating your company's beliefs and purpose important for consumers, but it’s also key to finding the right people to bring on board—a powerful tool for attracting and retaining the people you want to reach at every level.
If you want to share find and share your purpose more effectively, see our guide to find your Brand Core.
2. Build Trust with Your Audience
A brand isn’t a tangible object, rather, it’s the space you or your company occupy in the minds of your customers. It is built up from a composite of many things—logo, colors, typography, messaging, purpose, emails, etc.—but above all it is people’s perception of you. How do customers feel about you?
To actively cultivate trust on a deep level, your brand must be transparent, honest, and authentic.
3. Differentiate Your Brand
Why should people choose your brand over others? What makes you different? If you don’t have a clear differentiation, they won’t. A brand strategy is key to helping you articulate this.
You must be able to answer these three questions succinctly :
- Who are you?
- What do you do?
- Why does it matter?
Don’t have these answers? Then your brand strategy will fail. If you want to differentiate your brand…
- Know who your competition is. Follow our guide to conduct a full competitive analysis.
- Create a strong visual identity. Download our brand identity toolkit and find out how to design an identity that tells your brand story.
- Look for gaps in your content. Do a competitive analysis to find out how they’re telling their brand story—and how you can tell yours better.
4. Improve Team Collaboration
A strong brand strategy acts as a guiding light for your entire team, ensuring that everyone is on the same page and working cohesively toward a shared objective. It answers fundamental questions: Who are you as a brand? What do you want to accomplish? And how do you plan to achieve these goals?
When your team is in sync with the brand strategy, it becomes much easier to delegate tasks, allocate resources efficiently, and communicate effectively, whether you're launching a new product or executing a marketing campaign. This alignment is not just about keeping your team focused; it's also about conserving valuable resources such as time, money, and energy in the pursuit of your brand's success.
5. Cultivate a Better Company Culture
A company's brand is not just about its external image; it deeply influences how potential employees perceive it. In fact, more than 75 percent of job seekers consider an employer's brand before applying for a job. This emphasizes that your brand's values and actions need to be aligned, and it's not just for the sake of marketing materials.
Building an appealing employer brand is akin to nurturing a relationship with consumers. To attract and retain the best talent, you must foster a culture where everyone shares and is motivated by the same values. In a healthy work environment, these values should impact various aspects, from performance evaluations to recognition of exceptional work. When your workforce understands what they are striving for and why, it becomes easier to create a happier and more productive work atmosphere. Research by McKinsey also reveals that 70% of employees link their sense of purpose to their work, highlighting the significance of meaningful work in retaining talent.
6. Foster Innovation and Creativity
Innovation is imperative for a company's longevity, even though it can be an intimidating endeavor. Effective leadership involves encouraging your team to explore new horizons and face challenges head-on. With a robust organizational culture and a clear vision, you can establish an environment conducive to innovation, one that aligns with your brand's objectives.
Furthermore, it's essential to understand that a well-defined brand strategy doesn't just enable innovation; it also sets boundaries, which are equally valuable for fostering creativity. A brand strategy isn't just about defining what your brand represents, but also what it refrains from. This can serve as invaluable guidelines for making decisions. For instance, Google's "don't be evil" policy exemplifies this approach. Such constraints can play a significant role in steering innovation in a direction that aligns with your brand's core principles.
7. Ensure the Right Growth
After building your brand, the natural inclination is to safeguard it. However, it's important to recognize that the ultimate aim should be brand growth, a deliberate and purposeful expansion. This entails taking all necessary actions to uphold your brand promise.
As Denise Lee Yohn highlights in her book "What Great Brands Do," your brand cannot be merely a promise; it must be a promise that is consistently fulfilled. Achieving this requires the collective effort of your organization. You need a focused approach, dedicated brand stewards, and clear intentions. A brand strategy acts as a guiding compass, ensuring that you successfully deliver on this promise. As Neumeier aptly puts it, "No decision should be made without asking, 'Will it help or hurt the brand?'" A well-structured strategy is your best defense against brand stagnation.
- Build the right team. Find out how the right team can help you succeed.
- Understand what works and what doesn’t. Find out how to measure the success of your marketing campaigns.
- Put strategy first. Once you have your brand strategy established, work on creating a content strategy that will set you up for success.
How Do You Create a Brand Strategy?
Building a strong brand strategy is a challenging but exciting process. If you need to build one from scratch or make sure yours is fully fleshed out, follow our step-by-step guide to create a brand strategy, and download our free brand strategy toolkit.
But if you don’t have time or are already overwhelmed, hit us up and we can help you out.
