There are many different reasons to invest in brand strategy. The first, of course, is to build a successful business by selling your products or services in a potentially crowded marketplace. The second, however, is for business longevity. If your business is built on a weak foundation, you only have so long before it eventually collapses.
Whether you’re a startup, an evolving mid-size business, or an enterprise with 100 years of history behind you, creating a brand strategy will set you up for long-term success and help you when marketing your brand.
What Goes Into Creating a Brand Strategy?
To build a cohesive and clear brand strategy that resonates with your audience, there are three key components you need to focus on: Brand Core, Brand Positioning and Brand Messaging.
Think of these 3 pieces of brand strategy as the three legs of a triangle. They’re all equally important to your brand and your business. Without one of them, you wouldn’t actually have a triangle at all, but a new weird shape that’s not structurally sound. Each of these components plays an important part in your brand strategy and lays the foundation for your audience to connect with your brand.
Brand Core: Your Brand Core is the heart of your brand. This is where you communicate your WHY to your audience. What is the purpose and passion beyond your business? What’s the larger vision for your business and the world? It’s important that your audience knows the larger mission behind your business. To do that we’re going to break your brand core into two pieces: your mission statement and your brand values.
Brand Positioning: Your Brand Positioning helps define your position in the market. This is where you share what your brand does, who you target and the benefits of your brand. Together these things create your brand positioning statement. Other people should be able to read your brand positioning statement and understand how your brand is different from your competitors. Along with your brand position statement, you’ll need to create your value proposition and figure out your audience segmentation.
Brand Messaging: The third leg of our brand strategy triangle is figuring out your brand messaging. Here you’re crafting your elevator pitch, deciding on the personality and tone of your business and creating your brand story. This part of the triangle helps you not only talk about your business and share what you do in a clear and concise way, but it also helps you create consistency across all channels and eliminate mixed messages.
How Can A Brand Strategy Make Marketing Your Brand Easier?
Building a brand is not unlike creating a person–you’re more successful when you can be authentic, empathetic, honest, and uniquely you. Knowing what your brand stands for will help to prevent mixed messages.
With a clear brand strategy you’ll be able to simplify your marketing, create cohesive content and clearly communicate with your target audience. Basically it makes everything about your marketing easier because you have a clear plan of action.
Can I DIY My Brand Strategy?
You can now! After working with over x number of clients, I’ve turned my brand strategy process into an online course: Branding From The Heart: How to Build an Authentic Brand That Connects With Your Audience.
Together we’ll walk through exactly how to craft your brand strategy from scratch. I break down each element, with writing prompts and examples to help you uncover your own brand strategy.
By the end of the course, you will not only have a complete understanding of all the different components that go into creating a strong brand strategy, but you will also walk away with all of the information and messaging you need to go out into the world and attract more clients, generate more leads, and close more sales. Click here to learn more and join me in Branding From The Heart.
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