Having a brand strategy is an important step in ensuring that your business is well equipped to communicate to its intended audience. Let's look at 6 aspects that make a brand strategy great:
1. Differentiation
Standing out from competitors is a vital part of a good brand strategy, especially when there are so many businesses out there today selling the same products. Giving your brand its own personality and feel, will allow customers to perceive is as its own unique entity rather than just another business offering a product or service. This can be done by having a strategy that is crafted from thorough market research and competitor analysis, ensuring your brand has an edge in the market. Choosing the market that your brand exists in is also an important part of a good brand strategy, we want the brand to exist in a market that allows for growth but at the same time is niche enough that it targets the correct consumers.
Think about the positioning and messaging of your brand as well as your brand identity. If it looks or sounds too similar to another brand in the market, then changing parts of your brand strategy or brand identity may be necessary.
2. Relevance
Knowing the target audience well is important to crafting a great brand strategy, after all your business exists to target a certain group of people to buy your products or services. The entire brand strategy is created with them in mind. You should know what they like and dislike, what is important to them and pain points they face when it comes to your industry. Assessing their behaviour and life in detail is a great way of highlighting things that you can work into your brand strategy. For example, if you have a coffee business and you are targeting 9-5 office workers, knowing their routine and when they are most likely to drink coffee can help you to position your brand and messaging to sell to them.
If your brand has been around for a while, going straight to the source is a great way of assessing if your brand strategy and what you've been doing is effective. You can do this by talking to your customers or putting out a survey to gather their opinion.
3. Passion
Any business can simply sell a product or service, but being able to communicate why you are passionate about it and how it is special to you is an aspect that connects to the emotional side of humans. Consumers in the past simply focused on pricing and its relative quality and value, however in the business landscape today, many consumers look past pricing. They want to know how a business operates, where their products come from and the people behind the business. They look to see if the brand aligns with their own values. A business that genuinely cares for its customers and takes time to understand their needs will make the customer feel valued and want to return, as opposed to a business that is solely focused on making money.
Crafting your personal story in an appealing yet genuine way, will allow you to connect with customers on a level that transcends a simple transaction.
4. Clarity
A brand strategy consists of many different parts, and it will only work if all the parts are cohesive and are true. There is no point creating a brand strategy that sounds amazing but a business doesn't even do anything that reflects it. Customers will only be confused and turned away by this lack of transparency. Businesses should genuinely dig deep into the heart of their brand and translate this into the brand strategy.
Top leaders in the business / company, all the way down to interns should be familiar and clear on what the brand stands for. This is then translated into every output of the brand, whether it's on marketing collateral, the company website, the way sales people interact with customers and even the way employers communicate with their employees.
5. Knowledge and Value
One of the most important parts of any business is what it can offer to customers; whether it's particular benefits, unique design or what a service can do for a business. A brand with a strong value proposition will help customers know why they should choose it over competitors. Any business should have knowledge of what they are selling and offering, and presenting this knowledge clearly, gives potential customers the confidence to choose your brand over others.
With a great brand strategy, a brand should know what they offer to customers and how to sell it to them effectively.
6. Experience
Crafting a great brand strategy includes creating an amazing customer experience. Following on from the point mentioned earlier about passion; customers today want something that goes beyond a simple transaction. Taking time to map out your customer's experience and placing moments of magic that reflect your brand's personality and heart goes a long way in creating a lasting impression. These small things can change or vary over time, but the principle and value behind it should stay true to what is outlined in your strategy. Experience doesn't just encompass tangible or physical items but also small interactions at every level of your brand such as responding to comments on social media or responding to feedback from your customers.
Summary
The 6 aspects that create a great brand strategy are:
Differentiation
Relevance
Passion
Clarity
Knowledge & Value
Experience
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