Developing a brand strategy is crucial to your business’s continuous growth and success, regardless of whether you’re a young start-up on the tech scene or a well-established international firm. But if you don’t have a sound strategy behind it, a brand is nothing.
A brand strategy is a roadmap for a company’s brand. It outlines what the brand will be, how it will develop, and where it will go in the future. A brand strategy can be a long-term plan or a short-term one. It depends on the company’s goals and culture.
Developing a brand strategy can seem like an overwhelming task. Where do you start? There are steps that can give you a solid foundation on which to build.
Why does your business need to develop a brand strategy?
Your business needs to develop a brand strategy because it can help you reach new customers and get them to buy from you over others.
A good brand strategy will help you develop your product lines into something that people want to buy from you, not just because they have heard of your company but also because they know exactly what they’re getting when they decide to buy from you.
A good brand strategy will also give you the ability to stand out among other companies in the same industry as well as those in other industries. You can use this to get more customers interested in doing business with you and increase sales overall for your company.
The essential components for developing a brand strategy are:
- A clear understanding of the target market and it’s needs
- A well-defined positioning statement that defines the brand’s unique selling proposition (USP)
- A distinct brand identity for the product or service
- The ability to communicate and connect with consumers through all channel
- A strong distribution platform that provides access for all customers, including small and large businesses
- A functioning website that provides information about the company, products, services, and more
To develop a brand strategy, it’s important to understand whom you’re selling to and how they think about brands.
Perform a brand audit.
A brand audit is a comprehensive analysis of your business’s brand. It helps you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your brand, as well as how it compares to others in its industry.
A good first step is to perform a quick benchmarking exercise to see where your company stands relative to competitors.
You can do this by perusing online review sites such as Yelp, Google Reviews o,r Trip Advisor; visiting social media pages and forums dedicated specifically towards helping businesses, or simply asking customers what they think about the products or services offered by a particular organization today! Using social listening, your company can find out what people on social media say about your brand. And with 49.5% of the world’s population on social media, there’s a lot of data to sift through. So you won’t miss any relevant conversations about your brand.
Identify your target audience.
Identifying your target audience is the first step in developing a brand strategy. Before you can create an effective strategy, you need to know who your potential customers are and what they want out of life.
Before beginning to develop a brand strategy, it’s important that you understand how people think, feel and behave. This will help you create effective messaging for each stage of the buying process—from identifying their needs at the beginning of their journey through purchase decisions at each stage along with post-purchase feedback on experience level satisfaction levels after purchase completion (or not).
Analyze the competition.
To develop a brand strategy, it’s important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. You can do this by looking at how they’re positioned in the market, who their key customers are, and what they offer that makes them stand out from others in the same category.
It’s also important to understand where you fit within this landscape – what unique value proposition do you offer? How can we differentiate ourselves from other brands in our space?
The more information you have about how other brands are performing relative to each other (and more importantly, why), the better equipped you’ll be when it comes time for finalizing your own plan for 2013-2014 marketing efforts as well as long-term growth strategies for future years ahead into 2020+.
Formulate a brand positioning statement.
A brand positioning statement is a sentence or two that describes your company’s overall mission and how it aligns with the target audience.
It should also have a description of who you are as a business, what sets you apart from other companies in your industry, and why people will want to do business with you.
Here are some examples of effective positioning statements:
- We’re all about doing good work for clients—that’s why we offer consultations for free on every project!
- We pride ourselves on delivering exceptional customer service every time—and we’ll let you know when something goes wrong so we can fix it right away!
Develop visual identity guidelines.
- Visual identity guidelines should be consistent with your brand strategy.
- Your visual identity guidelines should be clear and easy to understand.
- Your visual identity guidelines should be consistent across all touchpoints, including the website, social media, print media, and packaging.
- Your visual identity guidelines can evolve as the brand grows if it’s flexible enough to do so without losing its original intent or meaning over time.
Your visual identity guidelines should be easy to implement and adapt when needed. Your visual identity guidelines should be consistent across all touchpoints, including the website, social media, print media, and packaging.
Create branding guidelines for your employees.
Your brand guidelines should be clear and easy to understand. They should include the following:
- Rules for using your logo, colors, fonts, and other visual elements
- How employees are supposed to behave online (e.g., don’t use profanity)
- Precise guidelines on how to deal with customer complaints or other situations that might affect the reputation of your company
Developing a brand strategy that is effective and helps build your business is not difficult.
You can start by identifying what makes you unique, then use this information to create a unique brand identity for your company.
The following are some tips that will help you develop a brand strategy:
- Identity what makes you different from other companies in your industry: If there’s no way for people to differentiate between you and the rest of the competition, then it’s time for them to start looking elsewhere!
Make sure that whatever differentiation factor(s) exists within each industry segment(s) are represented by both branding elements (logo/tagline/site/social media presence).
For Example: Consider two food chains Mcdonalds’ and KFC. Both chains sell almost the same food products, but their brand strategies are different. So we need to spotlight what makes our business different. How it can give the best even in the race of businesses. - Use these factors together with other branding elements such as packaging designs or advertisements so they reinforce one another while reinforcing their own message through repetition across multiple channels such as television commercials during prime-time slots where viewers are most likely watching television shows based on their interests rather than those who watch only sports programs because those don’t fit into anyone else’s schedule either way.
Conclusion
Developing a brand strategy is an integral part of any successful business. It helps build strong customer loyalty, gives your brand a unique presence, and creates a memorable experience for customers. By understanding the fundamentals of developing a brand strategy that stands out, you can ensure that your own brand has the best possible chance of success.
That’s where Wilson Wings comes into the picture and offers its services on developing a brand strategy that can bring value to your business. Internationally trusted agency to make your brand and company known by everyone, Wilson Wings adds a personal touch to every website they create to make you rise higher in the market.
