Brand Strategy is a long-term plan that prioritizes the creation of a powerful brand. Businesses leverage this plan to project a specific brand image to both existing and potential clients/customers. When a business has successfully implemented a brand strategy, customers will identify with the brand and what it stands for without being informed of the company's identity. With a clear brand strategy for your brand, you can helps customers recognize your brand, understand why it appeals to certain customers, and keep your messaging and marketing efforts relevant to a targeted audience.
The ultimate goal of a brand strategy is to stand out from the competition in the eyes of the customer.
Purpose: Understanding the brand's goal or purpose is the first step in developing an effective brand strategy. The value that the business aims to deliver to customers should be the main focus. Customers often develop a stronger bond with a brand that has goals beyond just making a profit.
Consistency: The key to being consistent with your brand is to avoid talking about things that don't pertain to or promote your brand. You must make sure your messaging is consistent if you want to provide your brand with a solid foundation. In the end, consistency helps build brand recognition, which encourages client loyalty.
Emotion: Relationship-building is innately desired by humans. A brand can be emotionally appealing to its target audience by establishing a closer connection with them. When done right, the brand should successfully be able to foster relatability amongst its target audience.
Competitive Awareness: Utilize the competition as a challenge to enhance your brand’s approach and add more value to your brand as a whole. Keeping a track of what your competitors are doing helps you get an insight into the market trends and what works for your brand and what doesn’t. In turn, these insights help your brand to customize your brand positioning accordingly.
Discovery: Market analysis is crucial for a successful brand strategy. You must comprehend your brand identity and unbiasedly consider all elements that affect how your brand presents itself to the public before developing a new brand identity. This entails assessing your target market, sector, vision, mission, values, brand identity, and brand perception.
Identity: Once you have a clear understanding of how your brand is regarded and where it stands in the market, start defining your brand’s new brand identity. To refresh your memory, your brand's vision—the reason why it exists—mission—what it does, and values—the principles that underpin what it does—often establish your fundamental brand identity. If you're launching a brand-new business, you have the chance to define each of these from scratch. If your business is already established, you assess your fundamental brand identity during the discovery phase (Phase 1). Now is your chance to change that identity so that it more closely aligns with your present and future vision, mission, and values.
Execution: Once you've finished the discovery process and created your core brand identity, you must determine the best strategy to advertise your brand and identity (digital marketing and traditional marketing). The goal of brand strategy is to position your company as the authority in consumers' thoughts. Developing a competitive advantage and maximizing the use of your limited resources are the main goals of marketing strategy.