Determining your brand strategy is critical for your business. Before any social media, logo development, email campaign, content marketing, or anything else, you must determine the direction your company's brand will take.
You're probably thinking, "But we already have a logo! We're already doing social media! We've sent out email blasts and just launched our new website!"
You might not even know what some of the above terms mean - but don't worry! Although branding strategy is an extremely important thing for a business to do, just because you've already started doesn't mean you can't develop your branding strategy (along with your fellow employees) right now.
Let's talk Branding Strategy 101, and the steps you can take to develop a unique, powerful, creative, and engaging brand that your target market will associate strongly with your business.
What is brand strategy?
Simply, brand strategy is the who, what, where, why, how of your company. It's built around the goals of your company, and it identifies the things that you stand for. Sure, your logo, company name, slogans, colors are a part of your brand strategy - but they're not the whole package.
For instance, think of an iconic brand like McDonald's. You probably think of red and yellow, golden arches, Ronald McDonald, or the phrase "I'm lovin' it!" If you think hard enough, you might think of the "two all beef patties" campaign, or the Halloween buckets they used to distribute.
But there are other things that characterize McDonald's, too. It's the quality of the food (love it or hate it). It's the consistency of the food - what you get in Santa Monica is the same as what you'll get in Washington D.C. It's the customer service. It's the time it takes to get your food after you order. It's the dollar menu, the product names - McMuffin, McRib, McNuggets, McFlurry, Big Mac.
You know what to expect from McDonald's, because their brand strategy is their promise to you, the customer. What is your promise to your customer?
Defining your brand
The first thing you must do in your brand strategy is to define your brand or to "develop a brand profile." In other words, if you went to everyone in your company and asked, "What is our brand," would you get the same answer from everyone? If not, get your employees together and begin asking the tough questions.
- Who are we? What is our mission or goal?
- What's different about our products and services?
- Who is our ideal customer?
- How do our customers feel about us?
- How about people who don't want to work with us?
- How about the competition?
- What do we want people to feel when they think about us?
- Why do our customers choose to work and to stay with us?
Once you know the answers to these questions - and others like them, depending on your business - you're ready. If you don't have the answers, get them!
Please know that this process can be very uncomfortable, especially for owners or managers, but it's also very necessary. If there are things that you think customers associate with your brand, but you'd rather they didn't - for instance, slow service, poor product quality, or even your employees' attitudes - this is when you can begin developing a plan to change those things. If your brand is a promise to your customer, you need to determine what you want to promise them.
Establishing your identity
Now that you've identified your brand, and you know what you want your brand to be, it's time to authenticate your identity.
The trick here is to verbalize and to demonstrate what it is about your business that makes you unique, relevant, and able to exceed the expectations, needs, and desires of your ideal customer.
What's so exciting about this step is that you can reinvent your brand and turn it into anything you want to - or you can capitalize on the amazing things you've already been doing that your customers already love. It also gives you a chance to decide, since you know who you are and what you want your personality to reflect.
When you establish your identity, you're going to want to determine a very important keystone of your branding strategy - your unique selling proposition, or USP. A unique selling proposition is a short declaration about what differentiates you from your competitors and demonstrates why customers should choose you.
Some famous USP's include the following - how many can you associate with a particular brand?
- Better ingredients. Better pizza.
- Melts in your mouth, not in your hand.
- Save Money. Live Better.
- 15 minutes could save you 15 percent or more on car insurance.
- Like a good neighbor, ________ ________ is there.
In order, these USP's belong to Papa John's, M&Ms, Walmart, Geico, and State Farm. Now, it should be noted that these also serve as slogans. When you develop your USP, think more in terms of the value your business offers that your competitors don't. For instance, consider the following.
- Do your products cost less, but they're of a higher quality?
- Does your service offer an unbeatable guarantee?
- Are customers telling you your service is far better than the competition?
- Are your offerings unique or handmade that can't be found anywhere else?
When your identity is established, the last and final step will be the most rewarding for you because you'll be able to execute with confidence.
Hit the ground running
Everyone in your company now knows how you're defined, what your identity is, and you've got a unique selling proposition to back it up. Now you get to execute. Before you take your brand to the world, develop the emotional, visual, and practical stuff people will strongly associate with your company.
- Come up with a color palette and a logo.
How do you want your brand to look? Big, bold, glossy? Muted and subdued? Professional? Innovative? Now you get to decide! We recommend that you use a professional to help you determine how your brand should look, just in case you feel in a couple years that your logo is dated or unsophisticated. - Determine your voice.
How will your employees sound on the phone? How about in emails? What will your web copy sound like? Your brand needs to have a voice that reflects your whole company, whether it's quirky and informal (Red Bull) professional (The Law offices of XYZ), or somewhere in the middle. This voice must carry across all your communications. - Develop a slogan or a tagline.
Again, this probably won't be your USP, but try to make it reflect what your USP is in brief. For instance, "Every kiss begins with Kay" is Kay Jewelers' slogan, but it isn't a USP. However, this slogan does hint a critical part of Kay's brand - creating that magical moment when you share a precious gift with a loved one. - Create materials.
Your website, uniforms, brochures, email signatures, and more are all a reflection on your brand. Have a designer come up with a way to unify all of these materials under the umbrella of your brand, the entire look and feel of what you do. Make sure that you're consistent in the way your brand looks across multiple media. Remember, you don't want to confuse people - you want them to identify.
There you have it - a brand strategy that you, your employees, and your customers will identify as uniquely you.
For more about branding, check out our pages developing branding strategies, logos, and printed materials. If you're looking for marketing companies near you, give us call. Our marketing agency in Lancaster helps small business owners with online and offline marketing.
