How to Come Up With a
Rock-Solid Brand Strategy for Your Business
Modern businesses have to battle for audiences’
attention. A strong brand will make your business stand out from the
competition and help create a long-lasting, positive association with target
audiences. Without a solid
branding strategy, your business is in
danger of being lost in the crowd and failing to impress worthwhile audiences.
Although investing in building and growing your
brand may not seem to give immediate returns, the exercise has long-term
benefits that impact visibility and conversion positively.
A solid branding strategy is a result of
conscientious effort and thorough research and we have distilled the complex
mechanism into comprehensible steps below:
Outline your brand’s objectives
Your brand’s objectives need to align with your
business goals. If you are starting a new venture, your vision needs to be
clear and realistic. Your brand message, proposition, and tone will resonate
with your business activities. If your business is diversifying into new
markets or you are expanding your suite of products or services, you might need
to adjust your existing brand to reflect the new changes. Brand building from
scratch can be a costly affair but is absolutely vital to survival and customer
loyalty.
Identify and research your target markets
How well do you know your ideal clients? Who do
you expect to attract using your brand? If your answer is “anybody and
everybody,” you might be shooting in the dark. The better you define your
target audiences, the more laser-focused your marketing strategy will be, and
better will be its returns. Understand your audiences’ perceptions and
challenges and build those into your brand values.
Define your brand positioning
Brand positioning refers to your USP (unique
selling points) - how your brand is different from competitors and why should
your target clients choose to engage with you. Capture your essence in a few
lines and make this your business vision. The vision should be grounded in
reality as you will be expected to deliver on your promises. It should also be
aspirational to indicate you are progressive.
Develop brand collaterals
To build your brand, you need many weapons in
your arsenal. First and foremost, develop a logo, tagline, and message that
reflect your brand positioning perfectly. “Just Do It” is synonymous with Nike and “Taste the Rainbow” sums up the essence of Skittles. Brand colors and message tone should remain consistent on all
platforms and formats- advertisements, print material, website, social media
posts, and mailers.
Different target audiences may be interested in
different aspects of your brand but your brand messaging should remain
consistent so that the connection between audiences and your brand gets
strengthened after every interaction.
Your website is your brand’s showcase. Most
audiences and prospective clients will judge you and your brand on the basis of
your website. Often, websites are the first place potential clients, and
partners will go to gather information about your portfolio, history, services,
and contact information. Ensure your website is contemporary, responsive, and
updated with latest information. Furthermore, optimize it for target keywords
so that it is found by search engines easily.
Your marketing and branding toolkit will be
incomplete without efficient content marketing tools. Organize valuable content
offerings, e-brochures, pitching presentations, video testimonials in archives
using a CMS (content management system).
Many website development platforms have an
in-built CMS that schedules and publishes content pieces according to pre-set
content calendars. This can keep your branding efforts consistent and maintain
a regular flow of content to delight interested audiences and push them along
the sales funnel.
Implement, analyze, and align
A good branding strategy is as good as its
implementation. Often, businesses invest a lot of energy in creating a
strategy, keep to the plan enthusiastically for a few weeks, then lose steam
when they don’t see tangible benefits or when business starts pouring in… and
the branding exercise is all but forgotten.
To keep at the forefront of audiences’ minds,
you need to always be focused on brand building. So, use analytics tools
to track how well the brand building objectives were met. Be prepared to
re-align objectives or strategies, if required.
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