Why brand strategy is crucial to your business growth.
As we mark one year of COVID-19, congratulations if your business has survived this far. It’s been a wild ride. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel, even if it’s still a considerable distance away. Like most business owners, you’re likely spending a considerable amount of time thinking about how you will continue to survive but also how to achieve business growth coming out of the back side of all of this. Our prompting question to that goal is what is the strength of your brand strategy? The answer is crucial to your business growth.
WHAT IS A BRAND STRATEGY, EXACTLY?
It’s one of those terms that you hear people throw around and often no one really spends much time defining what it is exactly. Without clearly defining, many people equate brand strategy to a logo, website or even a business name. It’s not. Sure, a brand strategy should guide the creation of your logo, website and maybe even your business name but it’s more than that. At Holbrook we see your brand strategy as a foundational element to a successful business and it encompasses all aspects of your business. So, what is it? It’s a way to articulate how you will guide your business in alignment with your values and defined target customers at every touchpoint of your business. A brand strategy clearly articulates your company’s purpose, vision, values, and brand character, your target audience, the promise you make to them, the market category, customer pains, brand positioning and story. Does it feel like we just threw a bunch more jargon at you? Let’s break it down.
PURPOSE
In short, your brand purpose is your why. Why in the hell are you doing what you do? Why do you exist? So much of branding is about emotional resonance, afterall it’s a well-established understanding that people make decisions primarily based on emotions but find data to justify their decision on the back end. So, you clearly articulating your why in an emotionally compelling way is critical to creating resonance and that’s what differentiates you from your peers.
VISION
Your vision is exactly what it sounds like -- what you aim to achieve through your business. What is your end goal? That is what is articulated in the vision.
VALUES
Now more than ever consumers care about what you stand for. Much like you as an individual, your company has values (whether you clearly articulate them or not). We’re proponents of getting very clear on what they are, intentionally articulating and living them. Values are more than words on your website but guide you in how you take action. Customers can easily tell the difference between companies who live their values and those who don’t. Consistency is the key and the experience of them, rather than reading them as some sort of manifesto, is the critical piece to it all. We’re big advocates of “show don’t tell” for much of branding and especially when it comes to your values.
BRAND CHARACTER
A brand character is an archetype that helps internal teams to be clear on how to show up in the world as a representation of the brand. You can pull together the purpose, vision, values, promise and so on of your brand but even with all that information it can be difficult to visualize what it actually looks and feels like to show up “on-brand.” The brand character helps to bring your brand to life for you and your employees. We like to think of it as the character in a story -- providing the audience (you and your team) an understanding of the human attributes and characteristics that give it its unique personality.
BRAND PROMISE
Much like a promise made on a personal level, your brand promise is about setting expectations with customers. Most branding people would say that a brand promise is defined as “what you do for whom.” It lets your customers know what value or expectation they can expect in every interaction with your company. The most effective brand promises become an ethos that permeates all facets of your company such that no matter how or in what context someone is interacting with your brand, they experience it consistently. A strong brand promise is simple, credible, different, memorable, and inspiring.
MARKET CATEGORY
A market category and a target audience (defined below) are related but distinct. We like to think of market category as a high-level definition of the market within which your business operates. Do you sell apparel, provide healthcare services, create health and beauty products? These are categories. Within your market category, where are customers searching for your products/services, and who currently has their attention, i.e. your peers in the space. Perhaps your business has created a new market category and as such you don’t currently have peers. Regardless, clearly defining your market category allows for clarity on who your peers are and provides guidance in further refinement of your target audience.
TARGET AUDIENCE
In short, who do you attract or want to attract to purchase your product and/or service. Clearly articulating your ideal customers is important to brand strategy as the purpose of your brand strategy is to help grow your business. If you’re not clear on who your customers are, what fears they have, what motivates them, how they talk, and how they make purchasing decisions you’re undoubtedly wasting valuable resources.
CUSTOMER PAINS
Any product or service that a business puts out into the world is intended to solve a problem for the customer. What are the “pains” or challenges your customer experiences that your product or service helps to solve? Becoming clear on what this is for your target audience will help position your brand effectively with your ideal customers.
BRAND POSITIONING
A brand positioning statement is a way to take all of the above and concisely articulate your brand in the mind of your customers. Your business is going to have a reputation whether you want it to or not. The key is to be intentional about cultivating that reputation in the way you’d like to be perceived. Brand positioning is what helps you to do just that. Your positioning helps you to differentiate your business from that of your peers and this differentiation will create brand awareness, communicate your value, and justify your pricing.
BRAND STORY
What is the story of your brand? Beyond a tagline, the copy on your website, and collateral materials, the story of your brand is as much about what you’ve put out into the world as what your customers and the world are saying about your brand. Humans are wired for storytelling -- storytelling is how cultures and traditions are passed on, how we become invested in a person or a cause. Your brand story articulates what transpired to create your business in the first place and how it’s still alive today to help you pursue your vision. If you think about your favorite books or movies, those stories help you to remember the characters, to feel empathy for them, and inevitably care about them. This is the aim in creating an authentic brand story -- to create “stickiness” with your customers and the world at large.
While a brand does include a logo, color palettes, and the design of a website, foundational to all of that is the strategy. In order to grow a business, customers not only need to have awareness of the brand but be invested in it -- through quality products and services and compelling positioning that is consistently and coherently present.
Most people we’ve talked to have spent the last year surviving in one way or another but the other common thread we hear is one of deep reflection. Brand strategy work is dependent on deep reflection and a clear articulation of it. We believe the way to emerge from this time is with an intentional vision for moving forward -- to get clear on who you are, why you do what you do, and who you’re doing it for with a plan to tell your powerful story to the world. Now, with the above outlined, what would you say is the strength of your brand strategy? We’re here to help you emerge from this strange and difficult time with a clearly articulated vision positioning you for growth.
