Brand Strategy 101: How to Create an Effective Brand Strategy [GUIDE] (2023)

Successful companies take their brand seriously.

Bad design, a weakbrand identity, ineffective marketing, inconsistent messaging and poor partnerships can all hurt a brand.

So before thinking about the shade of blue for your logo or the font for your website, look at the big picture andDevelop a plan to help you build a successful brand.

Brand strategy can help you with that.

Brand strategy is your plan to help shape how your brand is perceived.

Without a clear long-term strategy, your brand will become disoriented and unfocused, and your business will go bankrupt.

How to create an effective branding strategy?

Building a strong brand requires companies to make itintentional and wise decisionsabout its visual identity andbrand story. We talked about these decisions as we debated thoseessential components of a strong brand strategy.

That's the good newsBrand strategy doesn't have to be expensive.

In fact, a comprehensive branding strategy can give you a huge competitive advantage and pay for itself many times over.

For example, investors and creditors will examine how yourBusiness planaddresses brand strategy to assess whether your business is likely to succeed.

Your potential partners will want to know that your branding strategy clearly defines how you will build a successful business.

Brand strategy is important.

So let's see how you can create an effective branding strategy for your business.

Developing an effective brand strategy consists of three phases: discovery, identity, and implementation.

Stage 1: Discovery

If you arestart a new businessand still don't have a visual identity, detection is easy. Your company is unknown to everyone and there is nothing to discover. You can proceed to phase 2 and create your brand identity.

But if you have an established business, make sure you don't skip this step. Market research is important.

Before defining your modified or new brand identity, you need to understand your existing brand identity and objectively consider all the factors that influence how your business presents itself to the public.

This includes assessing your customers, industry, vision, mission, values, brand identity, brand image and branding.

1. Start by evaluating your existing brand identity

Your core brand identity is usually defined by your company's vision (why your company exists), mission (what your company does), and values ​​(the beliefs that guide your company's actions).

You should have already documented your vision, mission and values, but don't worry if you don't.

Some companies have chosen to document them and post them on their office wall or on their website. Others are less formal but take the time to understand their vision, mission and values.

The important exercise for existing companies is to assess whether their original vision, mission, and values ​​are still relevant. Here are some helpful questions to ask:

• Are there elements that emerged in the company's culture and are reflected in this vision, mission and values?
• Are some of the existing elements poorly defined or no longer valid?
• What is most important to your company?
• Are your existing brand identity and marketing communicating your core identity correctly?

2. Conduct market research and competitive analysis

Once you understand your core brand identity, the next step involvesmarket researchand competitive analysis. Here are some useful questions to ask yourself when doing market research:

• How big is your market?
• Why your customers?
• Who are your competitors?
• How has your market changed since you founded your company?
• How has your business developed since you started your business?

If you are looking for help to better understand your market, watch the video below:

How to better understand your customers

A long-term branding strategy requires you to understand your customers and their wants and needs. Usto recommendYou ask your customers the following questions:

1. Who are you?Are your customers men, women, or both? Are they Boomers or Millennials? Where are you from?
2. What are you doing?Knowing what your customers do for a living and what they're interested in is a great way to target your marketing more precisely, especially if you delve into digital marketing.
3. Why are you buying?Do you know the reason why they are in your market? When you do that, it's easier to meet their needs with what you can offer.
4. When do you buy?Find out when your target market typically makes these types of purchases. That way, you can increase your chances of getting the attention they want to give you.
5. What is the means of purchase?Do you buy from a website? Do you prefer an inpatient unit?
6. What's your budget?Be sure to target customers whose budgets match your product or service.
7. What makes you feel good?Knowing what gives a customer that beautiful, comforting glow is key to ensuring they become regulars.
8. What do you expect?Understanding expectations is critical to meeting those expectations. Whether your customers expect fast delivery or 24/7 customer support, knowing what they want from you is half the battle.
9. How do they think about your company?Do your potential customers recognize your brand name and overall brand identity? It's nice to hear praise for your business - it indicates that you've built a strong brand image. Hearing where the pain points are is even better. You need to know where your business could use a little improvement to improve!
10. How do you feel about your competition?You know what they say Keep your friends close - keep your competition closer.

Here are six specific and crucial questions to ask your customers. We will discuss each below.

1. How likely are you to recommend our service/company?
2. How would you rate your recent experience with us?
3. If you could only change one thing about our products/services, what would it be?
4. What other option did you consider before choosing us?
5. What sets us apart from the competition?
6. Would you like to tell us anything else?

How likely are you to recommend our service/company?

This is also calledPromoter net score(NPS) Fraga.

If you want to dive deep into how customers feel about your business and your brand image, this is the question you need to ask.

The best way to gauge how happy a person is with your store is to find out if they would tell their mom/brother/best friend/barista to use it.

• Ask: "Based solely on your past shopping experience, would you be comfortable recommending us to a friend?"
• Ask, “Now think about your entire experience with us. Would you recommend us to your friends?"

How would you rate your recent experience with us?

Anegative customer serviceThe experience has tremendous reach, reaching more than twice as many people as praise for a positive service encounter.

Suggest this in the pass: when a customer makes a purchase, send them a quick email asking about their experience.

This will avoid confusion after potential public relations disasters and help you to:

• Find out how your customers feel about their experience with your company and/or product,
• Provide a solution or remedy to a dissatisfied or dissatisfied customer, and
• Give your customers a way to tell you everything they're thinking - so they don't have to turn to social media.

We do this after every interaction between crowdspring customers and our customer support team. We want to know if we've helped every customer and if they have any feedback for us. We also do this after every project on Crowdspring.

And we're very proud of our accomplishments in this area - even winning awards for our customer support. We have a customer satisfaction rate of between 97 and 99%.

If you could only change one thing about our products/services, what would it be?

Every product and service has room for improvement, features to explore, and refinements to add.

You probably have your roadmap of where you want your product to go, and that's great.

But it's a good idea to involve your customers in this process as well. They are an invaluable source of ideas, feedback, and feature requests, and they often see ways of using your product that you never thought of.

This doesn't mean you should implement every feature current and potential customers want.

This means you must ask, listen, and evaluate.

Some of the best features and products come from customer feedback. The challenge is to be receptive to customer improvement requests and deal with them in a meaningful way.

For example, Crowdspring offers core design and naming services in many areas. This includes logo design, web design, print design, product design, packaging design and company names.

When we started thirteen years ago, we only asked a few questions to help clients create a creative brief to look for design help. For example, in logo design projects, we initially asked some general questions.

But the responses didn't give the designers much guidance, and we received a lot of feedback on our questionnaire.

That feedback was valuable. We've changed our survey to be more specific and informative and this has improved everyone's experience.

It was a win-win-win situation.

No matter what service or method you use, make sure you're not just listening, but reacting.

Nobody likes the feeling of screaming into space, and your customers are no different. Turn your feedback process into a conversation so your customers know their opinion is valuable.

Customers will often suggest improvements if you ask, but if the switch seems one-sided, they might back off.

What other options did you consider before choosing us?

After completing market research and research, you may think you know your competitors.

But there's always a chance you missed one or passed one because their offer didn't seem comparable to yours.

If you ask your customers which companies and services they've reviewed, you can reveal those unknowns.

What sets us apart from the competition?

By asking this question, your customers can tell you what they think makes you special.

This is more than just a question about brand identity design and its visual design. This stems from the unique reasons why a customer might choose your company's products or services over your competitors'.

The response informs your unique selling proposition.

Your USP might not be physical or tangible like a product, but rather thematic or emotional.

The businessman describes it inyour view of USP:

Finding your USP takes a lot of research and creativity. A starting point is to look at how other companies use their unique selling propositions to their advantage. This requires careful analysis of other companies' advertisements and marketing messages. By analyzing what they say they are selling, not just the features of their products or services, you can learn a lot about how companies differentiate themselves from the competition.

For example, Charles Revson, founder of Revlon, always said he was selling hope, not makeup. Some airlines sell friendly service, while others offer punctual service. Neiman Marcus sells luxury while Wal-Mart sells bargains.

Your goal is not necessarily to be better than your competitors. You want to differentiate yourself from your competitors. Apple and Samsung compete in many market segments. Some people sayLitterit is better. Others say Samsung is better. But almost everyone agrees that they are different.

Ultimately, you want to decide if you want to focus on a strong brand but be identified by your products, or if you want to be brand-led.

Branded companies invest heavily in their brand and are often able to launch new products or enter new markets at different prices without much resistance. Nike and Shinola are two good examples of branded companies. For each of these companies, brand vision, not market pressures, drives decisions and growth.

Both branded and branded companies can be sustainable and successful. There is no wrong choice. But you have to decide what kind of business you want to start.

Would you like to tell us anything else?

It's always good to leave the floor open for unexpected responses or comments. You can't ask all the questions and you can't know in advance what's important to your customers.

Asking this question gives your customers a chance to mention anything they feel is important. It also gives you insight into what is important to them.

And you give your customer the final say by making it clear that you're not just interested in their own questions.

Opportunities to collect customer responses

There are many different ways to find answers to these questions.

Which one you choose will depend on your goals, who your customers are and how you can reach them, but here are some ideas to consider.

1. Customer feedback surveys. Surveys are tried and tested, but it can be difficult to conduct them in a way that doesn't annoy your customers. companies likeSurveyMonkeyorTypFormMake it easy to conduct surveys. Be sure to keep surveys as short and simple as possible, and don't forget to incorporate elements of your brand identity (color palette, logo, etc.) into these surveys. Also, remember this important fact: each question in a poll reduces the number of people responding to the poll.
2. Email and customer feedback forms.A form on your website or a feedback box on your store gives your customers a recognizable way to get feedback. These usually work best overtly ("How can we improve?") or more specifically with one or two short questions.
3. Direct contact.Forms and surveys may be easy to use, but they suck at capturing the context or broader circumstances your customers are in. One of the best ways to get useful feedback is to reach out and speak directly with customers. Bonus points if it's in person, but if that's impossible for you, even a phone call or video chat can be a great way to make that connection.
4. Usability Tests.Not sure if something is working the way you expected? Does the shopping cart on your website get in the way or help customers complete their orders? You can usequality control servicesto test these things and more (including testing elements of your brand identity).UserTesting.com is one of the best-known services that help companies manageease of useTesting on their websites, and many companies specialize in testing the usefulness of a software or website. Once you've identified the sticking points, you can adjust your web design to make the process easier.
5. social media.Asking people who follow your business on sites like Facebook or Twitter is a great way to get honest feedback quickly. Many social media sites also offer built-in polls. However, make sure your social media reflects a consistent brand identity. When your social presence differs from the brand identity you display on your website, you confuse most customers and your target market.
6. Customer service.If you have a customer service or relationship team, your company may already have a team perfectly positioned to ask these questions. Asking permission at the end of a service call or chat if the customer is willing to answer a few questions can be an effective way to get the input you want.

Whichever method you use, make sure you interact with your customers. As mentioned earlier, let your customers know you're talking to them, not just them.

Analyze your competitors

Understanding your market is not enough to develop a comprehensive brand strategy and strong brand identity. You must also make acompetitive analysisto understand where your company is positioned in your industry. Among other things, look at the brand identity that each competitor has created for their company.

how do you get started What are the relevant factors you should compare? And what conclusions can/should you draw from the data?

Start by defining which metrics are important

Before you start analyzing the data, you need to understand which metrics are important.

Are you interested in a sales comparison? Unique visitors? total visits? Traffic Rank?

Choose a set of metrics that are important to you and measure data against those metrics.

If you choose the wrong metrics, you can still do competitive analysis, but it won't be meaningful.

Don't worry if you're not sure you've defined all the relevant metrics. As you start looking at the data, you'll see other good comparisons.

Check out the latest trends

Current trends are important because they portray what is happening now.

This is especially important if your business is new - as you don't have historical data to compare.

Evaluate historical trends

Historical trends help you understand your growth rate and see if the same events impacted your competitors and your business equally.

For example, if two competitors are in the same industry, you might see complementary booms and busts.

When negative moves occur, you probably want to understand the causes of declines. Were the outages, caused by external events, specific to the company you're looking at or something else that should have affected everyone? Were the events one-off events (eg, a hurricane) or annual events (eg, December holidays)?

Track monthly and annual growth

You should also look at monthly and yearly growth. Rapid monthly growth makes sense, but it can be misleading when annual rates paint a different picture. This can be difficult to track when your competitors are private companies.

question your assumptions

It would be easy to stop here. But if you're looking for a meaningful comparison, you should question your assumptions.

For example, you can score visits instead of unique visitors - if you selected unique visitors as a metric.

Look for confirming/non-confirming dates

To properly understand how your business stacks up against competitors, you need to evaluate different types of data.

Your revenue model can provide a frame of reference.

For example, if your revenue model is based on advertising, you will generally care more about visits than unique visitors. If your revenue model is based on advertising in an email newsletter, you should compare the number of subscribers.

Why is confirming/unconfirming data relevant?

It is important because it can present a different perspective on growth and relative size. After all, there are many different metrics, and several metrics can be meaningful for your comparison.

Don't assume that one metric can tell the whole story.

you deeper

Don't settle for basic information.

See all available information to confirm or refute your conclusions.

Try using one or all of the following methods:

• SpyFu: This is a great way to discover keywords and adwords your competition might be using.
• google trends: Want to stay up to date with the latest trends? Want to know where customers go after they leave your website? Try Google Trends.
• Google Alerts: Set up alerts to know what customers are saying about your competition. Set one up for yourself and get easy access to gossip about your business.

Incomplete information may be helpful

Even incomplete information is better than no information - so take what you can find.

Cross references to your sources

Using multiple sources, especially when those different sources show similar trends, often increases confidence in your data. This is where social media can help because it shows how your competitors are interacting with their customers.

3. Develop personas for your target customers

Personas help you discover:

• WHOyour customers are
• EraYour goals and frustrations are,
• Wothey spend their time
• Sethey are the most active or available,
• Becausethey make certain decisions, and
• Asthey interact with your product line or buy your services.

If you want to learn more about personas, read on.how to grow your business through persona-based marketing.

4. Assess how people perceive your brand and brand identity

how we writeBrand Health, 6 Key Questions to Ask About Your Small Business Brand,

Brand health can be measured in many ways, including brand reputation, brand awareness, brand equity, brand positioning and brand delivery.

This is not a problem you can ignore. You need to know whether your brand is thriving or failing before it's too late.

Remember, you must assess both internal (your employees) and external (everyone else) perceptions of your brand image.

Do people react positively, neutrally or negatively when they hear your brand name?

Insights from these assessments will help you understand your current perceptions of your brand image and what you may need to change to improve those perceptions and your overall brand image.

Step 2: brand identity

1. Define your core brand identity

Once you understand how your brand is currently perceived and where it is in your market, you can begin to define your company's new brand identity.

As a reminder, your core brand identity is often defined by your company's vision (why your company exists), mission (what your company does), and values ​​(the beliefs that guide your company's actions).

When you start a new business, you start with a blank sheet of paper and have the opportunity to define each one.

If you already own a business, you assessed your core brand identity in the discovery phase (phase 1). You now have the opportunity to further develop this identity to better align with your current/future vision, mission and values.

2. Articulate your brand positioning

Your brand positioning explains how your business differs from your competitors.

Often your positioning can be summed up in a sentence or two to explain what you do better than anyone else.

3. Articulate Your Unique Selling Proposition

As we emphasized above, a unique selling proposition (USP) is what your business stands for.

For example, you could say that Apple's unique selling proposition is found in "user experience". The value proposition of everything Apple does is put the user first.

Google's USP may be how they connect people to information.

Amazon's USP can be to deliver whatever product you need efficiently and at the lowest possible cost.

Figuring out your USP can take time, but it's a crucial part of your brand and value proposition. Knowing what it is can help you sell better to your existing and potential customers.

Because when customers hear your brand name, see your logo, look at your business card, or see other elements of your brand identity, they subconsciously associate your USP with your brand.

And be careful not to adopt a competitor's USP. Don't try to imitate others - build a unique identity and value proposition based on customer feedback. Small business expert Ramon Ray explains:

Don't try to be someone else. It's tempting to look at another person or company and emulate them. This is not a good strategy. Instead, listen to your customers. What do you like about your company? What would you change? But don't just listen to what your customer is saying... make sure your team is communicating and meeting your customer's expectations through your brand identity and overall design, so your current and potential customers know that you are listening to them.

4. Develop your brand identity design capabilities

Once you understand your brand and the components that define brand identity (colors, typography, shapes, etc.), it's time to work with your graphic designer to create the creative elements that will help you build a brand and bring your brand to life. brand identity. This includes yourLogo,design do site,product packaging, brochures and more. We cover these issues in detail in ourBrand Identity Guide.

5. Develop your brand voice and how you communicate

To build a strong brand, brand identity and brand image, you need to consistently and consistently speak about your brand internally and externally.

Choose a consistent brand voice and make sure your communication is clear, focused and supportive of your positioning.

Make sure your brand identity is clearly and consistently reflected in your digital and traditional marketing.

YourContent marketing stories, offline and digital marketing, and even your product packaging design should consistently showcase your brand identity.

Step 3: Execution

Once you've completed discovery and developed your core brand identity, you need to find the right way to communicate your brand and brand identity through marketing (both digital marketing and traditional marketing).

Brand strategy is not marketing. Brand strategy focuses ondefineYour company in the minds of consumers.

Marketing strategy focuses on using your limited resources to find the best ways to increase sales and develop a competitive advantage.

Before launching marketing campaigns and developing a marketing strategy, you should ask yourself these three crucial questions:

1. Does your brand support your business strategy?

Every healthy company must have a forward-thinking strategy.

For your brand to be healthy, it must align with and support this strategy.

The strategy may include brand identity, but it focuses on the core strategy for growing your business.

If your strategy is to sell expensive services at discounted prices, your brand must focus on price. It would not be in your best interest to maintain a brand that looks rich or expensive.

If your business strategy is based on creativity and personalization, a brand that emphasizes traditional corporate culture will not do well.

A misaligned brand will create cognitive dissonance in your customers, create a confused brand identity and image, and undermine your efforts to succeed.

A brand image or brand identity that undermines your business strategy does not reflect a healthy brand.

2. Is your brand identity consistent?

An inconsistent brand identity is confusing and unreliable. These are qualities that drive customers away, not attract them.

When your brand identity is constantly changing, it becomes difficult for consumers or customers to get a clear idea of ​​what it is all about. And it is even more difficult to gain trust, confidence and brand loyalty.

Here are some questions that will help you assess the consistency of your brand identity:

Is your brand identity design visually consistent?

Visual consistency helps build brand recognition.

Your site's colors, visual styles, and fonts should look like yours.business cards, which should look like your social media accounts, which should look like your company logo, which should look like you.

A visually consistent brand identity is more memorable than an inconsistent identity.

Is your brand message consistent?

To build a strong brand identity, your brand needs a cohesive message. And that message should come from your company's core values ​​and strategy.

When your brand tries to be too many things at once, messages get scattered and brand identity gets diluted.

It's hard to be known forsomethingwhen you fail to present consistent messages about what your company should be known forfor.

Or worse, if your brand message contradicts itself, you will lose consumer trust and your business.

People don't like to be deceived. And consumers are generally suspicious of companies. After all, companies want your money.

Conflicting reports serve as proof that your company is unreliable.

Inconsistent messaging is a sign of an unhealthy brand and weak brand identity.

Does your brand behave consistently?

Your brand promises must match the reality of your customers' brand experience.

That goes for any brand, whether you're a tech company or selling burritos.

People will take notice if you offer fast delivery as a key brand message but don't deliver on that promise. And your brand and brand identity will suffer. Like usexplained:

A fabulous, expertly applied logo and consistent style guide mean nothing if your business doesn't deliver on its real-world brand promises. Remember that your brand must always match the reality of your business. Walking the path is just as important, if not more so, than having a conversation.

Mexican fast food giant Chipotle servednon-GMO foodan essential part of your brand promise. But they were repeatedly seen serving GM food.

Do a quick Google search for "Chipotle admits the use of GMOs" and you'll find a list of critical articles and lawsuits filed against the fast-food megachain. You have achieved an attractive brand position, but you cannot reliably offer it. Your brand image has suffered.

Failure to deliver on a brand promise is a sign of an unhealthy brand.

3. Is your brand identity aligned with your target audience?

No matter how well your brand identity supports your business strategies or how consistent it is, your brand identity won't do its job if it doesn't connect with your audience.

But measuring your brand's public reception is a little more complicated than examining it for internal strategy consistency or alignment. You need some brand health metrics to track.

Marketing Intelligence Specialists at Datoramato recommendTracking your brand impressions, Internet search volume, and branded keyword performance (the use of your brand name in business cards, messages, posts, etc.).

You can also measure engagement on social media and keep an eye on your online ratings. Your customer service team can also provide you with helpful information.

Once you know your answers to these three questions, you can develop your marketing strategies and execute your long-term plan.

Follow these five rules when implementing your branding strategy

Follow these five rules when implementing your branding strategies and incorporating them into your marketing campaigns.

1. Lead with your brand story, not your products.Good stories have emotional narratives. Your products and services need to be great, but many companies have great products and services. The best companies excel at telling the most compelling stories.
2. Be different.It's not enough to be better or offer more features. For example, Apple has historically not focused on features in its marketing. Apple focuses on the user experience and how that experience differs from all competing products. Being different is always important. Being better is important, but often it's not enough.
3. Tell a specific and consistent story.There is a lot of noise and consumers are bombarded by thousands of brands every day. You won't have the budget to be the loudest brand, so find another way. The right message doesn't have to be loud - it just needs to resonate with your target audience.
4. Focus on your customers, not your business.Your brand messaging should focus on how to help your customers succeed, not why your business is great.
5. Empathize with your customers.To understand your customers, you need to put yourself in their shoes.Empathy is different from sympathy.

Take the time to build an effective brand strategy and you will build a sustainable and profitable brand.

We update this brand strategy guide regularly. We last updated this guide on February 26, 2023.