Drawing Attention to the Benefits of Brand Strategy
At J.O., we know that without a brand strategy, your business may as well try baking a cake without sugar . Brands need to develop a personality before they can effectively communicate to their desired audiences. We value having a brand plan in order to leverage your company’s competitive advantage when communicating meaningful messages to employees and customers. In this blog, we’ll provide more insight on commonalities successful brand strategies tend to share.
What is Brand Strategy?
Brand strategy is an overarching plan deviated to achieve long term goals. Having an informed identity goes a long way in establishing a strategic market position within your industry. Forming a brand elaborative will allow you to set yourself apart from competitors, create a strong customer base, increase sales, promote awareness, and ensure you deliver on your company promise.
A comprehensive brand strategy should cover what your brand stands for, differentiating qualities that separate you from competitors, what you want to communicate to customers, a mission statement and a brand promise. All successful brands have a strong brand strategy and personality, no matter what industry they’re in.
Having central brand messaging gives you something to fall back on. Whether expanding, launching a pr campaign, seeking media coverage, publishing articles, creating social media content, marketing, or promoting a new product, a great brand strategy will tie business efforts to your brand.
Why is a Brand Strategy Important?
Brand strategy goes beyond defining core values, it involves emotion. Understanding what your goal is and how that ties into consumer needs, ensures your business can attract consumers that’ll be receptive to your company.
Branding ties pr campaigns and promotions back to your company. Over time, cohesive brand materials will establish brand association. Building brand association will prompt customer recall when audience members see a concept, style, tagline, service, or product benefit that reminds them of your brand.
Successful companies stay relevant because they “stay on brand”. Chick-fil-A for example, business is booming because they stick to what they know and people know who they are. If they were to overload their menu and suddenly opened on Sundays, the public would question what they are doing. Customers rely on Chick-fil-A and know what to expect, their concrete character is what has helped them grow and stay profitable.
Developing Brand Strategy
Planning
Don’t jump the gun when entering a new market, planning is a vital step in instituting creative elements. Read articles, research you market and what successful companies are doing in order to identify what you should be doing. Think of topics related to your brand. If your brand were a person, what would its favorite color be? What would it do on weekends? What would it do for a living? What emotions does it embody? Personifying your brand makes it easier to form a concise voice and clear objective. You have to stand for something, narrowing in on a desired tone when engaging with potential customers benefits the quality of your audience’s receptiveness. There is no validity to marketing efforts if they aren’t backed by facts.
Building
Once you have a good grasp on your industry and what your company wants to stand for, you can start developing materials that’ll inform company strategy. Gaining attention and awareness are always goals of creating and effective pr campaign, but, you need brand tools before you can execute your strategy.
A logo, font, official color palette, social media theme and tone are puzzle pieces in the bigger brand picture. Determining key creative elements as listed above help to form a comprehensive brand guide. This translates to everything from your website to a future public relations campaign. Anything created in a brand guide should be implemented in future jobs.
Tangible tools are just the start in building a solid foundation for your brand. Understanding your personality is essential in moving forward with pr and marketing tactics. Considering your company stance in media coverage, on social media, when navigating sales, and customer service speaks volumes to your brand image. Just like body language, actions speak to how your audience views you.
Execution
A brand is bigger than one person. There are emotional benefits when an employee can align with company values, they are able to feel apart of a team and excel in the workforce. Having a business where people are excited to work is invaluable for productivity and growth. Enthusiastic employees tend to create a positive work environment, employee attitudes inevitably translate into services and the media.
There are also emotional benefits to engaging with your audience. Earned media can result from positive brand association. With cancel culture so prevalent, if your customer base is unsatisfied with your business, your media coverage will hurt your marketing efforts. On the other hand, a positive media presence can reach new customers and create brand loyalty with current ones. Employees and customers are key aspect to company success. Realizing the role they play in your marketing strategy and using it to expand brand strategy can be difficult, but pays off.
In Conclusion
Branding is a never ending process.
Having clear business objectives may help your business grow, but having a comprehensive brand strategy will ensure you excel in your market. You can’t deliver on a brand promise without having one to being with. Having a brand plan will guide your company in future endeavors to ensure consistency.
Building a name for your company in any industry can only be a success if your logo, pr strategy, services, media coverage, and website align with your brand identity. It’s easy for big companies to overlook fundamental details effecting their company, discounting them as expenses rather than investments. Brand association is invaluable, it fosters familiarity with customers and ensures success. Investing in branding will result in effective endeavors your company has yet to embark on.
Clare Moorman-Wolfe
J.O. Agency Intern
