Brand strategy analysis is a crucial step in developing a strong and distinctive identity for your business. It helps you understand your target audience, your competitive advantage, and your core values. But how do you conduct a thorough and effective brand strategy analysis? Here are some key steps and methods you can follow to gain insights and clarity for your brand.
Before you dive into the data and research, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with your brand strategy analysis. What are the main questions you want to answer? What are the goals and challenges of your brand? How will you measure the success of your analysis? Having a well-defined scope and purpose will help you focus your efforts and resources on the most relevant and impactful aspects of your brand.
As a starting point for your brand analysis I would recommend you get very clear on your vision and intention for your brand. You should do this in the context of your category and the role products and services typically play in users’ lives. For example your vision might be to teach and empower more small businesses to develop a proper business strategy. Or if you are a Pilates studio you may have an intention of helping more people to live their life to the fullest by helping them gain optimal functional health.
A SWOT analysis is a simple but powerful tool that helps you assess your brand's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It helps you identify your internal and external factors that affect your brand's performance and potential. You can use a SWOT analysis to evaluate your current brand positioning, your unique selling proposition, and your areas of improvement. You can also use it to compare your brand with your competitors and find gaps and niches in the market.
Broadly speaking about defining two parts, 1. Personality of your brand: - how it looks (young, old, hyper, zen) - how it speaks (wise, cool, factual, authoritative, fun) - how you interact (subtle, on the face, pops out of the frame) - how are you represented(colour form photography people) 2. Character - what you speak out for - what moves you as a brand - what is your purpose .. When going deeper, look at complex combinations and interactions. How would you celebrate mothers day and pride week? How would you cater to people of all colour and religion? How do you stand out apart from your product?
Understanding your target market is essential for creating a brand strategy that resonates with your ideal customers. You need to know who they are, what they need, what they value, and how they behave. You can use various methods to collect and analyze data about your target market, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, personas, and customer journey maps. These methods will help you segment your market, create buyer profiles, and map out their pain points, motivations, and touchpoints.
Your brand identity is the visual and verbal expression of your brand. It includes your name, logo, slogan, colors, fonts, tone of voice, and style. Your brand identity should reflect your brand's personality, values, and promise. It should also be consistent, memorable, and distinctive. You can evaluate your brand identity by conducting a brand audit, which involves reviewing all your brand elements and assets across different channels and platforms. You can also conduct a brand perception survey, which involves asking your customers and stakeholders how they perceive and feel about your brand.
Based on your findings and insights from the previous steps, you can now develop your brand strategy. Your brand strategy is the roadmap that guides your brand's direction, decisions, and actions. It defines your brand's vision, mission, values, positioning, differentiation, and voice. It also outlines your brand's goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics. Your brand strategy should be clear, coherent, and compelling. It should also be flexible enough to adapt to changing market conditions and customer expectations.
Brand strategy again is about how you want to be seen and how you want to be seen in comparison with your competition and peers. Act like an influencer, collaborate with similar likes and similar tastes to people and talk about your taste. Closely follow competition and position your communication to sound better than them.