Brand Growth Strategy Insights: How Top Companies Scale Up

Building a brand growth strategy can often feel like standing at the base of Everest. Daunting. Overwhelming. Scary.

Every direction seems promising, yet every misstep costs. It’s high stakes stuff.

The secret sauce to scaling isn’t locked away though! The answer is a well-defined brand growth strategy.

And we can get there by investigating the worldwide heavyweights to see exactly how they scaled up.

From the content marketing masters over at HubSpot to the tech titans at Microsoft... the answer is crystal clear.

Their skyrocket to success was strategic. And it was rooted in their brand.

So, how did these giants climb their Everest? And how can you chart a course for your brand that doesn't just aim for the summit, but makes sure you reach it?

Ready? Let’s dive in and review the blueprints to some of the most successful brand’s growth journeys.

Defining a Brand Growth Strategy

A brand growth strategy ’s a documented strategy, campaign, or idea, that helps skyrocket your brand to success.

It’s often “the one thing” that your brand chooses to go all-in on.

In the business world, there's a term called a “moat” - like a protective barrier around a castle, the thing you’re bullish about protecting. In branding, this “moat'” represents the unique strategy or trait that sets your brand apart and defends against competitors.

Typically, this is the brand strategy.

For example:

• Hubspot zeroed in on content marketing
• Amazon sprinted ahead with unmatched delivery speeds, (and their introduction of Amazon Prime and Same Day Delivery)
• Zappos levelled up by prioritising their website

Then there’s Apple and their commitment to amazing design and seamless user experience. Their brand strategy isn’t just about creating great products; it’s about integrating technology seamlessly into your daily life.

This focus not only differentiated them from competitors, but also established a loyal customer base that perceives Apple products as premium and desirable. The result? Apple's iconic status and its trillion-dollar market cap.

Your brand growth strategy isn’t just about getting noticed.

It's about becoming remarkable and unforgettable in the mind of your target audience.

The Brand Growth Strategies Top Companies Use to Scale Up

Throughout history, the world’s most famous companies have used a wide range of different brand growth strategies to dominate their sectors.

There's no universal blueprint. Each strategy comes with its own unique set of considerations and challenges.

While planning your own brand growth strategy, remember; these companies likely had substantial marketing budgets and huge teams at their disposal.

However:

By understanding what they did, and making it your own, you can craft your own success story.

Organic Growth

Organic growth is the foundation of success for many companies. At its core, organic growth emphasises increasing content output from your existing sources, and strays away from bringing in external resources.

It's an indication of a business's ability to efficiently expand by using its existing resources.

So how exactly is this a “brand growth strategy?”

Well…

While it might sound simple on the surface, there is a complex web of content and branding decisions to make that must align to make your organic brand strategy successful.

Key Considerations for Organic Growth

Choosing to grow organically requires clever planning and strategic thinking. Here are some of the key things to consider when it comes to organic brand growth:

• Consistency: You should aim to maintain a consistent schedule and level of quality so your audience comes to know what to expect from your brand.
• Relevance: You must ensure the content you produce remains relevant and valuable to your audience and that you’re not just creating content for the sake of it.
• Engagement: When creating content, you need to make sure it’s engaging. Look into using infographics, videos, growing an online community, creating a podcast etc. Content goes beyond the written word!
• Scalability: As your audience grows, you need to have the infrastructure in place to scale content production without sacrificing quality. This often means more people or a more efficient strategy.
• Feedback: You should ask for feedback from your audience regularly to help further refine your organic content strategy.

The Challenges of Organic Growth

The challenges with organic growth are directly linked to the key considerations:

• Consistency: Maintaining content quality and frequency is demanding, and inconsistent content delivery might lead to your audience being left floundering and losing trust.
• Relevance: Staying updated with audience interests is a challenge as irrelevant or generic and over-simplified content could alienate or bore your audience.
• Engagement: You need to create diverse and compelling content as over-relying on one content type can limit audience reach. This often requires multiple people from your internal team.
• Scalability: As you grow your share of brand voice, people will expect more from you. Scaling too quickly might compromise content quality.
• Feedback: With limited audience engagement, feedback can throw you down the wrong path. But with too much feedback, it can be difficult to decide on the right action to take.

With these considerations and potential challenges in mind, you should be better prepared for organic brand growth.

Organic Brand Growth Case Study: HubSpot

HubSpot is a leading inbound marketing tool. Founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah grew the business by utilising an organic brand growth strategy.

If you’ve ever searched for anything related to marketing on Google, you’ll see an article from HubSpot in the top 3 positions. They’re a content marketing machine.

By producing regular content that their audience perceives as helpful, they’ve established them as a leading market voice and thought leader. Their blog posts are well respected within the industry, but their content marketing efforts don’t stop there. They also create:

• Webinars
• E-Books
• Downloads
• Guides
• And even learning academy materials.

Their focus on education and delivering value has attracted a huge amount of organic traffic to their website. Then they utilise a fairly aggressive sales team to convert their visitors into customers.

This dedication to content excellence has not only solidified their brand's authority but also propelled HubSpot’s growth trajectory.

Internal Growth

The internal resources at a company are often its best asset. Internal brand growth strategy often focuses on optimising and developing these assets.

Whether it’s people, technology, processes, or doubling down on your existing customer base, the focus with an internal brand growth strategy is to make the most of what’s already there.

Many top-tier companies have gotten ahead by focusing on internal improvements to reach their full potential.

Key Considerations for Internal Growth

Before diving into creating an internal growth strategy, you need to understand some home truths. Here are some of the key things to consider when it comes to internal brand growth:

• Resource Allocation: You need to properly distribute your internal resources (both human and capital) to ensure that internal projects are adequately funded and staffed.
• Employee Training: Continually develop the skills and knowledge of employees. A well-trained workforce can drive sales and marketing performance, as well as innovation and high performance levels.
• Feedback Loops: You need to implement a feedback mechanism that facilitates feedback from key stakeholders, ensuring that internal initiatives are in line with the company's broader strategic goals.
• Risk Management: It’s important to recognise and plan around potential risks. Adopting an eyes wide open approach to risk will help you in the long run.
• Internal Integrity: When you commit to an internal project, you need to make sure it’s viewed as critically as an external facing project.

The Challenges of Internal Growth

As you dive deeper into using your internal assets to grow, here are some potential challenges to be aware of:

• Resource Stretch: As internal demands increase, there'll be a challenge of ensuring that resources, especially human resources, aren't overextended. Internal projects are often the first to get dropped when the shit hits the fan too. So prepare for that.
• Rapid Expansion: Growing too quickly can lead to inefficiencies and may strain the established company culture. Each new hire needs to be onboarded correctly. Having your training and brand decks ready will help with this.
• Training Negligence: Not providing training and development opportunities can lead to employees getting bored and stagnating, which could lead to a bad reputation for your company. Getting your employer branding right will help you attract and retain top-tier talent.
• Communication Problems: As the company grows, ensuring clear communication across all levels becomes challenging, especially if your team is distributed rather than office based. Utilising an internal communication tool like Slack will help with this.
• Inertia: People are naturally resistant to change, and sometimes you’ll feel like you’re fighting an uphill battle, which can hinder your potential for internal growth.

It's essential to remain vigilant on your internal brand growth journey. Address your challenges head-on. By doing so, you’ll solidify your position and lay the foundation for lasting success.

Internal Brand Growth Case Study: Tesla

If you don’t know Tesla, they’re Elon Musk’s company. If you don’t know Elon Musk, then which rock have you been living under? He founded SpaceX, Paypal, OpenAi, bought Twitter, and named his first child some sort of crazy equation.

Tesla makes electric vehicles. And they turned to internal brand growth as their strategy.

Through an internal commitment to growth through innovation and R&D, they’ve grown from producing vehicles to manufacturing solar products and other energy storage solutions.

Their Gigafactories, where they make their batteries and world changing solutions, are some of the largest buildings in the world. They showcase their dedication to scaling up production internally.

They’re constantly onboarding and training their internal teams to push new boundaries. They’re acting small, but thinking big.

Growth through Mergers, Partnerships, and Acquisitions

Companies choosing to grow by merging, partnering with, or acquiring others, are often looking for a faster way to grow. However, this approach comes with a lot more complexity and risk.

This strategy is more than just increasing size or adding assets; it's about integrating different cultures, harnessing new technologies, tapping into new markets, or even eliminating competition.

Major industry shifts have often resulted from such strategic unions, reshaping entire business and industry landscapes.

Key Considerations for Growth through Mergers, Partnerships, and Acquisitions

The M&A landscape is insane. Here are some key things to think about when approaching it:

• Due Diligence: You must thoroughly research the companies you are intending to merge with, partner, or acquire to make sure there are no hidden liabilities or problems lurking in the shadows.
• Cultural Blending: Merging two companies together is also about merging two different cultures. Managing this well is crucial to ensuring a smooth transition.
• Financial Analysis: Understanding the long and short term financial implications of your merger or acquisition is essential. As well as the purchase price you want to consider; future revenues, costs, and ROI.
• The Legals: Beyond the contracts, consider potential intellectual property challenges, legal disputes, and ensuring the contractual obligations of the acquired company are met.
• Post-merger Strategy: Once your merger or acquisition is finalised, the real work begins. How will the brands be combined? How will employees be integrated? What about product portfolios? Do you need to rebrand? Or is it all just folding into one of the existing company brands?

The Challenges of Mergers, Partnerships, and Acquisitions

Mergers and acquisitions might seem like the golden ticket, but it's not without its challenges. Here are some of the challenges to be aware of:

• Cultural Clashes: The potential for a culture clash exists, especially if both companies have established, yet different, workplace cultures and working practices.
• Over-optimism: Overestimating the benefits and underestimating the challenges will lead to disappointment. Whether that’s in the form of the financials, or by expecting there to be no unforeseen cost during the integration phase, being overly optimistic will catch you out. Remember; glass half full.
• Due Diligence Oversights: Rushing through the due diligence process can lead to unpleasant surprises further down the line. Unforeseen debts or legal disputes will catch you off guard. Make sure you get help from people that know what they’re doing.
• Employee Attrition: High turnover of staff members post-merger or acquisition will hinder your operations. If key talent leaves, this can greatly affect the success of the integration. You need to do your best to retain the top performers.
• Market Reception: How the market reacts to your merger or acquisition is unpredictable. There might be trust issues, concerns over reduced competition, and as always, a mix of sneering, snide remarks, and judgement. Managing your press around this should help mitigate any negatives.

Mergers, partnerships, and acquisitions offer some compelling advantages, but navigating these challenges are crucial so you don’t end up in a mess.

Growth Through Mergers, Partnerships, and Acquisitions Case Study: Disney

We all know Disney. They’ve made some of the most beloved films of all time.

And they’re the experts in utilising a growth strategy that involves mergers, partnerships, and acquisitions.

Here are just some of their main acquisitions::

• Back in 2006 they merged with the then Steve Jobs owned Pixar
• In 2009 Disney bought Marvel Entertainment for around $4 billion
• In 2012 they acquired Lucasfilm for a similar fee
• Then in 2018 they acquired 21st Century Fox for $70 billion+

According to SeekingAlpha.com, Disney now dominated around 28% of the media market.

Their acquisitions brought iconic characters such as Iron Man, Thor, Darth Vader, and Luke Skywalker under the Disney umbrella.

The movies Disney have produced post-acquisition have generated multiple billions in revenue.

Bob Iger (Disney CEO, turn former CEO, turn CEO again) is credited with these key acquisitions. From CNBC:

In the year that Iger was named CEO (2005) Disney made $2.5 billion in net income. In 2018 the company's net income was $12.6 billion, a 404% increase. Similarly, Disney stock has risen exponentially.

That’s enough return to buy another Marvel or Lucasfilm four times over.

You could say their growth strategy is more magical than the Fairy Godmother's wand!

Revenue Growth

The increase in a company's sales when compared over a period. It reflects how well the company is generating sales from its products or services.

Revenue is the lifeblood of any business. Its growth is a direct testament to a company's positive performance.

While it may sound straightforward, multiple factors drive revenue growth; pricing strategies, sales tactics, market expansions, and more.

Successful Industry leaders are always refining their revenue models and forecasts to ensure sustained growth and profitability.

Key Considerations for Revenue Growth

Before drawing up a strategy for growing revenue, it's important to understand some key things about growing revenue. Here's what you should keep in mind:

• Diversify Your Revenue Streams: It's always risky to put all of your eggs in one basket. If you’re a service based business, look at products you can integrate into your offering, and vice versa.
• Cost Management: As your sales and revenue climb, it's important to keep an eye on costs to make sure they don’t spiral out of control.
• Raising Prices: One of the easiest ways to grow your revenue is to simply raise prices. If you can pull this off, you’ve added instant profit to your bottom line.
• More People = More Problems: It’s sad but true that more customers means more problems. If you can’t raise your prices, broaden your service offering to grow client accounts, rather than consistently adding more clients. A good rule of thumb is 50% new business, 50% retained revenue.
• Upstream / Downstream Brands: Something else to consider is creating a higher price point brand, and a lower price point brand, to sit alongside your main offering. Supermarkets do this effectively with a value range, a mid-range, and a high end-range. Look back at your brand strategy to help identify opportunities here.

The Challenges of Revenue Growth

Scaling your revenue isn't easy. While the upwards trending graphs always look great, there are potential roadblocks you need to think through:

• Scaling Revenue vs. Profits: Growing your revenue is fine, but getting big for the sake of it is pointless. You need to be conscious that you’re also scaling your profit.
• Beware of Shiny Objects: A dazzling top-line growth number will obscure a shaky bottom line. The aim should be sustainable and profitable growth.
• All Eggs, One Basket: Relying on a single revenue source is a huge vulnerability. Diversify as much as possible
• Over Stretching: If your forecast is overly optimistic, you might end up viewing everything with rose tinted glasses and over hiring and over spending, which could lead to financial ruin.
• Reinvesting: When you’re nicely profitable, and you have good cash flow, choosing where to reinvest to help support your overall brand and business strategy is tricky. You should understand your numbers at all times, and know exactly where to spend for the best return.

By navigating these revenue roadblocks, you're paving the way to sustainable and robust revenue growth.

Revenue Growth Case Study: Microsoft

Back in the old days, computer and software companies sold “on prem” solutions. As in, they’d come into your place of operation and install their stuff.

In the late 2000’s on considering the future of computing, Microsoft announced Azure, a cloud computing operating system which was targeted at Business and Developers without additional coding and configuration requirements.

This transition to cloud computing grew revenue substantially. It also streamlined infrastructure and operations, increasing profitability.

A few years later, Microsoft played another clever hand.

Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, Excel and the rest of their software was bundled up into a new subscription service called Office 365.

And needless to say, revenue grew significantly.

The world has well and truly embraced subscription services and SaaS, and Microsoft got in with their new offering at exactly the right time.

They seized pivotal tech moments to grow rapidly. Microsoft's timely innovations underscore the success of their revenue growth strategy.

Customer Growth

More customers typically mean more business. Customer growth focuses on expanding your client base, whether through acquiring new customers, retaining the current ones, or even re-engaging former customers.

Customer growth strategies may vary; from aggressive marketing campaigns to the introduction of loyalty programs.

Understanding your customer’s needs and staying ahead of market trends is key to this strategy’s success.

Key Considerations for Customer Growth

When looking to expand your customer base, it's important to recognise that more doesn’t always mean better. Here are some key things to consider:

• Everyone is Different: Even with your customer personas completed, everybody is different. When looking to expand your customer base, look at key segments, and commonalities between them.
• Beyond the Sale: The purchase isn’t the end of the line, it’s the beginning. You should be engaging with your customers after they buy to nurture loyalty and ensure satisfaction.
• Word of Mouth Rarely Fails: A referral from a friend is worth more than anything you read online. You can tap into referral programs and rewards, using your satisfied customers to drive customer growth.
• Things Change: Markets and audiences change; they grow up, the world changes, sometimes, they die. Your audience is likely not your audience for life. You have to be willing to adapt and move with them.
• Customer Service is Key: People want to work with and buy from brands they know, like, and trust. They buy from your brand. Having top-tier customer service and support goes a long way towards building a top tier brand experience.

The Challenges of Customer Growth

Diving into expanding your customer base definitely comes with it’s own set of unique challenges:

• A Dip in Quality: As your customer base grows, maintaining the same gold-standard of product or service becomes tricky. Utilise your profit and new found customer numbers to reinforce your team, giving them the ability to continue performing at their best.
• Quality of Customers Over Quantity of Customers: Going after increasing numbers is often tempting. But prioritising quality and growing great accounts is often a better use of time. You need to make sure revenue and profit scales in-line with the customer base to allow you to continue serving customers at the highest level.
• Aftercare Oversight: Sidelining customers post-purchase can see your loyal customers drift away. Remember: nobody likes feeling left out. Like when Sky only gives deals to new customers? No thanks.
• One Size Fits None: Failing to recognise the diversity within your customer base leads to genericism. Segmenting and working in the niches is where you’ll find your wins.

Navigating customer growth is difficult. However, with careful planning and insight, you'll be well on your way to navigating the challenges..

Customer Growth Case Study: Spotify

Spotify has grown from nothing in 2012 to a customer base of around 400 millions users in just 10 years.

The music streaming giant has seen immense growth by expanding into new territories and offering localised content. But, they’ve got better tricks up their sleeves.

By focusing on personalisation, and creating unique platform features such as Discover Weekly and Spotify Wrapped, they tap into their subscriber base as a growth strategy.

As every year comes to a close, you see people starting to share their Wrapped playlists and statistics. Instagram stories become flooded with Spotify’s neon brand colours.

And you get curious.

You do yours. Then you share it. It’s viral loops 101.

These campaigns enhance user engagement, drive higher acquisition rates, and undoubtedly, lower the cost of acquisition too.

Spotify not only hits the right notes with its growth strategies, but also ensures their brand remains on everyone's playlist of daily conversations.

Market Growth

Entering new markets or expanding within existing ones can significantly boost a company's footprint and profitability.

Market growth can be geographical, demographical, or even branching into new product segments.

It demands thorough research, understanding cultural nuances, and sometimes, a bit of trial and error.

Key Considerations for Market Growth

Looking to expand into a new market? Here are a few things to consider to help you navigate towards market growth:

• Cultural Differences: As you look to plant your flag in a new market, it's crucial to adapt your marketing and sales techniques to align with local preferences and sensibilities.
• By the Book: New countries and territories often come with their own set of rules. It’s your business to understand local regulations and customs before diving in.
• Outside Perspective: Being an outsider doesn’t mean being outplayed. You can utilise your objectivity and mystery to your advantage. It sounds much more interesting when a company is visiting from overseas, than from the next city over.
• Going to the Source: Even though your customer personas might be the same, there’ll be a whole world of differences. Find out where your customers hang out in that region, and go there. Just don’t expect it to be the same as back home!
• Brand Essence: Localise, but don’t lose yourself. Adapt your messaging, your advertising, your campaigns, but your brand strategy, and identity (the heart and soul of your brand) should remain unchanged.

The Challenges of Market Growth

Ready to go overseas with your brand growth strategy? Brace yourself for these challenges:

• Adaptation of Collateral: You’ll need to change your collateral so it suits local customs and preferences. There’ll be a cost associated with that. You’ll also need to find new suppliers!
• Blind Spots: Stepping in without exhaustive market research can lead to costly mistakes. Think tax issues, legal issues, and all of that sort of fun.
• Local Connections: You’re going to need to build local connections to help out. You want advocates on the ground, but also new connections for suppliers, accountants, solicitors, and so on.
• Cost Cost Cost: The cost of expanding into a new market can often be quite dramatic. If you need new premises, a whole range of new collateral, and a staff team based there, you best hope your bank is in good shape.
• Currency Conundrums: Exchange rates, financial regulations, and local pricing strategies can bring their own set of challenges. You’ll want expert help to help navigate that.

Market growth isn't just about bigger numbers. That’s the end goal. But you get there through building a strong global brand and deep connections and relationships with your international target audience.

Market Growth Case Study: Starbucks

Seattle’s most famous coffee chain, Starbucks, are the leaders of executing meticulously crafted market growth strategies.

They’re on every corner of every city and town. So how do they do it?

Let’s look at their expansion into China:

The leadership team at Starbucks recognised the huge potential of the Chinese market. And so they went, and conquered.

But how?

First of all, they introduced China-specific menu items such as their Green Tea frappuccino and latte, as well as oolong tea and jasmine tea, which are popular in China.

They also integrated elements of traditional Chinese architectural elements into their store designs, seamlessly blending local culture with their brand.

Starbucks opened its first store in China back in 1999, and as of 2021 has over 7000 across the country. Currently they’re on track to open around 600 new stores a year.

The Starbucks blend of cultural adaptability and strategic expansion is a testament to how global brands can succeed in local markets.

If you're interested in reading more about tea branding, check out our compilation of effective tea branding.

Product Growth

Innovation is the focus when it comes to a product lead brand growth strategy. Product growth centres on expanding a company's product line or enhancing existing products to meet changing consumer demands.

It could be; introducing new features, diversifying product ranges, or even venturing into entirely new categories.

Success in this strategy requires a keen understanding of market trends, customer feedback, and technological advancements.

Key Considerations for Product Growth

Before looking to revolutionise your product range, think about these things:

• Test the Waters: Before diving in, just paddle. Prior to heading into full on design mode, you want to get a sense of the market's appetite with comprehensive audience research.
• Birthplace of Ideas: It’s your job to cultivate an atmosphere where innovation isn't just appreciated; it's expected. If you’re in the product business, only the big ideas change the world.
• Stay True: New products and ideas should echo your brand strategy. Every product you release should resonate with your brand’s core concept.
• Behind the Scenes: A game changing product requires a lot of backstage work. You’ll need to make sure your supply chain is prepared for the new addition. Behind the scenes footage and imagery is also a great way to build your brand and product awareness through social channels.
• Ear to the Ground: Once the glitz and glamour of your product launch spotlight has faded, your real work begins. Tune in to feedback, and be ready to iterate and refine based on real customer feedback.

The Challenges of Product Growth

Revamping or extending your product range? Here's a look at some of the challenges you might face:

• Premature Moves: Hurrying a product to market without care and due diligence in R&D can backfire spectacularly. It can be one of the most expensive mistakes you’ll make.
• Overextension: Be wary of trying to be everywhere all at once. Spreading your resources too thin will jeopardise quality, and you don’t want that.
• Packaging Problems: At Canny, we’re always picking up packaging projects that another agency has dropped the ball on. Consider creating your packaging design brief as soon as your product is in development, and you shouldn’t face any delays or issues.
• Feedback Fatigue: Launching too many products will lead to scattered feedback, making it difficult to pinpoint and act upon specific areas for improvement. You need to make sure your data capture is in order.

Product growth is as much about understanding the present as it is about predicting the future. If you’re always talking to your audience and innovating, you’ll be one step ahead.

Product Growth Case Study: Apple

When it comes to product growth as a strategy, who else could we feature but Apple?

From personal computers with the Apple 1 back in the 70s, to what they are today, Apple’s evolution into a tech giant is the perfect example of utilising products to grow your brand.

It’s crazy to think that Apple’s products have actually changed the way we act as human beings.

It started with computers, then they introduced the iPod and transformed the music industry. From there, they brought out the iPhone and completely revolutionised how the world communicates.

Then they went on to introduce the iPad and Apple Watch, further bringing innovation to the tech and health spaces. Then AirPods, now Apple Home devices, and soon Apple Vision.

Each new product is a strategic move to establish the company and brand in a new vertical.

This, coupled with their focus on innovation and design excellence, has led to consistently impressive sales and growth, making them a standout example of product growth in action.

Business and Brand Growth Tools

Growing a business and brand is easier when you have some handy tools to help you along the way.

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but these are some of the brand growth tools that we’ve found the most helpful when working with clients at Canny:

SWOT Analysis for Brand Analysis

Chances are you’ve seen and completed a SWOT Analytics before. A SWOT helps brands to identify their Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It's a great starting point for any brand growth strategy discussion.

Porter's Five Forces for Competitive Analysis

This tool helps businesses understand the forces that influence their industry and competitive landscape. The Porter model introduces the following 5 forces that represent the competitive pressure from within an industry; competitive rivalry, supplier power, buyer power, threat of substitution, and threat of new entry. It’s a great tool to use when assessing market entry or considering mergers and acquisitions.

Ansoff Matrix for Opportunity Spotting

The Ansoff Matrix is an essential assessment tool to help you decide on the right growth strategies based on product and market combinations. The four box grid assesses existing and new markets alongside existing and new products, and helps you decide your next moves.

Google Analytics and Search Console for Website Performance

These critical tools help you to assess your brand’s growth, as well as opportunities for improvements in growing your traffic and organic reach. They’re especially useful if you’re looking to adopt an organic brand growth strategy. By using them together, you can see how many people your brand reaches, how they interact with your website, and where you’re losing them along the way. As an added bonus, they’re completely free to use.

AHREFs and SEMRush for SEO Tracking

AHREFs and SEMRush are SEO tools that you can use to monitor keyword activity for your brand.

For example:

At Canny we measure where we rank for terms such as “branding agency Newcastle” and periodically check the name Canny Creative to see if search volume for our brand is increasing over time.

Either of these tools will give you great visibility and monitoring capabilities for crucial keywords and phrases in your industry.

Net Promoter Score (NPS) for Customer Satisfaction

Your Net Promoter Score gives you a snapshot of your brand’s customer satisfaction and levels of loyalty. It’s useful if you're looking towards customer growth as your growth strategy. It can help you gauge the levels of customer advocacy for your brand, and understand the likelihood that customers will recommend your business, products, or services to others. You can use software tools such as Delighted or Promoter.io to help measure your NPS.

Building Your Brand Growth Story: Key Takeaways

Every brand is on its own journey. We've seen that big-name brands all have their unique approaches to their brand growth strategy.

And they’ve all succeeded.

Here’s the deal:

There's no one-size-fits-all in brand growth. It's all about finding what fits your brand.

You've got to make sure your brand growth strategy aligns with your company's big branding goals. If you’re misaligned, you’re asking for headaches.

A strong brand growth strategy isn’t optional. It’s the difference between floundering and flying.

Your brand is more than a logo and colour palette. It's your company's heartbeat, and it plays a key role in the growth of the business.

If you need help with your brand growth strategy, then Canny would love to help.