HOW TO ACHIEVE A BREAKTHROUGH WITH YOUR BRAND DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY? – The Branding Process Blueprint

HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR BRANDING STRATEGY?

Do you remember how to put together a puzzle? The first step is looking at how many pieces you have and then sorting them into groups by arranging the corner pieces forming the frame or the foundation of the whole picture. After that, you fill out the edges and centre pieces step by step.

“To Develop an Effective Brand Strategy is Like Putting Together a Puzzle – you have to combine many elements in a consistent way and in a specific order to work together as a cohesive system.” (Strategyscope)

Building a strong brand doesn’t happen overnight but it’s worth working on it in the long run for earning customer loyalty and competitive awareness on the market. So, you have to take into consideration that strategizing your brand is a complex process that you must execute mainly in a digital ecosystem and that’s why you need to have a deeper understanding of which customized approaches work for you the best.

It’s not only the B2C brands to whom it is mandatory to work on their branding strategies but it’s a must for B2B market players also, however, business-to-business companies must do it differently. And the very same rule refers to product-based and service-based businesses too.

?? THE STRATEGIC BRANDING PROCESS BLUEPRINT

When it comes to strategic branding there are different approaches. Let’s start with the basic one:

?? START HERE – To lay the foundations, answer these questions first:

-???????Who are you as a brand?

-???????What is your WHY and purpose?

-???????Where are you going and what are you standing for?

-???????What does it mean to do business with you?

-???????What do you give to your customers/clients or the world?

?? But watch out not to be too biased! The Branding Strategy is much more than communicating what YOU think your brand stands for and it’s not about how much YOU love it!

?? STEP 1 - CORE VALUES – The brand-building strategy always starts from within, meaning you and your team must define who you are and what brand values you identify with your brand.

??????? Identity and Beliefs

??????? Voice

??????? Culture

??????? Impact

?? STEP 2 - MAIN PURPOSE & POSITIONING

?? Purpose = your WHY – From a business perspective, your purpose obviously is to sell your products/services, generate profit, make the whole machine work in the long run and foster the exponential growth of your business. From a brand perspective, you must identify a greater cause than money and define WHY you are doing this, why are you in this business and then sell this anyway.

?? WHAT do you do?

??????? WHO do you serve? – definition and characteristics of your main target audiences

??????? HOW do you serve? – the value you deliver and how do you engage them?

??????? WHERE do you serve? – e.g. niche, location, competitors, etc.

?? STEP 3 - BRAND MESSAGING ALIGNMENT – Your Brand Personality and Brand Identity must be consistently infused into all the communication materials, and dialogues and applied in all channels wherever your target audiences interact with you.

??????? Mission

??????? Vision

??????? Goals & Values

??????? Key Brand Messages: Tagline and Slogan, brief Brand Description, main Headline, etc.

??????? Guidelines

??? To nurture your brand’s positive impact on your target audiences and build customer loyalty, you must not only set up a well-defined Branding Strategy, but you must execute it properly!

(If you want to know more about what Brand Personality and Brand Identity mean, read the article here: “Understanding the branding strategy puzzle in 2022 ”)

?? STEP 4 – VISUAL BRANDING STRATEGY

This is the phase when you must create your Visual Identity in terms of design.

Name, Logo, Colours, Fonts, Icons, Website or Webshop design, etc. focusing on all the aspects are determined in points 1, 2 and 3 detailed above.

Chart: “Your brand values overall shape not only your brand image but the community of your customers and fans and it flows into the bloodstream of the corporate culture.”

?? THE BACKBONE OF THE BRAND STRATEGY

??????? AUDIENCE PROFILE – In order to craft your branded messages that resonate with your target audiences and create an emotional connection with them, you have to understand who they are and describe their research-based profiles.

??????? BRAND PROMISE – It’s a clear message of what the customer/client should expect when interacting with the brand by highlighting how they do provide value and make difference by serving them.

??????? BRAND VALUES – It’s a set of all the values you want your ideal target groups to understand about you and aim to resonate with it. Your brand values overall shape not only your brand image but the community of your customers and fans and it flows into the bloodstream of the corporate culture.

??????? BRAND VOICE – It is part of your Brand Personality and determines the style you communicate externally towards your customers, business partners and the wider public and internally to your Employees and other stakeholders. Your brand voice is always consistent, might be different based on target groups, and all of your content and messages are in tune with it.

??????? BRAND POSITIONING – No companies are able to exist and thrive in the long run without an established brand position! To well position your brand is literally a question of being dead or staying alive because if you fail it, your attempts to sell your products or services will collapse like the house of cards. That’s why you need to do several kinds of research, and collect customer data from a representative sample of your ideal customers, you must be authentic, and consistent with all the brand positioning elements. Your brand positioning must be in alignment with your comprehensive Branding Strategy too.

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?? WHAT FURTHER COMPONENTS ARE NEEDED FOR YOUR SUCCESS?

?? EMOTION – The feeling of “belonging” is the most desired goal by brands, but to get to the top of the ladder is much harder than you would think. You have to go step by step starting with the emotional hook and building trust. First and foremost, in order to make your customers resonate with your brand, you must appeal to them and nurture the desire to choose/interact with your brand vs the competitors or other similar brands.

?? CUSTOMER LOYALTY – If you successfully have built a strong customer base or even communities of people who love your brand and what you stand for, well done and now you must be really smart!

You have to treat them as a real treasure, and if you have loyal customers and clients, you have to reward their love and loyalty. This is an important way to positively confirm that you appreciate your customers responding to your brand and that they are loyal to you. Again, at this point think strategically and initiate them to recommend your services/products to their friends, and acquaintances, write 5-star reviews and share information about you via Social Media, while finally, they become your brand ambassadors.

?? P.S: If you really deliver what you promise and don’t make them disappointed, you don't even have to ask them to recommend you but they will do it intentionally and naturally!

?? COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE – It’s a skill you must develop. Why? Because it’s not only about doing your research and watching them 24 per day what and how they are doing and then copying and pasting! It’s much more about analysing if it is something that works for you or not. Obviously, you must test different approaches but don’t fall into the trap of following others blindly!

?? EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT – Your Employees are key components of your brand, not just a workforce who executes certain tasks. This is the No 1 rule you have to code into your Branding Strategy if you want to build valuable brands! That’s why you have to build your brand not only externally but internally too.

Your employees will not only represent or promote your brand to the wider public but they will also give value to the Brand Equity as brand ambassadors.

?? CONSISTENCY – Consistency is crucial in all verticals of the overall strategy and execution as well in all touchpoints! It’s about the brand identity, the visual elements, the style and tone of voice, the messaging, the branded content and overall communication. It must be aligned with all channels, platforms and tools you use for representing your brand.

?? FLEXIBILITY – It’s important to understand that flexibility is not against your standards and consistency but allows you to adjust certain details or elements if the economical or market conditions change unexpectedly – let’s just think about how entering into the COVID-era forced several transformation processes in different industries –, when you acquire a new group of customers or step into a new market abroad, etc.

“Your Employees are key components of your brand, not just a workforce who executes certain tasks. This is the No 1 rule you have to code into your Branding Strategy if you want to build valuable brands! That’s why you have to build your brand not only externally but internally too.” (Strategyscope)

Conclusions:

Your Branding Strategy equals your brand development strategy and this way it’s a long-term buildout process with a 360-degree view. In order to preserve your brand equity, and relevance and make it resistant to the changing dynamics of the market conditions, you must apply an agile approach through which you revisit and adjust it if needed! If you made a good job both in defining your strategy and executing your branding processes, it will have a direct effect on your brand loyalty, will increase your sales and establish a strong position and good reputation on the market. As an additional benefit, you will make your team engaged with it as well.

Editor’s Note: Branding Strategy is a huge subject with several various verticals and aspects. Strategyscope will further continue to discuss this subject but doesn’t intend to replace Wikipedia and high-quality professional marketing resources either. Rather give you guidance, and share best practices based on real-life experiences and client cases while keeping you up to date.        

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STRATEGYSCOPE is the Marketing, Branding & Content Strategy Compass for your business boost. Each week the newsletter covers various topics within these 3 key areas to guide SMBs (Small and Medium-sized Businesses) Entrepreneurs, and Solopreneurs to fine-tune their strategies and utilize the potential of Marketing for their sustainable growth.

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