Failing to plan is planning to fail. This is especially true in marketing and brand strategy. Your success and survival depend on your ability to generate leads and convert those leads into loyal customers, which has a lot to do with your brand.
Your brand is about a lot more than your design or your logos, though these are still important. More crucial, however, is how people perceive your brand. When creating a brand strategy, it is essential to keep public perception in mind and tailor your strategy so that you are the ideal candidate for your targeted customers and clients to engage with.
Key Elements of Effective Brand Strategy
Character
Character is extremely important for your brand. Brands, like people, need to have character and personality to stand out in the market.
If you want people to pay attention to your brand, you must resonate with them on a human, personal level. You can do this by developing your brand character, which will be derived from your brand personality. To figure out that, ask yourself:
Are you caring? Are you entertaining? Are you ambitious? Do you motivate people?
You also need to define your values. 50% of customers say they make purchases based on a brand’s values and impact.[1]
Why will people stand up and pay attention to you? What will attract the people with whom you want to work or to sell?
Brand Commitment
What are you selling and to whom? What is your ideal market?
When creating a brand strategy, it is important to align your marketing efforts with the clients and customers you want to attract. When you get this right, your marketing strategy will be in the best possible position to attract customers and clients who love and support your business, and who are happy to refer you to friends and family.
Credibility
Why should people believe you? Do you have proof of results that your product or service does something beneficial for the customer or client?
Gather customer testimonials and encourage third party reviews. Try to get an industry leader to make a statement on your behalf to earn trust of potential customers.
Is your design impeccable, enough that it implies credibility? Do you have degrees or certifications to solidify your credibility?
Your character and values will help you connect to people on an emotional level, but you need to build credibility to make engagement with your brand a logical choice.
Context
When developing your brand strategy, keep in mind the context under which your brand is operating. To stay up-to-date and relevant, we flow with market and industry trends, so it’s essential to stay informed about what’s happening in the industry and in the lives of your ideal customers.
Consider your context at a market level. Do thousands of competitors or just a few? Discover who else is serving your ideal customers and figure out how you differ from your competitors.
Message Clarity
Be clear and authentic with your message. Basic terms like ‘better service’ or ‘higher quality products’ that businesses are using across the board are generic and often fail to really engage your audience. They do not differentiate you from others. Use language that is going to seduce your customers and lead them to conversion. Your ideal customers are specific and want to hear language that is relevant and exciting. Speak their language. You will be understandable, and sound like you understand them – their pains, their joys, their wants, and their needs.
Strategic Media
Use the right media outlets to support your brand strategy. You don’t need to be everywhere and do everything. Remember, your brand strategy will be more effective, and cost-effective, when you use media marketing properly.
Perhaps consider search marketing and discovery marketing. There is a big difference between search and discovery marketing and understanding this difference will help you reach your desired audience and encourage greater awareness. If you have a product or service that provides for a particular need, look more at search marketing, whereby a person types a specific need or query into a search engine and your brand is strategically placed high in their search results. When a potential customer has a need they want fulfilled immediately, they are going to search with a buyer intent keyword.
For wants and nice-to-have products or services, you can place offers in front of them with discovery marketing. This can be done through social media advertising or by using relevant keywords. This generally takes longer to see conversions, but discovery is more about wining and dining your ideal customers than it is about making sales on the spot.
How do you decide which channel is the best for your brand?
When you decide on search or discovery, decide on which type of content you want to deliver. If YouTube is the best way to reach your market, delivering video content about your brand is your best option. If a podcast is best, you’ll need an audio channel to promote your brand. If your audience enjoys reading text, blog posts can be written.
Brand Building is a Process
You may not go from zero to hero overnight, but with commitment, passion, and an effective brand strategy you can gradually build your brand’s reputation and quality. This will help you to develop long term, loyal relationships with your customers.
When your brand is known and trusted, you are likely to see a steady increase in conversions and sales, advocacy from customers and clients, and invaluable word of mouth marketing.
If you need help to create a succesful brand strategy that will achieve growth for your business, get in touch with Mint. Creative Marketing.
Source(s):
[1] Boyle, A., 2017. Should The Marketing Department Care About Purpose? | Roundpeg. [online] RoundPeg. Available at: <https://www.roundpegcomm.com/should-the-marketing-department-care-about-purpose/> [Accessed 9 August 2020].
