Create an effective brand strategy
Create an effective brand strategy
1. Familiarize yourself with the purpose, mission, vision, and values of your brand.
You should be able to answer: Why the brand exists. The future your brand wants to create. What the brand is here to do. The principles that guide the brand’s behavior.
2. Define your brand promise based on how you would like your brand to be perceived and what value you are committed to delivering to customers.
For example, Tesla strives for a perception that it is committed to sustainable energy. They are also committed to delivering eco-friendly vehicles without sacrificing innovation or performance.
3. Define your ideal customer using firmographic, demographic, or psychographic characteristics.
Start by listing the customer characteristics that connect to your brand. For B2B brands, define: Annual revenue. Location. Number of employees. Site traffic. For B2C or D2C brands, define: Age group. Social groups. Region. Motivations. Interests. Lifestyle. Opinions.
4. List where you expect to find your ideal customer.
For example: Which websites do they visit? What social media platforms do they use? What influencers do your ideal customers follow? What activities do they engage in?
5. Conduct a competitor analysis with 3-5 brands that offer similar products.
Start by reviewing pricing and product offering. Your analysis should also include an understanding of competitor websites and social media pages. Note brand positioning such as promise, product offering, and value statements, their visual identity such as usage of colors, fonts, and imagery, and messaging such as language, tone, and value statements.
6. Write a brand positioning statement using the information you have prepared on the brand promise, ideal customer profile, and competitor analysis.
Your brand positioning statement should capture what your brand does, how it does it, who it does it for, and how it does it differently than the competition.
7. Create a visual identity by working with your creative team to develop logos, typography, color palettes, and imagery.
These assets should utilize brand values, ideal customer insights, and your brand positioning statement.
8. Create brand messaging through a product marketing brief including information about your ideal customer, the problems they are looking to solve, and what communication they would like to receive.
You should also provide guidelines related to voice, tone, and personality. For example: Language used in external assets should be informal, friendly, and adventurous.
9. Create a content strategy describing the volume of content you will need and the topics you will cover.
It will also be important to plan out distribution. You should be able to answer: Who will support distribution. What communication channels will be used. When should communication be sent.