How to Create a Brand Strategy? A Quick Guide

How to create a brand strategy is something every business owner must be very aware of these days, because branding is the shortest way in the path of building a huge customer base and attracting an audience as well as leads.

However, creating a brand strategy isn’t a science, so there aren’t set rules, and plenty of it is similar to a charismatic personality. In other words, there aren’t hard facts as to what creates a charismatic person, you have to follow the lead of one. Similarly, when it comes to branding, you should aspire to succeed at what the established brand strategies do.

In this article, we’ll delve into all the elements included in a successful branding strategy. This includes the name, logo, colors, vision, message, positioning, shapes, graphics, and sounds related to the brand.

How to Create a Brand Strategy

When it comes to developing a strategy for your branding, there are a couple of factors that you have to consider to make it successful. To break it down, you should be able to answer the six basic questions: why, who, where, what, how, and when.

The Why

No product or service ever succeeded without the owner believing fully in the necessity of its existence and in the idea itself. While it may seem tempting to just go with what sells, if you’re not passionate about your product or service,  you can’t expect anyone else to be.

Not only is it important to know this, but it’s as important to convey it to your target audience by explaining your brand mission, and how you intend to achieve it.

Make sure that you answer the obvious questions any customer would have in mind: what do you do? And why should they choose you over the competition?

The Who

Another cornerstone in the creation of your branding strategy is knowing who your customers are. You can learn so much about your own brand from the patterns of your customers. Not to mention, when you analyze your long-term customers, you can narrow the scope of your targeted campaigns to suit multiple groups.

You can start by creating the basic groups using psychographic segmentation. This involves dividing customers according to personality, values, beliefs, lifestyle, attitudes, interests, social class.

It’s not only the “who” of the customer that matters but also of the competitors. And that’s why running competitor research and analysis is important. This includes researching how their service or product is similar to yours, what they’re doing differently, what keywords they’re targeting, how they interact with their customer base and other relevant information.

This helps you improve on what you have, and fill any gaps that could be driving customers to the competition and away from your business.

The Where

This question involves your brand positioning. In other words, you want to know where your business stands in the market and decide where you want to go.

Where do you find yourself compared to other competitors? Who is the cheapest? And who is the most expensive? In what ways do target markets overlap?

Brand positioning involves deciding on the reputation you want to build for your product or service, be it that it’s the top choice, the most affordable, or the most value for the price. The important thing is to choose a core value and stick to it in order to build a reputation. Naturally, this happens over years, and that’s why sticking to the core value is crucial.

However, it’s quite important not to mix up brand positioning with brand strategy, as positioning is only a part of what the strategy comprises.

The What

Having a story to tell regarding how your business started, why it started, and how strongly you believe in its mission is also important when we’re talking about how to create a branding strategy.

You should let your customers know what matters to you and to your business. For example, if you’re eco-friendly and your products are vegan with no harm inflicted upon animals, make sure to make it known to your customers and leads.

If your company focuses on helping minorities in some way, make sure to include that in your story, and also why you adopt the cause that you are.

This helps your target audience understand you and your company better, making them believe that you’re reliable and honest. In other words, this is how you build a trustworthy reputation that attracts more customers in the long run.

The How

How your customers and leads interact with your business is also an important part of your branding strategy. For example, certain age groups are known to use some social media platforms more than others, and that’s why it’s important to know the personas of your customers as well as to know where you can reach out to them.

Various channels include websites, blogs, emails, word of mouth, networking vents, direct mail, brochures, eBooks, social media platforms, podcasts, interviews, case studies, PR, videos, and ads.

Moreover, your “how” should involve thinking about the messages in your ads and how they would affect your targeted audience. Think about the tone of voice, your brand identity, and your brand vision.

You should send a message that is brief, sends the point across to your audience, makes your product or service appealing, and encapsulates the identity you’re trying to build for your brand.

Also, there are some strategies that work wonders for branding, like brand endorsement by a relevant figure.

The When

Finally, knowing when to go public with a marketing campaign, ads, or promotions is quite important when it comes to your branding strategy. 

The timing you choose for various offers can really help drive more traffic to your social media platforms, and it takes some trial and error when it comes to accurately predict  when certain actions will be most effective.

And of course, analyzing customer interaction with your brand and extracting trends will provide excellent insight into the most appropriate timings. So, make sure you dedicate plenty of resources to these types of analytics.