Having a well-structured strategy when planning a brand is a fundamental step toward achieving success.
Essential for differentiating your business from the competition, defining a good strategy strengthens your brand’s connection with customers. It is an efficient and practical way to increase profitability.
Check out our article to understand what a brand strategy is, how to develop yours, and the main differences between it and marketing in general.
What is brand strategy?
In short, brand strategy is long-term planning to ensure that a brand succeeds in achieving its goals.
This plan includes all the processes, activities, and ideas that enable the brand to add value to its products and services, as well as satisfying its audience in a unique way.
To achieve this goal, the strategy needs to be very well thought out and coordinated so that it can be executed over the long term.
The first thing needed to achieve success with this approach is to have a purpose, a goal that the company wants to achieve.
The next is to maintain consistency, repeating its value promise in various ways, so that the audience identifies these ideas and associates them with the brand.
It is important for the brand to communicate in a way that generates emotion in its audience, so that it can then build customer loyalty.
Making consumers feel part of this construction is also a key factor in brand strategies.
What are the objectives of a brand strategy?
The purpose of a brand strategy is to generate value by differentiating yourself from the competition.
This means that your company must have a clear message and your audience must know what to expect when purchasing a solution from your business.
Another objective is to attract the audience desired by the company. Your brand needs to be understood, and the market must know what to expect from it.
This way, the business can count on a higher return on the investment made in its brand strategy.
Why is it important to define a good brand strategy?
Check out some of the most relevant benefits that a good strategy can generate for your brand.
Keep your goals in focus
Building a brand strategy helps clarify the company’s objectives and guide the actions needed to achieve them.
This serves as a guide for all sectors of the company, as it will only work if the business truly lives and breathes this strategy.
Improves communication with customers
Communication with customers becomes clearer when the brand strategy is applied to marketing and sales.
Retains talent and helps attract new talent
When the team is involved in your brand strategy, it is common for employees to believe in that purpose and work toward the same ideal.
This is an indirect way to reduce turnover in your company. In addition, presenting your company’s ideals well and following them is a way to attract new talent who identify with your strategy.
Is there a difference between brand strategy and marketing?
Although many people use the terms marketing and brand strategy interchangeably, it is important to recognize that there are differences between them.
Brand strategy is the set of actions that a business implements to create and maintain a strong and unique image for its brand.
Marketing strategy is the set of tactics aimed exclusively at promoting products and services.
Therefore, the main difference between these two concepts is their focus: one aims at image and the other aims at sales. The scope of the two strategies is also different.
Marketing is limited to advertising and promotion actions, while brand strategy will cover all elements of a company’s communication, from the packaging of its products to the communication of its employees and the customer experience.
The 6 components of brand strategy:
Understand the six key components of a brand strategy.
- Consistency: it is essential to maintain consistency in all stages of the message and strategy, regardless of the platform. Everything needs to happen with planning and harmony, from colors to the tone of the brand’s voice.
- Purpose: it is essential to find the reason why you are in this business. Then, you will need to convey this purpose to your team and consumers. Generating profit is not your only goal; identify a greater cause and your brand will be able to generate more empathy.
- Flexibility: strategies offer the flexibility needed to adjust to the needs of the target audience. This means that if what was used before no longer works, it is possible to identify this and change the approach.
- Emotion: it is common for people to trust their emotions rather than use logical thinking. Therefore, companies can choose to appeal through feelings and emotions. Presenting similar ideas is a way to get closer to people and build positive relationships.
- Loyalty: it is important for brands to reward customers who have shown dedication. After all, loyalty is a two-way street. Ensuring this is fundamental to a brand strategy, as feedback, comments, and recommendations are valuable actions.
- Competitive awareness: knowing your competitors and the methods they use is important for your business. This assessment can help you understand strategies that have worked or failed, as well as help you find the right place for your brand.
How to build a brand strategy
Identify your mission, vision, and values
For a brand to be recognized, it needs to have a set of principles that guide its actions in the market.
Defining your business’s mission, vision, and values will help your brand win customers and encourage them to remain loyal to your company.
It is also important to take action to show this set of values to your audience by creating statements that express them.
Define the essence of the brand
The essence of your brand consists of: voice, tone, and personality. To define your brand’s “personality,” you will need to look for human characteristics for your brand.
There are several paths to take; brands can be sophisticated, luxurious, exciting, cool, fun, or friendly.
However, it is important that this personality directly reflects your company’s values, mission, and vision.
After that, find your brand’s voice. The way your business will communicate with consumers.
Finally, define the tone that will convey your attitude towards customers, adapting your message to convey all this information.
Use visual aids
A common factor among most customers is making visual associations when they think of a brand.
Defining a visual identity is important to reinforce this idea. This identity consists of a logo, colors, fonts, and visual resources.
These unique resources will be the graphic representation of your brand and differentiate it from competitors.
Creating a striking visual identity will help generate a good impression and emotional connection with your customers.
Set guidelines
Define the rules that will be applied when creating content. This is essential for brands that work with freelancers and advertising agencies.
With these guidelines, it will be easier to understand your goals, adapt the way you create content, and reach your target audience.
Learn brand strategy from those with experience
If you are interested in learning more about brand strategies for digital channels, consider learning from those who already have experience.
The Brand Strategy on Instagram course was developed by Argentine marketing strategist Julieta Tello, who has achieved great results with her brand and become a digital influencer on the network.
The material teaches you step by step how to create a successful strategy on Instagram, managing a professional profile and generating measurable goals.
The course includes a final project that involves writing your biography, using hashtags relevant to your niche, and creating nine posts with impactful visual content and storytelling.
Main topics:
- How to use Instagram
- Brand positioning strategy
- How to use Instagram Stories to connect and convert
- Understanding your statistics
- Instagram Ads
Ready to create a brand strategy?
We hope our article has helped you understand what a brand strategy is, its importance for a business, and the basic steps for creating one.