What do you aspire for your brand?
What impact are you aiming for to benefit your clients?
A strong, well differentiated brand will make growing your business much easier. But have you clearly defined your vision? What impact are you addressing? How are you going to grow organically? We must begin with your overall long-term brand strategy, which is the context for your brand development strategy. If you are clear about where you want to take your firm, your brand will help you get there.
We can help you articulate that vision and align the development process to it, from big picture to the design minusiae.
Who are your target clients? Spoiler alert, “everybody” is not part of the multiple choice. High growth, high profit companies focus on having clearly defined target clients. The narrower the focus, the faster the growth. The more diverse the target audience, the more diluted your marketing efforts will be. So how do you know if you have chosen the right target client group?
We can help identify this group through a process suitable for the size of your company.
Long-lasting brands know their client base and target audience through direct feedback and research.
Research helps you understand your target client’s perspective and priorities, anticipate their needs and put your message in language that resonates with them. Too many brands make the mistake of telling their audience how they should feel, rather than listen to feedback that the brand can use to better serve their customers. The more you know, the lower the marketing risk.
Great, you’re now ready to determine your company’s brand positioning within your vertical’s marketplace. Simply put, why does your business matter? What do you provide that’s more valuable than what your competitors offer?
A positioning statement is typically three to five sentences in length and captures the essence of your brand positioning. It must be simple and achieveable – you’re going to be held accountable. Although it’s achieveable, it must be aspirational and speak to the larger purpose behind your brand.
Your messaging strategy translates your brand positioning into a clear communication to your dream audience. Think of it as your elevator pitch, tailored to your various target market segments. Your target audiences typically include potential clients, potential employees, referral sources or other influencers and potential partnering opportunities.
A strong messaging strategy addresses the concerns and interest of each of these segments.
Your brand identity is the visual and verbal expression of your brand. If you as a person had a brand, it would include your clothes, mannerisms, hairstyle, vocabulary and everything else that makes you distinguishable as an individual. Therefore, your brand identity comprises of:
- Company name
- Logo
- Tagline
- Color Palette
- Typography
- Graphical Elements
- Imagery
- Voice
A brand identity addresses the need for nuanced and persuasive emotional connection with a your target audience.
You’ve heard it before: Content is King. But why?
Brand strength is driven by both reputation and visibility. Increasing visibility alone dilutes your efforts. That’s why “awareness-building” advertising or sponsorships often yield unsuccessful results. Content marketing, however, increases both visibility and reputation at the same time. It is a powerful way to make your brand relevant to your target audiences by offering value.
A marketing toolkit provides you with a structure for consistent, brand-building essentials. This might include a one-page sales sheet that describes core services offerings or key markets served. In addition, there may be a brief pitch deck that overviews your brand’s key offerings and an (e-)brochure about your company.
Videos are becoming increasingly ubiquitous within the marketing toolkit. These tools seamlessly merge the marketing and sales process and allows for organic growth when loyal customers and partners share this information.
Implement, Review, Adjust. Then Repeat.
A winning brand development strategy doesn’t do much good if it is never implemented. Too many business fail to act on their new, shiny strategy. People get busy, bite-sized action plans can wait until tomorrow, and before you know it the strategy has rusted.
This is why tracking is so important. Successful businesses track the strategy, implementation and results – constantly. Did the strategy get implemented as planned? What happened with the objective measures, such as search traffic and web visitors? How many new leads, employee applications and partnering opportunities were generated? Not knowing can mean a lot of missed opportunities.
