The three main things you will need to define for a successful brand strategy are
What is your brand’s objective?
Who are your customers?
How does your brand define long-term success?
However apart from the above there are other key components for you to consider that help you achieve success in your brand strategy.
1. Creative messaging
A brand’s success is attributed to having the right creative message and not just
being in the “right time” or “right place.”
2. Develop intuition
Execute the target market research. Next ask some questions to your customer persona such as :
What demographics does this person fall into?
Are they married with kids, what is their age, what is their gender, how old are they, etc.?
What is their educational background?
What career path are they on? Are they trying to get the top of the corporate ladder, or are they interested in being a small business owner?
What is their current job, and in what industry?
What does their typical day look like?
What skills do they need to be successful in a typical day?
What are their biggest daily challenges?
How do they define success?
Where do they get their news and information from?
Where do they prefer to shop?
What was their most recent purchase?
3. Understand the consumer journey
The next thing to understand about your ideal customer is where they are in the consumer journey. The consumer journey is a map that shows how a consumer is connecting with your brand at any given moment. It can range from “not connected at all” to “loyal brand advocate and repeat customer.”
Along the way are points like “interested in your product” or “interacting with you on social media” or “first-time buyer.” Understanding the consumer journey as it relates to your business will help you come up with a roadmap to move consumers along to the ultimate goal.
4. Where is your audience?
Finally, another very important thing with your market research is to know where your audience is, both physically and in the digital world as you need to know where they will be most likely to connect with you. Are they online shoppers who primarily hang out on Instagram, or are they people who want or need the experience of in-store shopping?
You also need to know where your audience physically lives because this can give you insight into your customers’ core values because it helps maintain cost efficiency in your marketing efforts.
Here are the types of research you should include during this process:
Focus groups.
Surveys and questionnaires.
Data synthesis.
5. Invest in creative brand guidelines
Next, it’s time to think about how you will deliver your message. This is where you’ll start to get creative with the logo design, the fonts you use on your website, the colours you choose to represent your brand, the general tone of your advertisements, the imagery you use and so on.
These are very important for creating a long-term recognizable brand. Once people have connected to your brand, they’re no longer considering your values because they know them. Now they’re just recognizing your brand’s colours and logo and font and instantly adding you to their basket. Ensure that these elements are chosen carefully and that they truly relate to your message.
As brands evolve over time, it’s important to set the creative guidelines before marketing execution. This allows you to ensure that even in the future, your branding will match your story.
6. Competitive analysis
Another thing that brands need to research before executing marketing strategy is the competition.
Competitive analysis helps you understand what specifically differentiates you from the competition, and that is something you’ll want to focus on in your marketing message.
If you attempt to execute your marketing first, you may end up saying the same thing as every other company out there, which doesn’t inspire the customer to shop from you over them.
7.Answer these questions to ask before launch or execution
These are seven questions every marketer should ask themselves about their brand before execution:
What makes our brand different? You must understand what makes you unique so that you can highlight why customers should choose you over the competition.
Is our brand a lifestyle? You need to understand how your brand fits into your customers’ lives. Understanding how your brand is a “lifestyle” will help you acquire customers in specific parts of their consumer journey.
Why does our brand exist? You must be able to boil everything about your brand down to a single purpose or problem to solve, in order to focus your marketing.
Who are we talking to? You need to know who your message is for in order to know how to connect with them emotionally.
How do we talk to them? The next thing you need to know is how your brand communicates. This includes everything from how you use social media to the tone of your marketing messages. This is the outward expression of your brand’s purpose, and it will give the customers their first impression of who you are.
Where are our time and money best invested? You need to know what marketing channels are the best for you, based on where your audience is and how they prefer to connect with you.
What is our brand story? Finally, remember that story is everything in marketing. You must be able to tell a story from the beginning to the end that shows how your brand changes something for the consumer along the way.
8. Ask why some brands fail?
The top five reasons some brands often fail at their brand strategy are:
Lack of long-term vision.
Not solidifying the brand identity and message.
Inconsistent creative.
Not understanding their ideal customer.
Product-to-market fit that is now outdated or never hit the mark.
Branding has to do with focusing your vision on an experience
Summary:
The most important takeaways about brand strategy iare:
Research and understand your customer.
Know what your brand stands for, and what your brand’s story is.
Build your marketing techniques from the first two things before you ever begin executing marketing campaigns.
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