I’ve written a lot of articles about branding and that is because branding is very important for business growth. In this article you are going to learn what brand strategy is so that you can move from visual branding, connect with the audience you are trying to attract and gain advantage over 99% of other brands you are happy with the logo.
What is Branding?
When most people hear the word “Branding” they think of the word “Logo”. Reason is that there is a lot of misinformation about what branding is. Part of the reason is that it doesn’t take much to start a business today. If you think about what life is about in the 80”s for entrepreneurs to start a business it was a much different environment than it is today. Today there is no prerequisite for anybody to start a business. There are a lot of people starting businesses with little knowledge about branding. They assume that branding is all about a logo and they go about in search of branding services and they are plenty of designers out there meeting those needs and offering branding services in the form of logo designs. Brand is the perception of a business of a person (not a logo). Branding is the expression of the brand. A brand identity is the visual expression of the brand and a brand strategy is the plan for the brand expression.
What is Brand Strategy?
Brand strategy is a plan to help brands or businesses develop their personalities which that will include knowing who they are, and developing that personality so that it will be attractive to their ideal clients and then also knowing who their ideal client is and how to communicate what they need to the ideal clients. The strategy is a plan to influence the audience’s perception through brand expression.
How does a brand express itself?
The visual identity is part of the brand expression but it is only the visual aspect. If you think about when human interact with each other and connect with each other, as humans we have our visuals appearance, how we dress, what clothe we wear, what shoe we wear, and the style of the clothes we wear, that says a lot about us and how we hold ourselves, our personalities. But it doesn’t really tell us much about the person. Until they open their mouth and start talking to you and expressing, it means other than visuals can you really get a feel of who they are? What other forms of expression do we have as people other than our visual appeal?
We’ve got our personality, tone of voice, what we say, the way we say things, the way we deliver things, we have what is unique about us, what we feel, what we believe, what our values are, what our opinions and ideas are, what our philosophies are. These are all the things that make up who we are as people and as individuals. That is how we connect with other people.
There’s an old saying “that you never get a second chance to make a first impression” and most business owners approach branding in the same way. They put all of their effort into that first impression (how the brand looks) and they have nothing beyond that. Branding is about far more about the first impression that is where strategy comes in.
Brand Strategy Elements Are Human
Another best way to understand brand strategy is to think of your brand as a human. Yes, it is very important that your brand looks good but imagine you went to a networking event to build relationships with other people and you dressed the part you turn up to that event but you didn’t have anything else other than how you look good. You didn’t have a good personality; you didn’t have a unique tone of voice or unique opinions or way to connect with those other people. That’s what most brands do. They do not have any strategy, no understanding of who their audience is, what their needs are, how to connect with them, that is what brand strategy is all about. It goes beyond the looks and it actually makes connection with who the audience is.
What’s included in a Brand Strategy?
Internal Brand: This is the core and soul of a brand; the beliefs, vision and mission, values, audience persona, competitive analysis, positioning strategy, human brand persona, communication strategy, and visual appearance.
How to Build a Brand Strategy?
Know Your Audience
This is the key to any brand, knowing who that audience is. No brand exists without their audience. Everything revolves around that audience, who they are and what they want. You need to know who your audience is, know what they want and that needs to be crystal clear for your brand.
Be More Relevant
You have something that your audience needs, that is great but so do many other brands. You need to clearly distinguish why your brand is different, why your audience should choose your brand over the next competitors and being more relevant is a great way to do that. If you are able to be more relevant to who they are and what they need then you stand out in the market.
Be More Human
As human we connect with other humans on a human levels through characteristics, tone of voices, personalities, opinions and this is really important in modern branding. We do not connect with corporate entities, we connect with humans. Make sure your brand has a human element to a human persona, and you deliver your messages with humanity.
If you build your brand with these three core fundamental principles at the core, which is how you influence perceptions and that is how you grow brand with strategy.
Thank you❤
Good one