Every company needs to have a brand strategy in place for their brand.
Your brand strategy refers to your brand identity, which differentiates you from your competitors. It is where your brand is due do develop as your business develops.
Your brand strategy is part of a business plan that outlines how the company will build rapport and favourability within the market.
The goal of a brand strategy is to become memorable in the eyes of the consumer so that they decide to patronize your business over the competition.
It involves creating an image or brand message that resonates with customers, builds trust and loyalty, and drives brand recognition.
This is not only needed for the long term goal of the marketing, but also in the short term.
Talking to branding specialists is a good option, to get a feel for how your industry will react.
These are all questions that any company needs to ask themselves before getting a brand in place, as you want it to go places instead of just sit there.
The first thing to do is to sit down and think, what do I want to achieve from creating the brand strategy.
The heart of success in this is not just the logo, the song on the TV advert or the marketing slogan, but the whole marketing campaign.
While understanding what your business promises is necessary when defining your brand positioning, knowing why you wake up every day and go to work carries more weight.
In other words, your purpose is more specific in that it serves as a differentiator between you and your competitors.
Consider some of the successful brands that we know of today:
The change was quite obvious in the McDonald’s campaign, going from the Ronald McDonald image to the clean fresh ‘I’m lovin it’ campaign. This involved changing all the adverts, the logos and theme tune and the whole image.
It then diversified and mutated as part of the journey the company (the advertising company) was taking us on from the old brand to the one we know today.
Chances are there was a different brandingcompany behind the switch; but it did turn an old brand that had a bad image into something new.
The company is still the same producing the same product (generally speaking) but the brand is certainly different.
You can bet that there was planning, market research and brand strategy well before the McDonalds campaign was launched and appeared on our TV’s.
Brand strategies can also adapt, as we saw McDonalds branding change from Ronald McDonald to a greener more healthy brand.
When defining your business’ purpose, keep this example in mind. While making money is a priority, operating under that notion alone does little to set your brand apart from others in your industry.
Before you get things set up and running, it is important to do your research. To see how the market is and what it will say should give you a feel for what will work and what will not work.
Bad research means that things flops and the money invested is all for naught.
This is the point where using a market research company becomes necessary. To see what the target audience are looking for, what your competitors are doing and how to create something winning and unique.
The key to consistency to keeping focused on your brand and avoid talking about topics that do not relate to your brand.
For example, if your a food business, stick to the topic of food rather than going off on a tangent. If you a furniture company, stick to the furniture and where the furniture is found, i.e the home.
Social media is a powerful vehicle for communicating a brands vision and playing out that vision. Your audience will see your pictures on Facebook or hear your theme on Tik Tok.
To give your brand a platform to stand on, you need to ensure your messaging is cohesive. Ultimately, consistency contributes to brand recognition, which fuels customer loyalty.
A good example of consistency is Coca Cola. They have remained a market leader in the soft drinks industry purely because they have remained consistent with their brand.
Every restaurant needs to offer two things, water and Coca Cola. You can get a can from a top restaurant in London to a bar on a distant beach in the Maldives.
The success is determined by the results it produces. For branding companies, half the battle is in the planning and the research.
This is why if you are choosing a nice car, you may well be swayed by a mid level Rolls Royce over a top end Mercedes due to the emotion you experience at the thought of driving around in a brand new Rolls Royce.
The next part of the branding strategy is the positioning and implementation of the campaign. This could be in the marketing campaign, the TV adverts or on internet advertising.
Choosing a marketing company to manage your branding can be a challenge. The truth is that there are hundreds of branding companies around the UK, but are they all able to take your brand from nothing to become a world leader?
If you choose the top result from a Google search, does this make them the best branding company, since they are at the top they have to be?
If you compare quotes, do you go with the most expensive, because you do get what you pay for?
The answer to all these is no, you do need to find the ‘right’ branding company for your brand.
A number of factors come in to play, involving industry experience, design experience and chemistry.
Just fill in the form and let us help you find the right branding company to further your brand’s strategy.