What Is Brand Strategy and Why Does My Business Need One?
With 1 in 5 small businesses failing within their first year and only half surviving beyond five years, it’s clear that success requires more than just a great idea. What, then, sets successful businesses apart?
True differentiation begins with embedding deep, meaningful values into every aspect of your brand, carving out a unique position in the market. This is where brand strategy comes in. It’s your blueprint for building a distinctive identity that resonates deeply with customers.
In this article, we’ll explore brand strategy, define its key elements, and discover why your business desperately needs one.
What Is Brand Strategy?
Brand strategy infuses a business with a unique personality and deeper significance, making it different, memorable, and attractive to its audience. A brand strategy is most often created by a brand strategist. This person deeply considers the business and maps out a detailed plan that ultimately defines how the business should position itself to stand apart in a crowded marketplace.
What’s An Example of Brand Strategy?
Imagine you’re planning to open a specialty coffee shop in a bustling city known for its trendy population. You want a plan to create the right visual identity and ensure it appeals to your audience, so you hire a brand strategist…
The brand strategist starts by identifying what makes your coffee shop unique. Perhaps it’s your commitment to ethically sourcing coffee beans or your focus on creating a space for coffee lovers.
The strategist then considers how to communicate this uniqueness to appeal to your coffee shop’s target audience. They might decide that your coffee shop should attract hip coffee connoisseurs who appreciate rare coffee beans. This could be achieved by sharing the origin stories of your coffee beans and the people who grow them.
Finally, the brand strategist develops a positioning strategy that differentiates your coffee shop from nearby cafes, highlighting the key features that distinguish it from the competition.
But that’s a rather simplistic way to describe brand strategy.
So let’s deepen our knowledge about brand strategy by exploring its core elements. We’ll continue using our fictional coffee shop as an example to illustrate how each element works to enhance your business.
What Are The Core Elements of Brand Strategy?
Brand strategy isn’t a perfect science. That’s because every business is different, meaning every brand strategy is different. Still, certain elements are rarely left out of a brand strategy:
- Competition
- Target audience
- Values and Purpose
- Vision and Mission
- Messaging
- Positioning
1. Competition
You must identify who your main competitors are. To do so, you have to ask the right questions:
- Who sells similar products or services?
- What are they doing right? And wrong?
- What are the gaps we can exploit?
- What is their overall message?
By understanding the competitive landscape, you can better understand what will make your business different.
For example:
If other coffee shops in your area buy their beans already roasted, consider investing in your own roaster. This move can differentiate your coffee shop and appeal to customers who value the unique taste of freshly roasted beans.
2. Target Audience
Knowing who you will be selling to is an essential part of your brand strategy. You need to figure out who your products or services are for. Along with general demographics, you need to answer these types of questions:
- What are their needs and desires?
- How do we make our customers’ lives easier?
- Where do we reach them?
- Why are they interested in what we have?
For example:
Suppose your coffee shop sells rare, premium coffee beans ethically sourced from remote farms. In that case, you might target knowledgeable consumers who value high-quality coffee and are willing to pay more for a unique experience.
3. Values and Purpose
Your brand values serve as the guiding principles that define the very essence of your business. They shape your identity and help set you apart from the competition.
Your values are intertwined with your purpose, which can easily be called the reason why your business exists beyond financial gains. While you can usually encapsulate your brand values into single words or phrases, your purpose is typically a one or two-sentence statement.
For example:
If your coffee shop values fair trade, mindful moments, and craftsmanship, you could have the following purpose statement:
“We are committed to ethically sourcing the finest coffee from around the globe, celebrating the artistry of the farmers, and creating moments of reflection with every cup we serve.”
4. Vision and Mission
Your vision acts as a compass, providing a clear direction that keeps you focused as your business grows. Think of it as envisioning what success looks like. A good question to ask is: where do you see yourself in the next five years?
Aligned closely with your vision, your mission outlines the practical steps needed to bring your vision to life. It functions as the engine powering your journey, driving you toward your envisioned future with purposeful actions that ensure your efforts are coordinated and effective.
For example:
Your coffee shop’s vision:
“To be recognized as one of the top five coffee shops in the city by Coffee Enthusiasts Weekly, celebrated not just for our exceptional coffee but also for our commitment to fair trade and craftsmanship.”
And its mission:
“To source the finest fair-trade beans, perfect our craft with each cup, and foster a tranquil space where every visit refreshes the spirit.”
5. Messaging
Messaging, also referred to as key messaging, is the overarching idea you want to place in your customers’ minds about your business. And though “controlling” what people think is extremely difficult, having a messaging strategy is the best way to somewhat “influence” how people perceive your business. Consider it the central theme you aim to convey through your content, website, marketing effort, and more.
For example:
Your coffee shop might want to communicate this idea: “Where coffee lovers and connoisseurs find their perfect pour.”
6. Positioning
Positioning is crucial in brand strategy because it defines how your brand uniquely fits into the market landscape, distinct from your competitors. A well-crafted positioning strategy allows your brand to carve out a niche that speaks directly to your target audience’s preferences, which reduces the need for direct competition.
By integrating insights gained from analyzing your competitors, understanding your target audience, aligning your brand values, purpose, vision, mission, and messaging, you can establish a positioning that makes your brand different.
For example:
“Our coffee shop will position itself in the market as the sole local roaster dedicated to the true aficionado. We offer not just coffee. We offer an experience – a unique space where coffee lovers and connoisseurs can pause, reflect, and savor expertly crafted brews. Here, every visit is an opportunity to deepen your appreciation for artisan coffee in an environment that values quality and community.”
Why Does My Business Need A Brand Strategy?
Think of a brand strategy as your secret weapon for your business. It’s all about setting the stage for how you want to be seen in a crowded marketplace. When you nail your brand strategy, you’re not just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. You’re crafting a unique identity that really speaks to your ideal customers.
Get to Know Your Customers:
It’s not just about knowing who your customers are but really understanding them. This insight guides every decision you make, ensuring your brand connects directly with the people most likely to buy from you.
Craft Your Unique Look:
With a brand strategy, you can create a visual identity that resonates with your target audience. That means your logo, color palette, typography, and imagery are strategically aligned with your business’s core values and messaging.
Stake Your Claim:
Your brand strategy helps you carve out your own special spot in the market. It’s about figuring out how to position yourself so that when your ideal customer is looking for what you offer, you’re who they’ll think about.
Drive Your Marketing:
Just like a business plan guides your business decisions, your brand strategy empowers your marketing effort. It aligns all your marketing moves with your brand’s core identity, ensuring your message is consistent and hits the mark every time.
Last Thoughts
A brand strategy allows you to plan how your business will be perceived by people and where it will live in a crowded market. It’s what makes you different and helps you find your ideal customers. It also maximizes your business’s chances to grow into a recognizable entity that people can relate to. In short, investing in brand strategy is one of the smartest moves you can make for your business’s future.
Do you want help to create a brand strategy to stand apart?
Moon Studio loves to help small businesses create a strong foundation to help them build a lasting brand.
