4 Ways Your Business Can Benefit From a Brand Strategy
Over the course of my career in advertising & branding, I’ve been surprised to meet many founders that either A) don’t know what a brand strategy is or B) know what a brand strategy is but have never prioritized creating one. If you’re a founder that falls into one of these categories, then this article is for you!
What is a brand strategy? A brand strategy is a formal document that outlines your business & brand vision, target audience, brand positioning, and creative strategy (messaging + visual direction). Think of it as your brand’s north star — it’s an important document to refer to when making business decisions, partnering with creative talent, and so on to ensure everything you do is guiding you towards the brand you’re wanting to build. While the specifics in a brand strategy may vary, its purpose is one in the same — to help businesses keep a specific and targeted mindset on their brand’s trajectory.
In my Refined & Aligned Brand Consulting, I include a brand strategy for every client at the beginning of our time together. I find that it is essential to both my work as a creative director & the success of my clients’ businesses when a focused brand strategy is developed from the get go — I take the time to dive in to my client’s unique brand and business so that we can authentically tell their story and craft a brand that is an accurate representation of who they are and what they stand for. That way, I am able to truly help them position their businesses as a premium brand and truly communicate their value, instead of someone who helps them only craft a beautiful brand from the outside. What’s a beautiful brand, after all, if it isn’t effective?
From my experience developing successful brands for businesses in all stages of growth, I’ve learned that there are a multitude of benefits that come from having a clear, focused brand strategy. Here are 4 ways your business can benefit from one:
1. A brand strategy can help your business find & refine its voice.
One of the biggest mistakes I see in branding (especially small business branding) is the lack of a clear and consistent brand voice. Say you’re a photographer that specializes in fine art wedding photography. If the photography that you post on Instagram is elegant and refined, yet your captions are a little too casual and unsophisticated, then it starts to create a dissonance in your brand that your followers will notice.
Do you find yourself struggling to refine and develop your brand’s voice? A brand strategy can help your business realize it’s voice and keep it consistent through all of your brand channels. In the brand strategy that I develop with my clients, we generate a list of “voice keywords” that help my clients stay aligned when they are crafting their brand copy, as well as every time they interact with others. A brand strategy can help your business focus on a purposeful expression that resembles who you are and what your business is all about.
2. A brand strategy can help your business attract your ideal customers or clients.
A former client of mine (who is an interior designer) came to me with the struggle of not being able to attract her ideal client. Although she knew who she wanted to design for, she didn’t know exactly how to attract those type of clients. At the time, she was taking any jobs that came her way, and although she made good money from those clients, she wasn’t particularly satisfied with the work she was doing because it just didn’t feel aligned. We worked together to help her create and implement her own brand strategy focused around attracting her dream client, and guess what? She started to get more aligned leads wanting to work with her than at any prior point in her career.
What about a brand strategy made such a drastic change her business? A key part of brand strategy development is conducting in-depth analysis of a business’s dream target market, and in her brand strategy, we put an extra focus on her target market’s ideal values. Why? Because people prefer to associate themselves with others that share their same values… and that includes businesses. Having a brand strategy that really nails down who your target market is can help your business attract (and keep) your ideal customers / clients.
3. A brand strategy can help your business stand out in a saturated market and position itself as a premium brand.
Being the founder of your own company can be overwhelming. Add a highly saturated market on top of that, and it can seem unbearable. But with a strong brand strategy in place, 1) it can be done and 2) you can still be successful (think: abundance mindset!). A natural instinct when trying to navigate a highly saturated industry may be to copy what other successful businesses are doing, but copying other businesses’ brand tactics does absolutely nothing for your own success. If anything, it undermines your own unique value you bring to your market.
A clear brand strategy should focus on at least one unique aspect of your business (if not more), and pinpoint ways you can really make that unique aspect shine. With my consulting clients, we work together to develop a detailed plan of how they are going to lean into their unique qualities to help them stand out among their competition and gain an authentic following. It’s so much easier to cut through the noise and rise to the forefront of your competitors with a brand strategy like this in place!
4. A brand strategy can help you business have a consistent visual look and feel.
Lastly, what’s strategy without visualization? It’s important to take all of the aspects of brand voice, target market, and your unique brand qualities and turn that into the visual brand identity of your business. In the brand strategies that I develop with my clients, we create a visual inspiration moodboard of how their brands should look and feel. I like to utilize typography, texture, color, photography, etc., to craft a curated moodboard that encompasses all that their brand represents. From there, my client can use that moodboard as a reference to hiring creative freelancers, agencies, or employees, curating their Instagram feed, taking new product photography for their upcoming line, or adding new content to their blogs.
Looking to create (or elevate) your brand’s strategy?
Learn more about how I help my clients develop their brand strategies (and more!) below:
