This guest post on The Marketing Sage Blog is from Gia Keasler who writes about marketing issues including stories on attracting investors for startups.
For business professionals who don’t work in marketing, a primer about building a brand can be helpful. Your brand can be your business’s greatest asset. It helps direct your marketing campaign, from targeting your customers to promotional graphics you will use. Without it, you may find it challenging for your venture to thrive. An effective brand strategy is like a roadmap to help you get to your desired destination. How can you develop an effective brand strategy for the long term?
Here are the seven basic steps in developing an effective brand strategy for your business.
Consider Your Business Goals
There is no denying that robust branding can make your business grow. Hence, Studio Marque recommends that you anchor your branding strategy with your business goals.
Ask yourself these questions:
- What kind of business would I like to be?
- How do I plan to make my business grow?
- What message would I want to get across?
- How can I do it?
- To whom should I send that message?
- Am I looking to run my business for decades, or grow and sell it?
If you are clear about what you want to achieve for your business, you can identify what branding strategies and steps you need to take. The business strategy and goals come first; the branding and marketing strategies support it.
Identify Your Market
Before developing a brand strategy, you should identify your target market first. After all, whatever you do should resonate with them. Think about being “of a target audience,” not just marketing to a target audience, and keep your market narrow and specific. As Jeff has written about at The Marketing Sage, think about a narrow and specific target.
Consider this simple example: If your target market is women aged 45 years and older, would choosing pastel colors as your branding color resonate with them? As you dig deeper into your target, what problem is your brand trying to solve for this audience? How can you resonate with them visually? Can you narrow and subdivide women aged 45 so that it is a smaller and more discreet group? For example, women aged 45 live in suburban areas, with active children in their school and community. Be more specific helps with identifying your market.
Determine Your Brand Positioning
Once you know your target market, the next step is to determine your brand positioning. It is as simple as identifying your business’s unique selling proposition. For instance, you run a business coaching business. How would you position your brand? What makes you different from other coaches to the audience you want to serve?
What is brand positioning? Defined as the space a company owns in the mind of a customer and how it differentiates itself from competitors, brand positioning is a marketing strategy that helps businesses set themselves apart.
Perhaps you want to coach aspiring mompreneurs or female business owners in the health and wellness sector (i.e., yoga instructors). Becoming the coach of mompreneurs is narrow – and more accessible to target than being a coach for everyone or even a woman. There are riches in the niches.
Develop Your Messaging
Now that you know what message you would like to convey and to whom, you should think of ways to get it across. If you want to reach mompreneurs looking for coaches, what can you say to them and, where can you say it?
Consider the channels you will use:
- Website
- Social media
- Influencer
- Paid online ads
You should also consider the marketing format like text, images, and videos. But most importantly, ensure that your marketing copies reflect the message that you would like to convey. How can a consumer always recognize a message as coming from your brand – and not the competition? The visual construct of the brand can help you tell a consistent story. If you position your brand as the experienced mompreneur coach guiding new mompreneurs – make sure you have a compelling and consistent way to speak to them. Give them visual and verbal queues so they’ll recognize your brand on whatever platforms you use. Use the language that mompreneurs use to reach them. Don’t communicate like you are marketing to them, communicate as if you are one of them and are sharing helpful information.
Create Your Brand Identity Standards
When developing your marketing message, you should also keep your brand identity in mind. This includes your logo and tagline. It is vital to have brand standards so that you have consistency in all communications. You should design a logo that best reflects what your business is all about. Your business tagline should summarize your mission.
You must build branding standards. And your guide must have the following:
- Logo and its variations
- Typography
- Patterns for marketing collateral
- Design-templates
- Examples of how to use and not to use visual assets
- Brand Voice
Doing so ensures that whatever you put out will have a consistent identity. It is like making it easy for your target market to recognize your content, thanks to your branding colors, fonts, and logo.
Build a Robust Content Marketing Strategy
Content is like a glue that ties everything. Hence, it makes sense to include content marketing strategy building in the list. Think of content marketing as answering questions through storytelling. It is also a way to entice potential customers who want to learn more.
Wherever you produce for public consumption is content. Your blog post, podcast, Facebook status, IG story, email, and more are content. They all help you build awareness around your brand, it can attract your market’s attention, and it can compel them to act.
Jeff Slater, from The Marketing Sage, has written over 1400 pieces of content on marketing over the last decade. Think about how his writing has helped attract opportunities for his consulting business. The best part? Building a content marketing strategy is like developing your branding strategy.
You need to identify your target market, determine the message you want to convey, and how you can get it across. Hence, you can tie in your content marketing strategy with branding.
Launch Your Website
These days, not having an online presence is doing your business a disservice. In addition, you will need a place where you can house all your marketing message and content. The website is also where you will redirect earned and paid media and traffic. Be crystal clear about what job you want your website to do for your business. Is about awareness, lead generation, e-commerce? Remember that average visits to a website are typically under two minutes, so get to the point. Be clear. Be concise. Be helpful.
But why have a website when a Facebook page is fine? Should Facebook close shop or kick you off their site, this can obliterate your connections and the content you publish. Having a website allows you to back up your content to keep the relationships you built.
Business Strategies Can Change
Of course, no business strategy is permanent. Markets change, competitors come and go, and you may need to readjust your brand strategy to fit the realities of today’s marketplace. That’s why you should track your branding strategy and adjust it when needed. Doing so will ensure that your business will grow and thrive.
The basics seven steps outlined in this post are, well, pretty essential. But when most businesses begin, branding is an afterthought.
Wouldn’t you start on a road trip without a destination in mind? The same should be true of your business and your brand that will help you along your journey.
This guest post on The Marketing Sage Blog is from Gia Keasler who writes about marketing issues including stories on attracting investors for startups.
Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash
