Ten Considerations When Building A Brand Strategy

If we follow Bezos’s logic, anyone or anything discussed is a brand. Philip Kotler, Marketing Professor, author and guru, said, “A brand is a distinguishing name and symbol intended to identify the goods and services of one seller and to differentiate those goods and services from those of the competitors”. When we take both definitions and put them together, we have a great description of what a brand is. 

How do we build a brand, though? Here are ten key considerations for developing your brand strategy.

1. Understand your target audience

Please know who you are selling to and, most importantly, what benefits your product provides. This could be solving a problem, delivering for them emotionally or delighting them in a way they aren’t currently.

You'll need to learn as much as possible about them. This is usually done by creating a ‘customer persona’ and is often turned into a pen portrait to make it easier for others to understand and relate to.

Once you have your persona, you can check all your marketing against it to ensure you effectively serve your audience.

2. Analyse the competitors and substitutions

What is your customer currently doing to fulfil their needs? You can learn as much as you can about your competitors and substitutable options. For example, if you are a local bus company, substitutes for local travel could be the train, walking, cycling, or taxis. Understand how your ideal customer's needs are currently being met and where they still need to be met.

3. Establish a mission and a vision for your brand

Determine a mission statement that outlines your brand’s purpose and core values (you may want to do this by looking at the results of your competitor analysis). Ensure your statement is attractive to your target, and your values align.

For example, Amazon’s brand vision is “to be Earth’s most customer-centric company”. As a business, Amazon's mission is to provide attractive e-commerce services to its customers and emphasise customer satisfaction. 

This mission statement drives Amazon’s focus on four major factors: the lowest prices, the best selection of goods and services, convenience in e-commerce, and global industry leadership.

4. Define your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Establish what sets you apart. Building on your customer understanding, analysis of your competitors, and being true to your mission and core values, clearly articulate the unique benefits and additional value your brand offers customers.

For example, the USP of Canva, the online design platform, is to “Empower the world to design”. It targets those who want to create impactful graphics and videos but have no graphic design skills and may lack creativity.

5. Write your brand story

I'd like you to please bring all the work you have done to date to life through a narrative that will resonate with your target customer. This could include the history behind the brand. Founder stories are often interwoven into brand stories to drive emotional connections with consumers facing similar situations to the founder, usually the situation that led or motivated the founder to start the brand.

6. Develop the visual look and feel for your brand

With the brand defined, you now need to bring it to life. Commission a logo, choose a colour palette to work with and select typography that reflects your brand position and appeals to your target.  Ensure that all visual elements align with your brand. For example, avoid cold colours such as blue if part of your branding is about delivering warmth and security.

Guinness, the stout ale brand, has a distinctive visual. It uses black-and-white imagery and a golden harp logo. Its photography is stylised. Together, these elements make for a unique look and feel that Guinness can own and that its market can easily recognise. 

7. Define your tone of voice

In the same way you develop visual codes for your brand, you need to set your verbal codes, otherwise known as your tone of voice. Decide how to speak to your customers and how best to talk to them to drive the most engagement. Do you want to be formal? Playful? Friendly? Witty? Authoritative?

The smoothie brand Innocent is known for its distinctive tone of voice, which is direct and intimate and, at times, almost naïve or infantile in its simplicity.

8. Set clear guidelines

With your visual identity and tone of voice defined, make sure the ‘rules’ are written down and can be shared by all involved in delivering your brand experience. This is usually a document that gives all the information about how to use and how not to use the brand's visual and tonal codes. This document becomes your reference point against which all customer-facing marketing material/interactions are checked.

9. Show up consistently

In marketing, you need to reach, be noticed by, and gain the attraction of your target customer. Consistency is essential. You must show up again and again with the same message.  Once your target customer knows your brand, you must keep them engaged. You need to build a relationship with them seamlessly and cohesively.

What does Red Bull give you? “Wings!” This is an excellent example of a brand that tells the same story repeatedly. The energy drink is known for powering people and being a driving force (quite literally with its F1 team). The red, blue, and silver combination, along with its caricature style of advertising, has been around for decades.

10. Monitor brand performance and be prepared to make a change if needed

Markets change over time, and all brands must keep themselves updated with customer requirements, desires, and changes in the competitor environment. Although brands must be consistent, they cannot be complacent. Brands that fail to move with their customers will eventually fail. 

Steven Sasson is claimed to be the inventor of the first-ever digital camera. He was a Kodak employee. Kodak rejected the idea of digitalisation; the Board was convinced that film would always be the photographer's preference. 2012, Kodak went out of business because it failed to meet the photography market's needs.

Considering these ten factors, you can build a solid, effective brand that will resonate with your customers and drive long-term engagement and brand success.