Why is it Necessary to Have a Brand Strategy?
Every business should develop a long-term plan to help their brand succeed. The brand should be defined with consumer needs, sales journey and competition in mind. Without a brand strategy it is difficult to meet goals or even know where to start. One simple way to create your brand strategy is by asking your audience.
Who is Your Audience and What Do They Think of You?
Before you begin your brand positioning, it is important to find out what your audience thinks of your company and your product.
Develop a focus group on your products to get valuable feedback on what customers like or dislike about you or your products and what improvements they recommend. This information allows you to reformulate, repackage or replace whatever else customers may not have liked before increasing the marketing budgeting on the product.
Another way to get feedback from your audience is through a short survey. Having customer feedback can help your company build a roadmap to a great brand strategy, allowing you to understand your unique positioning in comparison to your competition. If you are unsure where to start, a brand strategy agency can assist you.
Through your findings in your focus groups and surveys, you can get data that will help you understand your potential audience. This information is not only necessary for your brand strategy but also for digital campaigns that help you target a specific market with your ads. You don’t want your ads reaching the wrong audience that does not have interest in your products or services.
Branding is NOT about YOU
Once you know what your audience thinks of you and your product, develop your brand around these findings. This is not about what you want the product to be; it is what your customer wants it to be. Your potential customers are the ones who will or will not make the purchase. Your brand should answer your customer’s simple questions. “Why is this product better than XYZ brand?”, “Why does it matter to me?” and “Can I trust this brand?” If your company is not focused on answering these questions for the brand, the customer will not be focused on you.
Building the Brand Strategy and Connecting with Your Customers
Once you have defined your customer and what they want from your brand, the next action would be to launch it. This is where it is helpful to work with a brand strategy agency. There are several advertising outlets to reach your customers: media, digital and social to name a few. Branding through more outlets allows for more brand awareness. Some outlets, like social media, allow you to establish relationships with your customers. When your customers trust you, they will buy from you.
However, growing a brand takes time and money. A brand strategy agency can help you focus on where to allocate your marketing budget to provide the most benefit for your brand.
Analyze the Data
Every advertising platform provides loads of data that allows you to analyze your every move. It is extremely important to regularly monitor your efforts to ensure what you’re implementing is working and to find out what is not. Strategy is ongoing so things that don’t work you have to re-strategize your marketing efforts and funds to get better results.
Regularly Check in on Your Brand
Times change and so do customer’s minds. It is important to keep your brand fresh with the current environment, trending communications and with interesting creative marketing. Customers like brands that are “in the know.”
In conclusion, don’t think of your brand as a “one and done” deal. Branding strategy is constant and should be reviewed to make sure you are keeping up with the changing times. It needs to be revisited regularly and restructured based on your customer’s perception, the current environment, data and trends, and be refreshed to provide new visions to keep up with the changing times and your customer’s vision of your brand.
Strategic Marketing specializes in branding and is a full-service agency that can manage traditional and digital services for you. For more information on how we conduct branding strategies, please contact us at (561) 688-8155 or visit us at www.thinkstrategic.com.
