Does my business need a brand strategist to create a strategy?
A brand strategy along with your brand identity is one of the most important things your business should invest in.
We've written a plethora of blogs about the benefits of having a brand strategy – take a look at how to rebrand yourself, it’ll arm you with a tonne of questions and really get you thinking about where your business is at, and how you could improve it.
All too often, branding is seen as something that big businesses have, that startups and small businesses don't need. There’s a need to prioritise the products and services, to find a way to make money. But, in reality, having a brand strategy is important for a company of any size!
An example we love to use is when it comes to targeting your audience with a strategy.
When you have no idea who your audience is, you can use a scattergun approach to marketing and spend a huge amount of money to speak to them.
Or, you can find out what your audience needs and wants and target them with a very personalised campaign, investing the money saved on making the experience of a purchase so fluid and exciting, they will tell friends about it.
There’s nothing better, than free brand awareness building.
Brand strategy doesn’t include logos, fonts/typography or colour palette. These are a part of branding that most people understand, but they are the bare minimum of what your brand should represent.
A brand strategy outlines 8 key areas from foundations through to target market, customer experience and brand aesthetics. It's one thing you need to have to create a long-lasting memorable brand.
To us, these 8 categories are broken down into the following sections.
Foundations of your Brand DNA
Your brand foundations are everything to your business. Looking at the problems you're solving for the world and your customer. How your business is perceived (Brand Perception). Your why, brands purpose, brand vision, mission statement, brand values and goals. Intentionally aligning your brand is a good starting point.
Identify your Target Market
Identifying who your ideal customer is, and how to repel them, and brand personas that delve more into the psychological beliefs and desires of your audience. It's also important to outline potential communication channels – website's, email marketing, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Slack, Podcasts, potential PR opportunities.
Competition Research
Building a brand that stands out from competitors is so important. It's not to copy them but to understand their problems and their customers pain points. By analysing their strengths and weaknesses, you'll understand what opportunities to take advantage of, whilst keeping an eye on potential threats to your business and the industry you work in.
Choosing the best Brand Positioning
Time to look at how to build your reputation and what makes you stand out. What's your brands benefits in both a functional and emotive way? What is your brands value proposition?
Brand Personality, Voice and Messaging
Time to start humanising your brand and applying it to your target market. You'll need to build the brand personality, identity appropriate brand archetypes and the tone and voice of the brand. After that you can begin integrating the values and tone of voice into the messaging to highlight the brands benefits. Finally you can work on taglines and brand promises.
Elevate your brand with the right name
We leave naming the brand to the end as the work we do up front on the strategy, puts us in a great position to name the brand. A great name is distinctive, easy-to-remember, elicits an emotional response from your audience and communicates your brand values.
Map out the Customer Journey
The key to a good experience is to have customer journeys mapped out in detail. Outline what you're communicating and where. Turn mundane interactions into mind-blowing experiences and grow your brand awareness.
Plan your brand identity design
All this information should help you turn your strategy into a visual design. What touchpoints for your customer journey do you need to create? What visual cues spring to mind for the logos, icons, fonts, colour palette? The brief gives us details we need to create the perfect brand identity.
Working with brand strategists like Snapper Studio
All our work focuses on working closely with brands, elevating the brand strategically and helping position them for sustainable growth that's in-line with the brand's purpose. The blog posts featured above will point your brand strategy in the right direction, but it won't be the tailored approach that we use. If you want to work together, get in touch on our contact page.
