When I tell people that I’m a brand strategist, I often get a lot of blank stares! “Like, um, Ok, what does that actually mean?!” So, a lot of people are familiar with branding but what is brand strategy?
What does brand strategy include?
Brand strategy is like a blueprint for the brand that you want to build.
It identifies this unique position in the market that only you can own because it’s true to you.
It connects with your audience and it’s different from your competitors and it encapsulates the brand you’re trying to bring to life over time.
Brand strategy is like a blueprint for the brand that you want to build.
It includes things like:
- What you stand for
- Who you are truly
- What promises do you deliver to your audience?
- What makes you really, really special?
It defines this in a simple and straightforward document that you can come back to time and time again and that you can actually build your business around.
What does a blueprint for a brand look like?
As I mentioned it is a pretty brief document, with ideas, messages and even some Copy that defines who you are, right there on a page. I’ve had clients say that:
It’s like my heart, just right there on a paper
That includes components like your core message or commonly known as a tagline. Your probably familiar with taglines, one of the most famous is:
Just Do It
Which encapsulates this entire idea behind Nike’s brand in just three words BUT it’s not just taglines, there’s a whole hierarchy of messages from why you exist and why people should care to how you deliver on this promise that your giving to your customers and how you do it differently in a way that’s special, down to the details of what you actually do – the features and the benefits.
So you have your tagline, you have your support messages or brand pillars. These define your unique differentiators or as I like to call them:
Your super powers
You also describe your brand personality, sometimes the biggest differentiator a brand has is it’s personality.
What else can you include in your branding?
You can also include:
- Your Core Values
- Your Mission and Vision
- Elevator pitch
- Your Unique Selling Proposition
All of these ideas and that are strategically created to make you stand out and make you connect. Once you’ve mapped out all of those ideas, you encapsulate it all in a brand story.
The brand story is a narrative, it can be used in videos, it can be used as an ‘About Me’ but it encapsulates in just a few paragraphs who you are, what you’re here for, why people should care and it gives you this amazing narrative that’s really powerful and connects with your audience.
So, if you’re not clear on who you are as a brand, what you stand for or why people should care, then you need a brand strategy!