HOW TO CREATE A WINNING BRAND STRATEGY
How are you getting along in creating your winning brand? In an earlier blog, we shared some tips and guidelines to consider in crafting your winning brand. In this article, we shall look at the strategies you need to scale your online business.
How To Define a Winning Brand Strategy?
A brand strategy is a blueprint you develop for a brand. Your Brand strategy should answer the following famous five questions: who, where, why, what and when? Building a solid brand like any objective worth pursuing in life requires a continuous commitment to excellence. A brand is more than a logo. It’s the consistent and carefully managed experience that your brand gives to your ideal customer
What is the importance of a Brand Strategy for a small business?
A brand strategy provides the direction of your brand and, by extension, your business. You can develop the standard by which to measure the success of your brand. If you measure anything, you make progress. You will know if your branding activities are helping your brand to achieve its goals.
Some Quick Wins to Formulate Your Brand Strategy Include:
1. Highlight your brand uniqueness – Branding highlights the differences that make a product or service better than its market competitors.
2. Emotional connection – Branding creates a bond between the brand and the consumer, which in turn builds emotional ties of loyalty.
3. Intangible benefit – Branding increases value by adding an emotional significance that exceeds the rational value of the product or service.
4. Engagement and connection – Branding is an effective way to convey information. Your brand should communicate the purpose of your business.
Your winning brand strategy in a nutshell
If you truly want to craft a winning brand strategy. As a business owner, you will have to set aside some time to answer the following fundamental questions below.
Purpose: what is your brand’s benefit? How does the brand improve the world, and why is your brand here?
Vision: What is the ultimate goal of your brand’? A brand’s vision is your visualisation and master plan for your brand’s potential; it’s where you want your brand to be in 3 to 5 years. As a small business owner, you have to own and communicate your vision to your customers.
Values: What are your brand principles? A brand’s values are the tenets, ethics and ideals that it stands for and its principles.
Mission statement: How is the brand going to achieve its vision and goal? An effective mission statement is a manifesto for the brand that combines the purpose, vision and values in an inspiring declaration. It is an assertion that clarifies who you are, what you stand for and what you want to achieve.
What is your brand’s value proposition?
A value proposition is a unique way in which only you can deliver your brand message. Your sweet spot, that distinctive way to bring ideas to life based on your beliefs, knowledge, and expertise. What benefits will your brand provide that is superior to anybody else in the market?
Give your brand a personality that matches its purpose, value and vision
A brand’s personality combines its values, behaviours and culture. As a business owner, you deliver this experience to your tribe. If your brand was a person, how would you describe it? What name would you give it?
Share your brand story as a way to gel and connect with your audience.
People are nosy and want to know how it all started. Stories are potent assets because they can inspire. The back story of your brand is a powerful tool to draw in like-minded people. Creative storytelling for business is a powerful tool to use in your business, personal brand, and sales pitch. In a previous blog, I wrote how stories could peel back the layers for both the business owner and the ideal customer avatar.
Creative storytelling is about being able vulnerable. If you take a risk and share your vulnerability, your story will resonate with a fear or a need of your tribe. Something magical happens because you are authentic. Your ideal customer lets down their guard, and they allow your brand /business to become an extension of their identity.
Conclusion
If you can set aside an hour this week to think about your brand’s mission statement, you are on to a good start in crafting a winning brand strategy. Once your mission is clear, all the actions that your brand makes in the future must be congruent to your purpose, vision, and values.
