When thinking about how to increase your sales, out of many other options, rebranding or building a unique brand strategy is one thing that comes to your mind. Let’s be honest, who wouldn’t want to multiply their sales without increasing their recurring monthly marketing spending? You need to first understand that branding goes as far as setting a clear vision and unique marketing strategies. So let’s look at the process of building a unique brand strategy, so you can assess if a rebrand would be the right step for you or not.
Brand Strategy Analysis
I use this Venn diagram as the framework to gather insights into a brand’s story, product, and customer, research how they impact each other and strategize the resulting value proposition.
- 1: How does your brand story impact the products you sell?
- 2: Why should the customer trust you or care about your brand?
- 3: What value does your customer benefit from your product?
They all have to be aligned to work together and achieve the results you want. So when setting a goal or the vision of your brand, have in mind that it dictates how everything about the brand visuals look like and what the tone of voice sounds like.
Brand Strategy is a long-term plan for the development of a successful brand to achieve specific goals. A well-defined and executed brand strategy has long-term effects on all the aspects of your business and it is directly connected to what your customer need, the story you tell about your brand, and promises you offer.
Your brand strategy will help you make informed decisions as to what is right or wrong for your brand from your copy choices, to your color scheme and overall look and feel.
So during brand strategy calls at the start of a new rebranding project, I go through 7 key questions with my clients, which I’ll share with you now:
1. Who Do You Want To Attract?
The kind of audience you are not currently attracting, the kind of audience you attract, and the kind you are attracting instead can go a long way to determining if your brand is set to succeed. This is your classic ideal customer avatar exercise. That is why we go deeper into dissecting why your current brand is not attracting them, to know what to improve on.
Maybe you want to charge a premium for your services but can’t seem to be able to as you’re only getting inquiries from people who are not your real target. From experience, that if this is the case, your brand messaging could be misleading and not hitting the heart of the right people who need your service. It could be your brand collateral not convincing enough as to regards why you should be charging a premium.
2. What Problem Do You Solve For Them?
“There is Money in Problems“
Getting clear about which problem your brand solves for your customers helps to understand how to meet them where they’re at. Knowing the problem you solve helps paint a picture of what your customer’s life will be like after they buy your product or engage in your service.
About, your visuals, this allows us to create designs that invoke the right emotions by tapping into the power of color psychology for example, and using the right words that fit the problem of your ideal customers.
3. Who Are Your Competitors?
Knowing who your competitors are is crucial so you can know how to stand out from them. I have worked with several clients who told me they don’t consider anything their competitor does as they want to create a unique niche that doesn’t depend on any competition. I always find it funny because there are no or few businesses without anyone competing with. These people are already doing what you do, so see them as a case study of becoming better with ideas and strategies.
I also encourage you to look at what you believe they are lacking but that you can bring to the table, which should help answer the 4th question:
4. What Differentiates You From Your Competitors?
So many get this question wrong. But it is as same as saying “What do you want to be known for?”
Picture your favorite client or customer at a cocktail party trying to convince their friend to go with your product or service over the one they’re considering. What would they say?
“Oh you’ll be much better off with Lino because unlike X, they do. And because they are much better at Z.
5. What Value Does Your Brand Transmit?
Think about what is the most important thing to your consumer when purchasing the type of product or service you offer. If you’re in the tech space, maybe what they need is reliability and innovation. If you are in the health industry it could be transparency and honesty. If you’re a designer, maybe it’s attention to detail and creativity, and so on.
Regardless of the kind of space your brand operates in, you need to clearly identify the value you transmit.
6. What is Your Brand’s Mission?
What will the world be missing if your brand was gone tomorrow? What role will it play in your brand?
Alex Center (former Coca-Cola design director)
Your brand’s mission defines the purpose of your work and the effect you intend to have on the world around you. It states what the brand stands to do for others and the approach it follows as it aims to achieve the aspirations set for it.
7. What is Your Brand Currently Lacking?
This last question is my favorite to ask my clients. This is the stage where I get the deepest insights of where they truly want to take their brand, and how they believe they should be showing up in this world. What your brand is currently lacking will create chances for plans and strategies to sustain the brand for the next 10-20 years.
Even though the questions are short, we know they can be hard work and their importance shouldn’t be underestimated.
Whether you need to bring on a brand strategist to help you with the above or you need to take several weeks to figure this out, so be it. It’s that important, and when you then hand this information to the designer, copywriter, and web designer, your brand materials will have a much greater return on investment.
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