Developing an Effective Brand Direction and Strategy for Your Business
A well-planned brand development strategy is crucial to the success of any business. It aligns the brand's values and voice, enhances its position in the market, and strengthens relationships with existing customers while attracting new ones. Failure to implement an effective brand strategy can lead to missed opportunities and a loss of market share.
Brand strategy is not just about the customer. It can also help identify and solve inefficiencies within the organization, such as poor internal communication. Additionally, global brand objectives may require researching how other cultures experience the customer journey.
At Creatives On Call, we have years of experience in conducting market research, evaluating content and products, and delivering actionable insights. We can help businesses of all sizes develop a strong brand strategy, overcome market challenges, and maximize their potential.
Understanding Brand Strategy and Direction
A successful brand strategy involves research and data analysis to set the business apart from the competition. With proper guidance and direction, any brand can achieve its goals and connect with potential customers. Direction refers to the understanding that common goals have been identified and that a successful brand strategy will be implemented to reach them. Brand direction should be flexible and adaptable as the business grows and strategies change.
Why Is Brand Strategy Important?
A well-defined brand identity allows businesses to provide enhanced services and products. Brand messaging and core values help customers understand what to expect from the company and why it exists.
Without a strong brand identity, marketing to global audiences can be challenging due to cultural differences. A visual identity, such as logos, colors, fonts, and graphics, can aid in maintaining global brand recognition. McDonald's golden arches, for example, provide a globally recognizable identifier for the brand.
Effective brand development strategies can maintain customer trust and enhance brand value. Brand values are increasingly important to customers, making it crucial to have a successful brand strategy.
What to Consider Before Starting Your Brand Strategy
Effective communication is key to developing a successful brand strategy. A brand story that shares the company's origins, core values, and purpose in its unique brand voice can build a connection with potential customers.
For example, Warby Parker has positioned itself as the affordable designer alternative to the high-priced eyewear industry. Their website tells the story of graduate students who struggled to find high-quality glasses they could afford. This connection, which many consumers may relate to, can help customers confidently decide if the brand's values align with their own lifestyle and needs.
Creatives On Call offers effective assistance in developing and sharing your brand story. Our solutions are data-driven and inform every strategic decision, including identifying what works, what doesn’t, and what the competition is doing. Our focus is to deliver or update a successful brand strategy, which begins with communication and continues with improving customer relations to target your audience effectively.
Elements of a Brand Strategy
A comprehensive brand strategy conveys why your brand exists. Your brand values are on display, and a visual identity conveys your company culture while utilizing data to create a successful brand strategy. A successful brand strategy has many components, including:
- Messaging
- Visual identity
- Market potential
- Customer expectations
- Competition analysis
Creatives On Call can help you communicate value and benefit to customers and assist your internal teams with collaborating more efficiently.
Purpose
Purpose is an essential aspect of a brand strategy. Today, any global brand needs to understand the importance of having a purpose for their own brand strategy. Purpose aligns your organization’s core values with your brand story, which is important because today’s customers place a high value on organizations that try to make a positive impact on the world. Consumers appreciate philanthropic and socially conscious efforts, such as IKEA's social initiatives for children and donations to UNICEF and LinkedIn's impressive sustainability practices.
Creatives On Call has helped develop strong brand identity for organizations of all sizes, from small growing businesses to large Fortune 1000 companies. We can help your brand develop and solve the question of purpose as it applies to a successful brand strategy.
Consistency
Consistency and repetition can make a big impact on a successful brand strategy. A unified brand development strategy means that communication, messaging, and visual identity are consistent across the board. The language learning tool Duolingo's green owl mascot provides visual brand consistency on its app, website, social media, and all products. Consumers of The Economist can trust that the newspaper will maintain a consistently informative and factual tone with brief, clear language.
Creatives On Call can assess your brand development strategy and brand voice and perform audits to ensure that assets are consistent. When your brand has a consistent look and feel, potential customers can get a better understanding of why it exists in the first place and what it can do for them.
Emotion
Emotion is an important factor in a successful brand strategy. Your brand exists to serve customer needs and to make them feel better — it is an emotional journey. Emotion impacts nearly every stage of the customer journey. The feelings consumers have when seeing or experiencing your product, service, or overall brand plays a significant role in brand loyalty and product dedication. For example, Coca-Cola is known for using imagery and language that invokes nostalgia, sentimentality, and togetherness to make customers feel a deeper connection to their products and brand.
Any company whose brand development strategy accounts for emotion will stand a better chance of attracting more customers. A successful brand strategy understands the importance of emotion and will help your company cultivate a positive image.
Flexibility
A successful brand development strategy requires flexibility to adapt to changes in the marketplace and customer expectations. At Creatives On Call, we assess how consistency and flexibility work together to optimize unique campaigns. While maintaining a brand story and voice that is relevant and timely, we ensure that the brand guidelines that have built your reputation are respected. Our agile brand strategy can help your company balance consistency and flexibility to serve a changing marketplace.
Employee Involvement
Employee involvement is also a crucial component of any successful brand strategy. All representatives of your organization have the responsibility to reflect your brand values and attitude. Consider what your brand accounts are sharing on Facebook or LinkedIn, or the tone and script your customer support lines use.
With brand identity guidelines, we ensure that all employees understand your brand's core beliefs, values, and voice. They can also provide valuable first-hand information about customer engagement and experience, which can inform your brand development strategy.
Customer Loyalty
While attracting new customers is important, retaining current clients is more cost-effective. Customer loyalty should be a key focus of your brand development strategy. Loyal customers offer valuable testimonials and consistently choose your brand over the competition. Some of the most innovative loyalty programs today include Starbucks Rewards, Amazon Prime, and Sephora Beauty Insider.
We help you invest in opportunities to reward returning clients and stay ahead of the competition with loyalty programs that interests potential customers.
Competitive Awareness
Effective brand positioning requires anticipating big trends and coordinating your brand story with marketplace expectations. At Creatives On Call, we help you stay ahead of the competition by assessing ways in which competing companies reward their customers and positioning your brand in the right place and time.
Competitive awareness is a key component of any brand development strategy. It is essential to routinely evaluate and consider the competition to tailor your brand development strategy. Failure to do so may result in the loss of market share.
Developing a Brand Strategy
To develop a strong brand identity, businesses need to take stock of the marketplace surrounding their products and services. It is crucial to strike a balance between consistency and flexibility. At Creatives On Call, we help organizations enhance their unique brand identity by identifying trends and risks that might impact their bottom line. We work with clients to address brand story and brand voice and challenge them to consider how potential customers might react to them. We take stock of strategic components like a solid visual identity and core values to help companies upgrade to a more successful brand strategy.
Planning Ahead
Constructing a strong brand strategy requires careful planning. Businesses must be aware of the factors that affect the popularity or need for their products or services, such as seasonal trends. They must also consider how the competition alters their offerings throughout the year. Cultural and generational attitudes towards the services or products offered must be taken into account. Planning ahead is essential in any brand development strategy.
Change is inevitable, and what works today may not be effective tomorrow. Every brand development strategy must factor in the unknown. To help inform a solid strategy, consider how today's events might affect the business model tomorrow. Brainstorming on the unknown can help businesses use their instincts and intuition to strategize.
Building the Brand
When Creatives On Call begins work on any brand recognition project, we set up a call with brand managers and directors to determine their objectives. We have an honest conversation about which past outreach efforts performed well and which ones didn't, so we can continuously optimize and improve.
A brand development strategy is a long-term effort, but one worthy of investment. Learning how customers connect with the brand voice or resonate with brand values can strongly benefit the bottom line. Innovation is key to staying ahead of the competition, and we can identify how innovative tools like AI and machine learning will help build a successful brand strategy.
Executing the Brand Strategy
Once brand guidelines have been identified and the brand development strategy has been decided, it is time to execute that strategy. Visual identity across all mediums should be consistent, from social media to physical mailings. Communication should adhere to the brand voice wherever it takes place.
After enhancing your brand identity, it is crucial to continuously assess how existing and potential customers respond to your enhanced brand identity. If you determine that they are not understanding your brand values, it may be time to reassess your brand development strategy. Investing in an effective brand strategy is worthwhile and working with professionals can make all the difference.
Work With Creatives on Call to Develop Your Brand Direction and Strategy
At Creatives On Call, we are dedicated to finding an active brand strategy for your company and identifying areas for improvement in an existing campaign. We personalize solutions based on your goals, audience, and research and analytics, and execute plans efficiently. Our services range from opportunity assessment and strategic advisory to transformational strategies and resource acquisition and improvement. We promise actionable strategies and measurable progress toward increased customer loyalty. Our team will enhance your relationships with customers and guide your brand to success.
In a constantly changing world, your brand story will evolve too. Our team at Creatives On Call is confident and proven, ready to revolutionize the way you do business. If you're ready to give your brand new direction, let's start the conversation.
