As a part of a startup, creating your brand strategy is an essential part of building a successful business. A solid brand strategy aims to bridge your branding, management, and marketing and sets your business apart from competitors. While putting this work in the hands of a brand professional is ideal, any entrepreneur or executive equipped with some knowledge can get some solid results. In this blog post, we'll give you some tips on how to create your startup's brand strategy on your own.
What is a Brand Strategy?
A brand strategy is a plan that outlines your brand's important elements, including your brand's purpose, personality, values, slogan, and more. It set the foundations for your business communication, working as a bridge between branding, management, and marketing to create a coherent plan that defines your brand. This strategy will help you set your business apart from your competitors and efficiently attract your target audience.
When to do it?
Once you have your business plan in place, the brand strategy is the first brand element you need to create. A brand strategy should be developed before moving on to other branding or marketing initiatives to ensure your messaging is consistent and effective.
How to Create Your Brand Strategy?
1- Analyze Your Target Audience:
The first step in creating a brand strategy is to deeply analyze your target audience/market. You need to know their main pain points, needs, wants, and objectives. Also, understanding their preferred channels and communication methods helps you know how to reach them best. This information is essential in crafting messaging that appeals to your leads.
2- Study the Market:
Once you have a clear idea of your target clients, it's time to study the market.
Analyze the current market offer, know the main providers, and consider substitute solutions in order to understand how the industry is doing. This information will be crucial in order to create a brand strategy that sets your business apart.
3- Define Your Unique Selling Proposition:
Once you know the context in detail, the Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is the first statement you need to work on. The USP tells your audience what makes your brand unique. Remember that uniqueness doesn't always need to be centered around being "better." A better approach is to focus on how your brand can solve your audience's issues in a unique way. You can learn more about how to create your USP in this article.
4- Craft Your Brand Statements:
Crafting your brand statements is the next step in creating your brand strategy. The brand statements are the written elements of your brand, the key elements you should consider are your brand name, its slogan, the main values (a three-values structure works great), and your brand purpose statement. Having these core elements in place will contribute to a cohesive brand strategy. Also, establishing your brand's personality will make it more approachable, "human", and relatable to your customers while making the communication and marketing processes more streamlined and organized.
Creating a brand strategy is a vital component of any startup's success.
By following these four "simple" steps you can lay the foundation for a solid and cohesive brand experience. It may look basic, but with these elements in place, your strategy is ready to give the team the main parameters for brand design and marketing planning. Of course, many additional sections and tools can be added to enhance your brand strategy. However, by following the steps outlined above, you'll have a solid foundation for creating an effective brand strategy.
Need some professional help with your brand strategy? At Strategic Studio, we offer specialized strategic brand development services tailored to meet the needs of innovative startups.
Get in touch with one of our experts today and take the first step towards success with a free strategy session.
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