It sounds obvious, but there is a lot more to developing an effective brand strategy than simply designing a logo and posting on social media now and then. True brand development is crucial for your company to not just survive but thrive in today’s business landscape.
In this post, we’ll walk you through the basics of how to build your brand and set your business up for success in a saturated marketplace.
Brand Development Strategy
What exactly is brand strategy? It’s the vital first step of brand building – a long-term plan for business development designed to help you reach your specific goals. If you want to learn how to build your brand, you absolutely need to begin with a strategy.
Here are a few helpful tips when it comes to brand strategy:
Tip #1: Know Your Audience
Before you can implement a successful brand marketing strategy, you must know your audience inside and out. Start by creating a buyer persona that represents your ideal client. You can go into detail with this fictional representation, adding notes such as income level, career and pain points. The best part about buyer personas is that you can always add more characteristics after you’ve run a few campaigns and collected valuable customer insights.
Tip #2: Take a Stand
Now that you know your target market, you can begin the process of building a brand strategy by taking a stand for something that is important to you, your business and your target audience. A mission statement with a purpose sets you apart from your competitors – and gives your intended audience a reason to choose your company.
Tip #3: Design Stellar Brand Packaging
Your brand’s name, logo and tagline are critical to making a great first impression. Be sure to put a lot of thought into the aesthetics of your website. Try thinking of it as a presentation: When a new visitor comes to your website, what kind of impression do you want them to have?
Taking the time to develop your branding package will ensure that your company is resonating with the right audience.
Tip #4: Build a Dynamic Website
The next part of brand development is the website. Now that you understand your audience, have a killer mission statement and have chosen your brand package, you can begin building a dynamic website based on all of these aspects. If your company is new, small or has a tight budget, you can find great website-building sites that offer affordable, professional results.
Remember to organize your site thoughtfully — build personalized landing pages based on your buyer personas, add dynamic web forms and include CTAs where appropriate.
Tip #5: Don’t Slack on Content Marketing
A solid content marketing strategy will go a long way in helping you build your brand strategy. The first way to initiate content marketing is to create a blog on your website and publish thoughtful, relevant articles that your audience will find useful. You can also generate a content calendar to help you keep track of what you post, when you post it and how well the content is received.
Tip #6: Build Up Your Social Media Following
Good brand building also involves a strong social media presence. If you haven’t created social business accounts yet, it’s time to get started. This ties back into knowing your audience and where they congregate online. It lets you expand your online presence, share your blog posts and fully establish your company as a thought leader in your industry or niche. Keep in mind that a strong social media following doesn’t necessarily mean that you need a million followers – it means that you have an active and engaged online community.
Tip #7: Track Your Efforts
Once you’ve initiated and implemented your brand strategy, you need to track the progress of your efforts, analyze your findings and generate easy-to-read reports for better understanding. You can track website visits, social shares and everything in between.
In Conclusion
To wrap up, a brand strategy is designed to help your business reach your goals. While it may be a long-term plan, you aren’t limited to striving for long-term goals – you can always wrap short-term goals into your efforts, as well.
For more help with boosting your own brand strategy, give us a call or get a demo today!