Brand Strategy is a very misunderstood term. It is very casually interchanged and used as brand identity and one of the possible reasons is because traditionally brand strategy has been partly delivered by advertising and creative agencies. Up until the advent of social media brands were more communication-focused. It was about making glitzy and differentiated ads on mass media with consumers' only tool to express their likes or dislikes through their purchase behavior.
With the power of voice having flipped towards the consumers, brands are now more than communication.
Brands lie at the intersection of Business Strategy, Employee Engagement, and Consumer Needs. Depending on the stakeholders that a business has the number of circles might increase. In its simplest form, it is the intersection point of all stakeholder interests.
Plan for the 'difficult to measure' business attributes
When you look at the three elements that impact brand strategy, 2/3rd of it is empirical in nature. Consumer needs and employee engagement or motivation cannot be absolute and will vary based on the business strategy. Hence business owners find it hard to measure and often it is sidelined in the hustle to grow business.
Worldwide, businesses start to implement
social media marketing
product planning
content execution
communication
even before they understand their core consumer and their needs.
'Let's get started already', 'deadline was yesterday', and 'start doing, experiment your way through' are commonly used terms. While all of these are important, the chaos, unplanned budget loss, and slow growth issues can be resolved with an agile brand strategy.
Focus on 'whys', 'who', 'hows'
Spending a few days to hash out who is your target consumer helps you focus or prioritise on the following set of questions:
Who wants what we're manufacturing or selling?
What purpose does our product/service serve in our consumers' lives?
How can we enhance their experience with our product/service?
How should we price ourselves?
How do we offer more value so that consumers are willing to pay more?
How do we do marketing?
Where will we find our consumers to do marketing?
What communication will resonate with them?
What features should our product have for high adoption?
How will we generate demand for our products?
When should we start hiring staff?
What kind of portfolios should we look at for hiring?
and so many more hows whys and when wheres can be addressed if you just nail your brand strategy right.
Clarity leads to focus
Once you are able. to answer these critical questions whether you are in D2C, B2B or B2C business, you will be able to focus on the right things for your business. This will also ease out lives of your team members who will be able to focus on the right approach in building and running their departments and teams. Eventually, it all adds in, to create the right enthusiastic, focused work culture as well.
We are all in a hurry to get things done. But if we pause and focus, our businesses will be easier to scale and grow.
Agile Brand Strategy = Business Focus = Easier Business Decisions.
You can get started with a tried and tested framework by writing to siddhangana@definerbrands.com
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