Brand Strategy
As we have defined, a strong brand strategy is essential to cultivating your brand from start to finish, and every good strategy should have a general framework of sorts. The timing of different elements in the stages of planning and execution can vary, but it is of paramount importance that your brand strategy covers the essentials of what it takes to build strong brands.
We have constantly reinforced the point of your brand being a unique value proposition for those who are to experience it. At the beginning point of a brand strategy, we must first discover exactly what this differentiated proposition is to be. This planning stage is very similar to creating an actual business plan for your brand. You will always require sound evidence, based both on empirical evidence and insight, in order to ensure your particular offering is clearly something the market wants. This is the analytical stage of branding where you investigate the potential for your brand.
At this stage, you should be examining the current and future offerings of your competitors and the needs of your potential consumers. These are the key groups that will dictate the objectives of your brand. Things you should be looking into include the potential market segment for your brand, strategies for elevating above competitor offerings, as well as the areas of risk your brand faces. This will enable you to assess what your brand will stand for.
While there are no hard and fast rules at this stage, remember that your research must be all encompassing. The consumers of your brand are made up of employees and investors, apart from actual revenue-generating customers themselves. If, at this stage, you do not include an examination of all potential consumers of your brand, you are ignoring vital components of brand interaction that will return to haunt you in the future. If you already have a brand, an existing heritage at this stage, it is vital that you revisit your current offering and needs in order to define the future transformation of your brand.
Finally, initial assessment as part of a brand strategy should include an assessment of benchmark criteria for the purposes of measurement. Identification of criteria at this stage will enable you to consistently track the health and development of your brand throughout its life and act as justification or reassessment for any investment you make in your particular brand identity. The actual terms and nature of the tracking system should be dictated now to avoid later difficulties in assessment and transformation.
