Branding Strategy

It can happen (by accident) that you end up with a good brand—but more often than not you need a plan. All too often, businesses aren’t aware of what their brands are, let alone how to create them. Like most creative endeavors, to create a brand, you need a tool. You need a Branding Strategy.

WHAT Is It?

A Branding Strategy is a big-picture plan of how you plan to achieve your brand. A Branding Strategy should have bold swathes of what you want your brand to be and how to go about Branding your business. The details of each of those swathes will be incorporated into promotional, marketing, advertising, and other parts of your business plans.

WHY Is It Important?

Without a branding strategy, you could end up with the WRONG brand! A Branding Strategy is your road-map to a better brand. It can give clarity to the direction of your business. Ever hear of the saying: If you want to go East, just follow the Sunrise. If you want to go to New York, you will need a map. Before you can effectively create your brand, you must know what your brand will be.

HOW Do I Do This?

You might consider hiring a Branding Professional if you don’t have the necessary expertise in-house. Also, consider creating a Branding Strategy before writing the business plan.

This is an involved process, but here are some key points:

1. Create a brand target. What do you want to be known for? Quality? Product Durability? Great Customer Service? The only place to find ant food? Best place to get the most obscure bolt, pattern, feather? Find out who you want to be first, and then you can plan on how to achieve it.

2. Plan for a reasonable timeline for achieving that target. Branding is a long-term process.

3. Plan the major components for achieving your targe. Some components you want to consider: Promotional (PR) plan. Advertising Plan. Branding Architecture. Environmental Design. Visual Communications Design. Customer Service design. Create implementation plans for each major component. Implement the component plans cohesively and consistently.

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