2010-09-07
In a situation where you’re selling to multiple personalities, it’s best to first connect everyone on a common ground then articulate clearly what’s in it for each of them. The goal is to stimulate an engaging conversation that allows us to change perception, diagnose expectations and bring clarity to the dialogue.
That’s the essence of developing a brand strategy – the foundation of your communication that builds authentic relationships between you and your audience. It is by defining your brand strategy that allows you to utilize marketing, advertising, public relations and social media to consistently and accurately reinforce your character. Without defining the core strategy, all channels of communication can often become a hit and miss expense.
Here’s 12 brand strategy principles I believe to be the key to achieve business success.
1. Define your brand
It starts with your authenticity, the core purpose, vision, mission,
position, values and character. Focus on what you do best and then
communicated your inimitable strengths through consistency. There are
many examples of companies acquiring other brands but only to sell them
off later because they don’t fit within the brand and its architecture.
2. Your brand is your business model
Supports and challenge your business model to maximize the potential within your brand. Think of personal brands like Oprah, Donald Trump, Martha Stewart and Richard Branson. These individuals practically built their business right on top of their personal brand; everything they offer is an extension of their brand promise.
3. Consistency, consistency, consistency
Consistency in your message is the key to differentiate. Own your
position on every reference point for everything that you do.
4. Start from the Inside out
Everyone in your company can tell you what they see, think and feel about your brand. That’s the story you should bring to the customers as well, drive impact beyond just the walls of marketing. That’s example how Zappos empowers employees to strengthen consumer perception on its brand.
5. Connect on the emotional level.
A brand is not a name, logo, website, ad campaigns or PR; those are only the tools not the brand. A brand is a desirable idea manifested in products, services, people, places and experiences. Starbucks created a third space experience that’s desirable and exclusive so people would want to stay and pay for the overpriced coffee. Sell people something that satisfies not only their physical needs but their emotional needs and their need to identify themselves to your brand.
6. Empower brand champions
Award those that love your brand to help drive the message, facility
activities so they can be part of the process. If your brand advocate
doesn’t tell you what you should or should not be doing, it’s time to
evaluate your brand promise. Go and talk to someone that works at the
Apple retail store or an
7. Stay relevant and flexible
A well managed brand is always making adjustments. Branding is a process, not a
race, not an event so expect to constantly tweak your message and
refresh your image. Successful brands don’t cling to the
Here is an example: when the economy tanked this year automaker Hyundai came out with an assurance program that lets you return your car if you lose your job with no further financial obligation and no damage to your credit. The results? As of end of February, only two buyers have taken advantage of this program but it has boosted their sales by 14% year-over-year in Q1, only one of the two companies increased revenue while companies such as Honda experienced a drop of more than 30%. Follow by that campaign in July, as gas prices expected to push higher during peak summer travel months, Hyundai came out with another program that guarantees a year’s worth of gas at $1.49 per gallon on most models.
8. Align tactics with strategy
Convey the brand message on the most appropriate media platform with specific campaign objectives. Because consumers are bombarded by commercial messages everyday, they’re also actively blocking out the great majority of them. Invest your branding efforts on the right platform that communicates to the right channels. Television may be expensive but it has a broader reach, wider demographics and can produce instant impact. On the other hand, social media may seem cheap but it takes time, resources and may not give you the desire outcome.
9. Measure the effectiveness
Focus on the ROI (return on investment) is the key to measure the effectiveness of your strategies. Often times it is how well your organization can be inspired to execute the strategies. It could also be reflected in brand valuation or how your customers react to your product and price adjustments. Ultimately it should resonate with sales and that means profitability. But don’t just focus increasing sales when you could be getting a profit boost by reducing overheads and expenses as well. Give yourself options to test different marketing tactics, make sure they fit your brand authenticity and aligns with your strategy
10. Cultivate your community
Community is a powerful and effective platform on which to engage
customers and create loyalty
towards the brand. In an active community, members feel a need
to connect with each other in the context of the brand’s
consumption. We all want to be an insider of something,
it excites us to tell people which community we’re part of and what
knowledge we posses. In many ways it’s our ego that prides us to be
part of a sports team or a professional group. Guess what car would
members of the Porsche club consider first when it’s time to purchase
their next vehicle? Brand communities allow companies to collaborate
with customers in all phases of value creation via crowdsourcing such as
11. Keep your enemies closer
Even if you have the most innovative, highly desirable product, you
can expect new competitors with a superior value proposition to enter your market down
the road. The market is always big enough for new players to improve
what you deliver better, faster, cheaper. Call it hypercompetition or innovation economics, competition could be good for
you believe it or not. It challenges you brand to elevate the strategy and deliver more value. Just
look at how the Big Three (automobile manufacturers General Motors,
Ford, and Chrysler) got crushed in the past decade by competitions from
Germany and Japanese. Not only do their competitors make a better
product, they’re more efficient doing it and command a higher brand
loyalty. In 2008,
12. Practice brand strategy thinking
IDEO’s CEO Tim Brown calls design thinking “a process for creating new choices.” Essentially it means to not just settle for the choices currently available but to think outside the box without being limited. This concept actually applies to your brand strategy creation process that I called brand strategy thinking. It’s always easier to execute tactics than coming up with a strategy because it implies the possibility of failure. It’s much faster to emulate what worked for your competitor than to come up with something original and creative. But the truth is, that’s not you and it violates the first principle of brand strategy. Brand strategy thinking is about creating the right experience that involve all the stakeholders to foster a better strategy. Leverage the ecosystem that includes your employees, partners and customers to help you articulate your brand strategy so they sync together.
The take away: Having a brand strategy will bring clarity and meaning to your brand so you can focus on making, creating, and selling things that people actually care about. If you could do that, your brand would be unique and memorable on its way to become an esteemed brand.
Are there any you disagree with? Let me know if I’m missing anything.
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The 12 Principles Of Brand Strategy News
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Proven Method To Profit By Positioning You And Your Brand Effectively
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