What is brand strategy and why do you need it? Are you constantly changing your logo or visual elements, only to feel like something is still off? Is your brand actually resonating with your dream clients, or is it purely aesthetic based on your own personal preferences?

It can feel overwhelming when you are struggling to grow your business and are unsure what direction to take. Tweaking your visual elements without a solid strategy in place will have you spinning in circles.

If you’re feeling confused and stuck trying to elevate your business, it’s not just because your colour pallet and font pairings aren’t perfect. The most likely cause is that you don’t have a strong brand strategy to market and grow your business.

Before I start designing anything for your business, we establish a clear brand strategy and direction as the foundation to every design decision.

This is for you if:

You feel confused and inconsistent in your brand

You need help translating all the ideas in your head

You aren’t seeing growth in your brand

Overview

My Signature Brand Strategy is where I dive deep into what makes your business unique. This is where we develop your position in the market and gain an understanding of how to make your business successful.

This is a vital part of the process that ensures all design work is aligned to your mission, values and business goals.

This Strategic phase is the roadmap that will distil all elements of your business together to establish a clear direction on who you are, who you serve, and how you can effectively connect and reach your audience.

Benefits

Starting with brand strategy upfront will save you endless time and stress in the future when it comes to all your marketing, advertising, message and sales. You will have a deep understanding of your message and the problem you solve for your audience.

Equipping you with confidence and clarity in the meaning behind your brand, in turn allowing you to feel prepared for the exciting growth to come.

Our focus

• Define your unique position and the problem you solve for your audience
• Clarify your ideal target market and how to reach them
• How to generate customer loyalty in order to grow revenue
• Uncover your brands unique selling points
• Establish a creative direction for your brand
• Create a suite of logos that are flexible across various platforms
• Use colour psychology and brand palette to evoke emotion
• Define your brands typography for consistency everywhere
• Display your brand cohesively in Brand Guidelines

Why you need to start with strategy

I see many business owners struggle to market and grow simply because they aren’t focusing on the right thing. You may feel you have taken all the necessary steps and ticked all the boxes, but you still feel stuck.

An easy mistake to make is to start on your design before establishing your purpose/identity/goals etc. because it’s easier to make something ‘pretty’. It is vital to do your research and establish a strategy to create a lasting and memorable brand with purpose.

The goods news: once you know what it is you’re trying to market, you can market it well!

Before you invest time and/or money into a brand or website design, you need to take the time to fully develop a clear brand strategy. If you don’t, your brand and website won’t function as well as they could, and you’ll find yourself in that spinning circle, tweaking, chopping, changing – again and again.

That’s why I highly recommend starting with brand strategy first.

Approaching your marketing and branding with a strategic foundation first, you are more likely to get your desired results, and in turn, grow your business for success. When you execute a marketing tactic with the right strategy behind it, it will work well. By going in-depth into your brand strategy and what makes you and your business unique, you will reach your ideal audience.

Defining a foundation strategy for your business will allow you to understand and communicate your message clearly. You will be able to use your brand strategy as a guide as your business grows. Reference it for your marketing and decision-making to keep you on track and portray a consistent brand message. As you evolve you can adapt it and repeat it over in your business for clarity.

What is a brand strategy?

By now, you’re probably convinced that a strategy first approach to building your brand is the best way to go, but what exactly is it and where do you start?

Here are 8 important components of brand strategy that I believe you need in order to present a cohesive brand and marketing.

8 components:

1. Market research: to ensure each decision is based on actual research instead of what you think people want and need
2. Target market: identify who you serve and what problem you solve for them
3. Brand purpose & promise: summarise your purpose in a clear/concise brand statement with maximum impact by defining the results or transformation you provide.
4. Brand offerings: how do you provide those results?
5. Customer journey: map out your ideal customers journey so you can lead them on the right path to the success they are looking for
6. Brand positioning & differentiation: define why you do what you do differently and how it is different to someone else doing the same thing.
7. Brand voice & personality: define your brand voice and personality so you know how to speak to your audience (Need a Copywriter? I recommend Hayley G Creative)
8. Brand message: produce memorable and valuable content with your brand through visual storytelling and messaging.

Included in my signature Brand Strategy session we cover those 8 components PLUS:

• Vision statement
• Mission statement
• Brand statement
• Core values
• Purpose
• Language
• Tone of voice
• Benefits
• Goals
• Brand positioning
• Value proposition
• Content pillars
• Audience’s brand persona
• Audience’s problems (and how you solve them)
• Marketing funnel
• Customer journey
• Emotional impact
• Competitor analysis
• Aesthetic direction (including typography, colours and moodboard)

How to jumpstart your strategy

I understand all of these elements can seem overwhelming, but once you establish these things for your brand strategy, you will gain confidence and clarity in growing your business.

You’ll be able to reference back to your brand strategy and know how to speak to your audience, talk about your brand and keep everything consistent and cohesive.

Here are 3 questions to jumpstart your brand strategy:

1. Who does your business serve?
2. What results or transformation do you provide?
3. How do you provide those results?

Spend time working through your brand strategy and everything else will fall into place with ease.

Before you design your branding, its important to start with strategy. If you’re not sure where to start, you can claim my Brand Checklist. I hope this helped you understand What is brand strategy?

If you’re leaning towards hiring a designer and would like to learn more, explore my Signature Brand Packages or reach out here to book a free discovery call to learn how I can help you establish a clear strategy and brand identity.