The entrepreneurial journey is no joke! The sweat, the countless hours, and dedication to create a sterling brand with no guarantee of massive return on investment or generating sales can be a humbling experience. It can sometimes plant self- doubt and disappointment pushing you to your wits end. The ability to keep moving forward, gaining momentum, re-strategizing, learning, and scaling with the times will eventually lead to a success story.
In creating a brand that becomes profitable and visible, you will need to create a rock-solid brand strategy. One that gives you direction to make an impact and win! Now let’s get right in.
Why do you need a brand strategy?
To win in the market, it is prudent to have a strategy. Strategy solves business problems. It gives you a blueprint to work with and serves as a yardstick to measure success, track and adjust ideas and processes. Building from scratch the brand you want to see and matching ideas to an implementation funnel.
5 steps to create a winning brand strategy:
- What do you have to offer?
To build a cutting-edge brand strategy, first BRAINSTORM. What can I offer? What do people really want? How can my product solve a need or make an impact? Will it be profitable?What’s my value proposition?Understanding your brand’s value proposition is key in selling your brand. It represents your brand’s worth.
Your value proposition is the CORE STRENGTH OR SKILL that you bring to the market, that which is unique to you and the reason why consumers will choose you over your competitors. Consistently tell it in your stories so it becomes unforgettable. Then perform a SWOT analysis to help you harness your strength to the maximum, work on your weaknesses, discover opportunities, and eliminate threats. This can help you better your deliverables and build a strong lead magnet.
- Target market:
Every business’s goal is to make profit. “More customers more profit” has been a long-standing business strategy where the increase in customers automatically reflects on sales.
In an attempt to increase customer base, social media has shown that it is possible to have massive traction for your products but low sales. Not having a down to detail target market in today’s market can lead to huge losses as you would be using more resources trying to nip everybody in your bag without a guarantee of generating sales leads as compared to having a target market that is thoroughly defined. You will be selling to prospective clients who are already interested in your products. Generating leads that translate into actual sales is assured as well as a high Return On Investment (ROI).
To define your target market, figure out the kind of people who are likely to be interested in your product. Define them using appropriate demographics like age group, sex, profession, social class, etc.. When you are able to map out the kind of audience you want, figure out their personality (Buyer persona); How can your products solve a common problem? What are their interests, what brands do they follow, what language do they speak?
Social media insights and Apps such as BuzzSumo, SEMrush, Google Analytics have made it easier to search and track what your prospective clients does on the internet. Use the results to create or modify a product specific to your audience. You can comfortably apply “more customers, more profit” among your target market.
- Messaging/communication:
Understanding your target market and the kind of language they speak will help you know how to communicate with them. The key is to speak in their language. Create a “voice” for your brand. Your voice can have a huge impact on how much consumers trust or care about your brand. The right voice will make your audience feel at home.
Is your target market a youthful audience? Then you might want to sound more youthful and conversational in your tone. Are they professionals? Then you might want to talk in a formal voice. Your brand voice should match your target market as it will create an emotional bond between your brand and your audience. This voice should run through all your messaging from your website to your social media and adverts, brochures and taglines, etc..
- Brand elements:
Brand elements encompass everything you use to represent your brand – logo, brand colours, font style, etc. Your brand elements are the first introductions most people are going to have with your brand so let them be memorable. Knowledge of your buyer persona should help you come up with authentic brand elements that will instantly connect with them. For example, if it’s a kids’ brand, then your logo, brand colours should have that feel. Read more about the power of logos here.
- Marketing strategy:
Whilst a brand is what people say about your business, marketing is what you say to them. It is the tool with which you drive your brand to bring you leads and sales. The right lead magnet presented to the right audience can have explosive results. Coupled with the right messaging, great copywriting, and creativity in ads you sure are going to drive traffic.
Figure out the best marketing channel. Digital marketing? E-mail marketing? Purchase Point Marketing? Employ all channels to expand your visibility and reach. Get a website done professionally and blog frequently. Outsource your social media management if you can to professionals. It’s their job, they can do it better. Boost adverts, blog more, and become an authority in your field and finally ride on your value proposition to drive sales.
Still trying to get a hang of the digital space and how you can navigate to your advantage? Join the Digital Marketing Course Bootcamp starting 1ST August 2020. It is free. Sign up here.
Employ all the steps above and be on your way to creating your winning brand strategy!
About Post Author
