Your brand strategy is a key element when it comes to building a brand that attracts raving fans. It outlines things like:
- What is the valuable offering you make to your customers?
- What makes you unique?
- What are the core values your brand reflects?
- What does your brand look and feel like?
- What kind of tone of voice does your brand use?
If you’re in the process of building a brand, download my easy-to-follow 7 step brand strategy framework and start building your brand strategy today.
There are a couple of very fundamental key ingredients when it comes to your brand strategy. One of these is you and the other is your customer. As a solopreneur service provider, your point of view, your process, and your values form a big part of your brand foundation.
And your customer, of course, should be in the heart of your brand. Any communication, any marketing from your brand that your customer might come across with should give them an immediate “this is meant for me” feeling. So, in every turn, you should be asking: “does this resonate with my customer?”
Defining the building blocks of your brand
What are these amazingly attractive brands made of then? What makes a brand so delicious that people don’t only buy from them, they become advocates?
Most people will associate a brand with its visual look and feel — or its logo. A marketer will tell you your brand is in the stories your business tells through marketing. And they’re not wrong. But a successful brand is much more than that.
In fact, the visual branding is just a representation of your brand personality and positioning. And the stories reflect what your brand stands for. But where does it all come from? The answerI already gave away in the beginning: it’s a magical combination of you, your offering, and your ideal customer. And throw a meaningful brand strategy framework into that mix, and you have yourself a recipe for success.
As the founder of your business, you actually have all the information you need to start building your winning brand strategy. You’re set to start working on it right now because your business was born from your heart and is a reflection of your vision and values. Let me walk you through some of the key concepts of my 7 step brand strategy framework..
Your “Why”
Every entrepreneur has a “why” — a reason they’re doing what they’re doing. Sometimes the reason is grand and inspirational. But it can as easily be down to earth and relatable. Only you will know what your “why” is.
This is a core element in building a purposeful brand. Yes, you can build a brand without defining your “why.” But in order to have a truly authentic brand voice and reach the customers that will turn into your advocates, you need to find and surface your passion.
Your “why” is effective in creating you an attractive brand, because deep inside we all have a “why.” Each and everyone in your target audience will have something they are passionate about and inspired by. And when you find a group of people whose “why” is aligned with your “why,” you’ve found a group of fiercely loyal customers.
In my 7 step brand strategy framework, I help solopreneurs to find out why they are in business. I’ve put together a list of questions that will help you figure this out, if it’s not immediately clear.
Your Ideal Customer
Your ideal customer is in a key role in many aspects when it comes to your business. Your branding is no exception. Think of it this way: in order to know how you want to talk, you need to know who you are talking to.
When you’re defining your target audience, the key things to think about in addition to demographics are their behaviour, attitudes, and values. These will guide you to create brand assets and content that attracts and interests your audience. Remember: while your brand should reflect your “why,” it should be communicating to your audience, not to you.
If you want to take your customer definition to the next level, you can find and define your niche audience. Your niche audience is a selective group of people who have very specific wants, needs and interests. It’s a super valuable to have as niche audience is easier to target. They’re more engaged and more responsive to your messaging and offering. If you are successful in defining a niche audience and communicating with them, they might even feel as though you’re reading their minds. And you’re able to earn their trust because you seem to understand their wants, needs, and struggles.
If you want to find out what in your business attracts a niche audience, and who they might be, read more here and download my quick guide on defining your niche audience.
Brand Personality
Your brand’s personality are the characteristics you describe your brand with. It’s what starts to define the look and feel of your brand. Brand personality is sometimes described as if your brand was an actual person. For example, “easily approachable” or “friendly.”
It’s easy to come up with two or three adjectives to describe your brand personality. But just like with your target audience: the better you know your brand, the easier it is to communicate. And any communication from your business is a reflection of your brand — even the stuff you didn’t mean as brand related.
Other questions for exploring your brand personality are:
- If your brand was an animal, what animal would it be and why?
- If your brand was a car, what kind of car would it be and why?
- If your brand was a color, what color would it be and why?
If you really want to dive deep into your brand’s personality, you could build a brand personality grid. This is a nine square grid where each square has an image in it. In the center, you’ll place an image of a person. That will be your brand if it were a human being. It is not your ideal customer. It is your brand as a person.
And in the eight squares that circle your brand as a person, you’ll start collecting imagery that describes the life of this person. For example, if this person lived in a house, what would the house be like (find that house and put in one of the squares).
Defining your brand personality will also help you define the tone of voice your brand uses in its communications. Think of the brand personality grid and the personification of your brand: how would this person talk? What kind of things would they talk about? Where would they publish their message?
If you’re in the process of building a brand, download my easy-to-follow 7 step brand strategy framework and start building your brand strategy today.
Unique Point of View
What makes your brand different? This might be immediately clear for you. Maybe your business fills a void and provides something that didn’t exist before. That would automatically give you a unique point of view.
Or maybe you are like most of the entrepreneurs out there: offering a product or service that competes with other similar products and services. In this super common situation, developing a unique point of view helps a lot.
Your unique point of view has to come from a place of authenticity. You shouldn’t try to be different just for the sake of being different. Don’t come up with artificial qualities to add to your brand for the sake of being unique. You will only end up looking disingenuous and fake.
“What if I have nothing unique” you might panic. Calm down my friend. Everyone has something that makes them unique. There is no other business owner exactly like you. You and your values — and your “why” — are what makes your brand unique.
If you feel like you could use a little help in figuring out what truly makes you and your offering unique, download my 7 step brand strategy framework. It has guiding questions for figuring out what makes you unique.
Customer Perception
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, said it best: “Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.” Your company’s brand is it’s reputation. And people definitely talk behind you back. You should treat your brand reputation as you treat your own: don’t do or say anything you wouldn’t want people to talk about in public. The word will always get out.
This is painfully true when it comes to your customer experience. How do you treat your customers? Do you answer their emails quickly? Do return their direct messages or phone calls? When you do, how do you talk to them? Are you helpful, respectful, and friendly? One offhanded comment can turn away a customer.
You may remember the customer support scandals Comcast went through in 2014 when some of their customers recorded phone calls with Comcast support agent. Needless to say, these phone calls didn’t provide a good customer experience, and resulted in a viral storm for Comcast.
So, what can you do? Well for one, you should try and study your audience’s perception of your brand. How do your customers see your business? If there’s room for improvement, listen to your audience. What are they telling you to change?
You can’t fix serious issues in customer experience just by changing your brand. You need to fix the issues first. But you need to be aware that each and every customer interaction with your business will affect your brand — either positively or negatively.
Value Proposition
What is the value your brand offers? And how is it better than other brands in the marketplace? The value proposition can be both emotional and rational. Here we again list things that differentiate your brand from other brands. But unlike your unique point of view (which is the lens you reflect all your brand communication through) value proposition should list actual tangible benefits — either rational or emotional.
When you put together your value proposition, you should be genuine in what you promise. If you’ve defined your “why” and your unique point of view, know your audience, and studied the customer perception, putting together your value proposition should not be difficult.
As you’re drafting the brand benefits, make sure they are relevant to your audience, compelling, and believable. Don’t list more than a couple benefits as people typically have difficult time associating more than one or two benefits per brand.
If you’re in the process of building a brand, download my easy-to-follow 7 step brand strategy framework and start building your brand strategy today.
Brand Positioning
How does your brand compare to the competition? What is your unique position in the marketplace? To define this you will need to know who your biggest competitors are and how they are positioned in the marketplace.
Comparison table
If you have a complex product or service with lots of features and benefits, I like to build a comparison table to identify the table stakes and opportunity gaps. In the table, each column is an existing and desired benefit or feature and each row is your competitor. And of course, include your business to the matrix. Add a checkmark etc. to identify the benefits/features your competitors (and yourself) have. The columns (benefit/feature) that are full of checkmarks are your table stakes. The columns that have only one or two checkmarks (or are empty) are your opportunity gaps to differentiate and position yourself in the marketplace.
Competitor matrix
Quicker and easier way to define your position in the marketplace is to build a simple four square competitor matrix. Draw x and y axes (like a big plus sign). Define qualities you’re measuring on the axes. For example, high touch vs low touch and ordinary vs luxury. Position all your competitors in the matrix based on their brand and products/services. Empty (or emptier) squares become potential positioning opportunities for your brand as they are less saturated with your competitors’ offerings. If you choose to position yourself in a more saturated square in your matrix, you will need to have more unique differentiators to stand out. In the competitor matrix exercise, it is critically important that you choose the right qualities for the comparison. Otherwise you might end up with unattractive or inefficient positioning.
If you’re in the process of building a brand, download my easy-to-follow 7 step brand strategy framework and start building your brand strategy today.
Conclusion
Having these key pieces of your brand strategy well-defined makes the rest of your branding — and the brand management — much easier, smoother, and way more successful. Having all the things above defined will give a firm ground for the other brand building activities. Especially when it comes to building your visual identity.
Have you ever hired a designer to work on your visual brand and been disappointed with the results because it looks nothing like you wanted? Or does not feel like your brand? Brand designers should work based on the things defined above. If your brand personality is not defined, or if the value your brand offers isn’t clear, the visual identity won’t meet your expectations. And will lack a cohesive, well-thought-out brand look and feel.
Ready to start the design work?
If you’ve got all the above things in order, and you’re ready to start building your visual identity, check out my FREE super simple DIY logo guide and share your work on Daily Creative Facebook page.
If you feel like you could still use some help with your brand strategy, download my easy-to-follow 7 step brand strategy framework and start building your brand strategy today.
P.S. If you haven’t already done so, come check out our free Facebook group DIY Brand Design & Strategy for Soulpreneurs where I teach soulpreneurs like you to build their own branding and create their own designs.
