Your brand strategy is vital to your business’ success. Without it, you won’t have much to help you stand out in your market. Your brand is your business’ customer-facing identity. It’s how consumers view your business, products and services. A brand isn’t created overnight. It takes creativity, brainstorming and time to build an effective brand strategy. So how do you build one from scratch?

A brand strategy is an approach you take to coordinate the different elements of your business’ identity, including the look-and-feel, culture, design elements, and most importantly, messaging that work together toward long-term goals. The brand strategy encompasses the overarching plan and tactics you’ll implement to achieve long-term brand equity or – your brand’s value to your ideal client.

In addition to creating the perfect identity for your business, branding benefits your company in the following ways:

• It communicates your value proposition
• It helps develop trust and loyalty 
• It separates your business from the competition
• It boosts your company value
• It attracts and keeps and top-notch employees

So – we’ve hyped up the importance of a brand strategy — but how exactly do you go about developing your brand strategy? It has to be effective, attainable and unique to your business. Don’t let the thought of crafting this branding strategy scare you away. 

Here are 5 simple steps to create an effective brand strategy:

1. Get clear on who you’re talking to.

As we mentioned before, branding is your customer-facing identity. It’s how people view your business and interpret what you do. Some will say that your brand is your business’ reputation or how you make people feel.

Because of this — people are at the core of creating your brand. After all, the goal of your business is, in some way or another, to appeal to other humans. So, when making your branding strategy, you need to understand your target audience to a granular level. Get to the nitty-gritty of your audience. We’re talking demographics – age, gender, race, ethnicity, interests, geographic location, motivations. Create that customer profile, and build every element of your strategy with that persona in mind.

2. Nail your mission, vision and values.

Your mission, vision and values communicate your brand’s purpose and objectives. Ultimately, the mission, vision and values serve as the pillars your business is built upon – they determine how you help your customers. These three core elements truly influence the decisions you make for your branding. When you combine your target audience with the mission behind your business – you’re on the right track to achieve effective branding.

3. Focus on a unique value proposition.

The next step in building an effective branding strategy is to take your identified audience and your company’s mission, vision and values to create your unique value proposition (UVP). A UVP is a statement that directly tells consumers how exactly your product or service will benefit them. This includes completing your market research and positioning your brand to differentiate your business from others and solve a problem. 

4. Create an emotional connection.

When faced with a competitive market, it’s crucial to differentiate yourself from competitors. This is best done by making an emotional connection with your audience. Targeting your consumer’s emotions helps build loyalty. To create an emotional connection, you need to solidify the storytelling aspect of your brand. Telling a story about your core offering and how it benefits consumers by tugging on their heartstrings is the perfect way to establish that emotional connection. 

5. Communicate consistently across all channels.

Clear and memorable messages make your brand stick in consumers’ minds. Whether they’re ready to pull the trigger on your product or service right then and there, or you want to live in the back of their minds until they’re ready to purchase. Once you craft that content, you need to communicate it across all touchpoints. From social media to website content to emails – your content needs to be noteworthy and consistent to communicate your brand to all members of your target audience.

When it comes to whether or not you need a branding strategy – it’s a no-brainer. But, establishing that branding strategy can be complex to work through. So, follow these 5 simple steps to create an effective brand strategy to build your brand and establish a lasting impression on consumers.

Are you ready to get started? Contact Carter House Copy today for tailored solutions to create an effective brand strategy. Let’s write your startup success story together.