ShivaniA brand is an intangible concept that is used to identify your business. It is very important to have a unique brand if you want your business to flourish. In order to have a unique brand for your business, you must create a well-structured strategy first. This strategy is known as brand strategy.
An online source says that 80% of consumers need to trust a brand before making a purchase. This is only possible if you have a compelling and unique brand identity.
Creating a unique brand strategy is a gradual process. You can not just make a strategy and expect it to still work after 2 or 3 years. The market is constantly evolving, and if you want your business to be a success, you will need to evolve as well.
In the following post, we will discuss some simple steps to create a brand strategy that will help your business to stand out in the market.
1. Define Your Brand’s Purpose and Values
It is very important to have a defined purpose for your brand before it is even created. You can only make your brand visible if you have set goals of what you want your brand to be. This purpose can make your business different from others. Resultantly, your business can have a unique identity.
If we look at some big brands, such as Apple and Google, we can immediately associate them with something.
For example, the mission statement of Apple is “to bring the best user experience to customers through innovative hardware, software, and services.” Now, whenever we think about Apple, we associate it with the best cell phones or the most popular cell phones. In this way, Apple has successfully created a unique identity for itself.
In the same way, you can define the purpose of your brand and take appropriate steps to make it the identity of your business.
For instance, let’s suppose you have a SAAS company, and your brand purpose is to transform images effortlessly using the magic of AI. Users can create stunning images with ease, thanks to instant clean-up features that ensure picture-perfect results. Whether it’s to remove objects from photos, or text from any images, it simplifies the process with a simple brush stroke, making image editing more intuitive and efficient. Additionally, it offers to remove people from photos service.
2. Research Your Target Audience
In order to create a successful brand strategy, you must put your audience’s needs as a top priority. You should experiment with different things until you find out what is the most popular among your target audience.
You can research your audience through multiple mediums. Some of the most common ones are:
- Online Research
- Surveys
- Focus Groups
Online research means researching the different mediums from where the audience is reaching you. This can give you an idea of the preferences and interests of your audience. A more direct way of getting to know your audience is through surveys or polls. You should try to gather as much information as you can about their needs and requirements. Then, you can optimize your brand strategy accordingly.
Similarly, making focus groups can be helpful as well. You can segment your audience into distinct groups depending on their interests. After that, you should look for ways to create a brand that will satisfy all of the focus groups. Such a brand will be both unique and successful.
3. Analyze Your Competition
If you want to create a unique brand strategy, then you should know who your competitors are and what they do. Researching your competitors can give you a good idea of all the points that set you apart from them.
You can analyze your competitors in many different ways. You should look for things like how they market their products and how they communicate with their customers. Things like these will give you an understanding of how you can do things differently from them that are also better.
This will automatically lead to you being able to come up with a unique brand strategy. You can look for things that your competitors lack. For example, in the skin care industry, all the companies are making products with artificial chemicals. To be unique and also provide value to your customers, you can try making natural or herbal products. This can really distinguish you from your competitors.
4. Develop Your Brand Identity
Developing a brand identity is crucial to being unique. An identity can be created by making a logo and brand name that resonate well with the purpose and values of your company. These seemingly small things can reflect the identity of your brand and can also differentiate you from others.
You should choose the physical appearance of your brand very wisely. The theme of your brand can be selected by knowing the nature of your brand. For example, if you have a professional company or firm, then it might be a good idea to use bold and simple fonts. Similarly, your logo should be minimal, and the color theme should consist of dark colors.
Another example is a wedding ring brand, your logo should embody elegance with a sleek and refined design, utilizing minimalist elements and a colour palette that exudes sophistication
In these example, the suggestions are not something that you have to follow absolutely. They are actually tips on how the nature of your business can be expressed with the help of themes and logos.
Once you have created a visual identity for your brand, you can use it in all of your marketing channels. In this way, you will have a consistent brand image. According to Fit Small Business, branding consistency can increase revenue by 20%.
5. Craft Your Brand Messaging
Brand messaging is defined as the way in which you communicate with your customers. Brand messaging is a very important factor in deciding whether your brand strategy is unique or not.
Your brand messaging strategy should be aligned with your brand purpose and values. When someone reads about your brand, he/she should think about what you provide or what the purpose of your brand is.
Some ways by which you can create a unique brand voice are:
- Creating a tagline
- Having a brand story
- Creating an elevator pitch
A tagline is usually a creative phrase that explains the purpose of your brand in a unique way. You can create a tagline by keeping your brand purpose in mind and letting your imagination do the rest.
Having a brand story is a great way to connect with your audience emotionally. It is not a marketing strategy but is instead a way of letting your audience know what your goals and ambitions are.
A brand story should be compelling and written with utmost accuracy. A simple way of creating such a story is to create a rough draft in which you have expressed your mind with the help of words.
When trying to write down ideas, it is possible that you make some errors, such as writing clunky and unreadable sentences. Such sentences need to be rewritten. Now you can either paraphrase them yourself or take assistance from an online sentence rephraser. It can reword phrases without damaging their original meaning.
Here is an example of how an online rewriter works:
Similarly, you also need an elevator pitch. An elevator pitch is basically a sales pitch that is short, descriptive, and persuasive. It is a formal way of introducing your brand. It can be something like,
“Do you need a personal writing assistant? Well, don’t worry because we have got you covered. We can …”
In the continuation, you can explain a few technical aspects of your service. Other than that, you can also add a few reasons why users should choose your service over others.
Just like the visual identity, you can use these different brand messaging templates in all marketing mediums. This will help you create a consistent brand voice and also a unique brand.
6. Implement Your Brand Strategy
Once you have completed all of the above steps, it is now time to implement them. You can start by making this brand strategy a part of all your online platforms. These platforms can also be a means for marketing. They include:
- Social Media
- Website
- Ad Campaigns
In this way, you can advertise your brand and create a compelling and unique brand identity. The logo that you have created and the brand messaging tone that you have crafted should be utilized in the most effective ways.
Additionally, it is very important that you remain consistent in implementing your brand strategy. If you are sending out emails in a specific tone, then the blog posts on your website and captions on your social media should also be written in more or less the same tone.
Similarly, use a single visual identity (logos and themes) for all your projects. Such consistency will help you stand out and create a unique brand.
In addition to this, you should also closely monitor the success of your strategy. You can measure the success of your strategy very easily. First of all, you should make set some clear goals that you expect as the strategy is implemented over time. If those goals are met, then you can say that the strategy is a success.
If the goals are not met, then you should find out the parts of your strategy that require changing. Once you identify the problem, you can optimize your strategy to fix them.
Final Words
Having a unique brand for your business is one of the pivotal steps toward success. A branding strategy can help you create a unique identity that differentiates you from your competitors. There are some steps that you have to follow in order to create such a unique brand.
If you have a goal of creating such a brand, then you can follow the steps given in this article.
