What a Brand Strategy Should Contain
A brand strategy is only useful if it changes decisions. Many are long on adjectives and short on choices, so they sit in a folder while the business carries on as before.
Key takeaways
- A brand strategy should state who you serve, how you are different and how buyers will recognize you.
- Values and personality words help only when they guide behaviour.
- Review the strategy against real decisions: hiring, pricing, campaigns and product.
Many companies have paid for a brand strategy at some point. The document arrived with a mission statement, five values, a personality wheel and a mood board. A year later, few people can recall what it said, and the marketing looks much as it did before.
The problem is rarely effort. It is that the strategy described the brand without making choices, so it gave nobody anything to act on.
What a brand strategy is for
A brand exists in buyers’ memories. It is the set of associations that come to mind when they think of you. Over time, strong associations make buyers more likely to choose you and less sensitive to price, which is what marketers mean by brand equity.
A brand strategy is the plan for building those associations on purpose. So it should guide decisions about who to reach, what to say and how to look.
The parts that matter
- Target buyers. The customers you most want to win, and the situations in which they buy.
- Positioning. How you differ from the alternatives, and why that difference matters to those buyers.
- Core message. The one idea you want remembered, plus the proof behind it.
- Distinctive assets. The colours, shapes, words and other cues that identify you at a glance.
- Brand architecture. How products or services relate to the master brand.
- Measures. How you will track whether the brand is getting stronger.
The parts that only decorate
Mission statements, values and personality traits can help. However, they only earn their place when they shape behaviour. A value such as “integrity” changes nothing unless it guides a real decision, for example refusing a client who does not fit.
Test each element with one question: would we act differently because of this? If the answer is no, cut it or rewrite it until the answer is yes.
How to build a brand strategy
- Research buyers. Interview recent customers and lost prospects, and survey the wider category if budget allows.
- Audit the brand. Check what buyers already associate with you, including which cues they recognize.
- Make the choices. Settle the target, positioning and message, even when some options feel painful to drop.
- Write it short. Aim for a few pages that anyone in the company can read in ten minutes.
- Put it to work. Brief agencies, sales and new hires from it, and check campaigns against it.
Keeping the strategy in use
Review it once a year, alongside the marketing plan. Also revisit it when the business changes, such as after an acquisition or a move into a new market. Otherwise, protect it from constant tinkering, because brands grow through consistency.
If your current strategy sits unused, start with brand positioning, since most other choices follow from it. To review your brand strategy with us, book a free diagnosis.
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