Brand Strategy: An Easy Beginner’s Guide In 2021

Introduction

Brand strategy is one of the most critical aspects of business planning and gives a sustainable competitive advantage. Branding permits a business to distinguish its products and services from those of its competitors. The advanced digital market has made it simpler for small businesses to access branding specialists and influence branding in a significant manner. There is a lot more to know about brand strategy apart from its simple meaning. 

1. What is Brand Strategy?
2. Why Brand Strategy is important?
3. Types of Brand Strategy
4. Brand Strategy Framework
5. How to Build a Brand Strategy?

1. What is Brand Strategy?

To comprehend brand strategy, one should initially understand the term “branding. 

In basic terms, brand strategy meaning refers to the way of evaluating the value and authenticity of a company, service, or any products. It is a different and unique set of qualities, advantages, and properties that characterize a specific brand. Many individuals generally combine branding and marketing.

Conversely, brand strategy definition means the guidelines and methods on how, what, where, when, and to whom you convey your brand messages. A well-executed brand strategy process prompts a predictable brand message, a strong enthusiastic connection with clients, and higher brand value.

2. Why Brand Strategy is important?

The market scenario currently is driven by brand strategy companies that rely on perception and brands representing customers’ perspective of an organization’s products, credibility, value, and user experience.

Different branding strategies is important as it gives clarity about the competitive scene, market position, and user expectations. This data is crucial to create successful marketing strategies and to promote messages to boost your competitiveness and build firm brands. Branding altogether upgrades the brand’s market achievement and productivity by improving name acknowledgment, building validity and trust, expanding advertising adequacy, and inspiring employees.

3. Types of Brand Strategy

There are many kinds of branding strategies that may increase the value of your organization relying upon your intended interest group, industry, financial plan, and advertising efforts. Below are the multiple brand strategy examples of branding systems that can build brand value for your business.

• Individual or Personal Branding: Individual branding portrays branding that is utilized for an individual, rather than branding for an entire business. This sort of branding is frequently used to build up an individual’s character, personality, or work as a brand. 

Famous personalities, legislators, politicians, and athletes, or any public figure frequently utilize this type of branding to introduce the best form of themselves to the crowd.

Example: Neil Patel, the co-founder of Quick Sprout, Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, has his brand name “Neil Patel Digital”. His blogs, articles are followed by almost all digital marketing experts.

• Product Branding: This is one of the most well-known branding types. Product branding centers around making a single item unique and distinct. The icons, images, or logos are a basic part of product branding to enable your clients to distinguish your product without any problem.

Example: Coca Cola is the best example of this. Its name, color, bottle size, the logo makes it unique so that audience can differentiate them.

• Corporate Branding: Corporate branding is a guiding principle of business and a way of thinking that a business creates to introduce itself to the world and its employees. 

Significant corporate brands frequently look to show the organization’s main goal, vision and mission, and core values in each purpose of reach it has with future clients, current clients, and past clients.

Examples: Nike’s guiding principle and mission are conspicuous over all products and platforms. Their mission statement is “o bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.” And its motto goes like “Just do it”. 

As a corporate brand, Nike positions itself as a brand for sports lovers and any individual who is energetic about sports and fitness.

• Service Branding: This branding uses the necessities of the users. Organizations that use service branding look to offer their clients with high values services. They expect to utilize extraordinary customer support as an approach to offer some benefit to their clients. 

Example: Chick-fil-A is known for its extraordinary client assistance – making it now inseparable from its brand.

• Co-Branding: Co-branding is a type of branding that associates organizations together. Co-branding is a marketing partnership between at least two organizations. This assists brands with affecting each other decidedly, and it might bring about one developing its business, spreading brand awareness, and breaking into new business sectors.

Example: Frito Lay and Taco Bell met up and made the Doritos Locos Taco that spoke to the two different sets of audiences.

• Online Branding: This is otherwise called internet branding, which encourages organizations to situate themselves as a piece of the online commercial center. This kind of branding incorporates an organization’s site, social media platforms, blog posts, and other content.

Example: Nowadays, almost all companies have their websites and blog pages.

• No-Brand Branding: This sort of branding is otherwise called moderate branding. These brands are regularly nonexclusive brands that look to let their products represent themselves without all the additional items many others give their customers.

Example: Any brandless and m/f individuals. As you notice that brandless’ site, their packaging colors, and generally the language are basic. This lines up with their central goal of giving reasonably evaluated food to individuals without a typical brand.

4. Brand Strategy Framework

Building a brand, much like structuring a house requires certain building blocks to be put in a specific order to guarantee solid central stability. 

That is actually what a brand strategy framework gives that is given below.

• Reveal Your Brand Core 
• Build up Your Buyer Personas 
• Weigh Up The Competitive Brands 
• Fashion Your Differentiation Strategy 
• Characterize Your Strategic Market Position 
• Adjust Your Brand Archetype
• Shape Your Brand Personality Strategy 
• Discover Your Brand Voice and Tone 
• Reveal Your Human Brand Persona 
• Characterize Your Brand Messaging Framework 
• Design Your Brand Storytelling Framework 
• Plan Your Brand Identity System

Apart from these there are 3A’s – Awareness, Adoption, Advocacy. These consistently helps in brand growth.

5. How to Build a Brand Strategy?

Start with an investigation of the 4 components of brand strategy – consumer, category, your brand, and the competition. Then sort out a state of distinguishing that is significant for the shopper, is consistent with your brand, and has not been taken up by the opposition.

Like this, the other components of the Brand Strategy that includes Marketing Strategy, Communication Strategy, Media Strategy, and Brand Identity should be sorted out. And later on the Marketing plan with the move-outs plot. There are different inquiries that we need to manage while making your brand strategy. All these seem to be theoretically way simple to apply, but you need to figure out how you can beat the main player or the company competing with you with your brand strategies.

Conclusion

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