Written by the The Melotti Media Team, checked by Christopher Melotti
In a world where AI and digital technology is rapidly changing everything around us, it only makes sense that the marketing landscape is constantly evolving as well.
But let’s be honest for a second…
This new phase of marketing can only be described as a counterproductive whirlpool of vanilla content and beige branding that’s not helping anyone!
With so many marketers and businesses now relying on AI for their branding strategy, we’re seeing the same content over and over and over – and it’s boring!
AI might be convenient, but it’s tempting marketers to be a touch lazy. What’s more, it completely ignores one very important fact:
Your customers are still human! And they are not lazy! If anything, they’re more diligent than ever when it comes to making purchasing decisions.
That’s why you cannot rely on a piece of software to help you connect with your human customers and distinguish you from your competition.
It’s just not possible!
So, what’s the solution?
A strong brand. Hear us out.
You already understand that your human customers are looking for the right signals to tell them what they should be buying, and who they should be buying it from.
Well, you need to make sure that, at every step along the way, all those signals are pointing towards YOU!
And how do you do that?
With a successful and human-centric branding strategy, of course!
It’s never been more important to strengthen your brand and differentiate yourself from your competitors to stand out in the eyes of your audience – and that’s exactly what a great brand strategy can do for you.
That’s why we’ve put together the ultimate brand strategy guide – designed to help you understand exactly what a brand strategy is and how you can build a successful brand strategy to help your business rise above the whirlpool of vanilla and shine colourful and bright for all your customers to see!
Table of Contents
An Introduction to Brand Strategy
As a marketer or business owner, you’ve likely heard of brand strategy before, but what exactly is it? And why is it so pivotal to the success of your brand?
Well, let’s dig in and find out!
What is Brand Strategy?
In a nutshell, brand strategy brings together and executes all the goals, priorities and objectives that makeup what you want your brand to be. This includes:
- your brand positioning,
- your tone of voice,
- what you stand for,
- your brand identity,
- and so much more.
As part of this, a brand strategy also contains a plan that outlines the marketing tools, tactics and actions that you need to take to bring your brand into that highly coveted space where it aligns with your overall objectives.
Why is Brand Strategy So Important?
In the past, marketers always understood just how important their brand strategy was, and how critical the distinction of their brand was to their overall success.
Unfortunately, the rise of AI has caused many people to forget about this completely.
Luckily, we’re here to remind the world why brand strategy is still so important!
At the heart of it, your brand strategy is all about building your brand into the very thing that will help you achieve the goals, targets and objectives outlined in your business plan.
Without a brand strategy, it’s going to be much, much harder to reach your targets – especially in a digital world where competition has never been so fierce.
I guess brand strategy sounds pretty important now, right?
The Key Objectives of Brand Strategy
As we just mentioned, the overarching goal of your brand strategy is to help you reach the objectives set out in your business plan.
Of course, there are several elements involved in making this happen, and these are what make up the key objectives of a brand strategy.
Let’s go through them:
- Brand Awareness – how much your audience knows about you
- Brand Recognition – how easily recognisable your brand is to your audience
- Brand Engagement – how much your audience interacts with your brand
- Brand Image – how your audience perceives you
- Brand Loyalty – how much your audience prefers your brand over others
Essentially, the intent of a brand strategy is to build and improve upon each of these elements over time. As you do, each one will contribute to a more successful brand and empower your business to achieve its goals.
What This Guide Will Teach You
In this guide, we’re going to cover everything you need to know to help you build a successful brand strategy.
- From understanding your audience and
- defining your brand identity and positioning in the market through to
- the importance of the visual elements and
- the narrative that makes up your brand.
We’ll also discuss:
- how to develop your digital presence and
- improve your customer engagement, as well as
- how to measure your brand performance over time to ensure you’re achieving the results you’re after.
Are you ready? Let’s go!
Understanding Your Audience
Let’s face it…
No brand is ever going to gain any traction without first having a clear understanding of who their audience is and what they want.
This makes understanding your audience one of the most pivotal parts of building a brand strategy.
So, how do you do that?
Well, the best marketing comes from starting with your audiences’ needs – and this means finding out as much about them as you possibly can.
How to Identify and Analyse Your Target Demographics
One of the most effective ways to identify your target audience is to build customer personas.
This exercise will prompt you to write down what you already know about your potential customers and then figure out what else you need to learn about them so you can best serve their needs.
You’ll probably be surprised by how much you already know!
Pro tip: Get a head start by downloading these free Buyer Persona templates from HubSpot.
Once you’ve done all that, it’s time to start filling in the gaps
The Best Technique for Audience Research
By far the best way to conduct audience research and fill in the gaps in your customer personas is by asking your customers for their feedback.
You can typically do this in two different ways:
- Online surveys
- In-person customer focus groups
While online surveys are obviously much easier to conduct, the number of customers that choose to reply can vary widely, and you may not always get answers from an even spread of your customer base.
Customer focus groups, on the other hand, take much more effort to execute, yet you have much more control over who participates, and you can tailor this to suit your customer personas and get the answers you need.
Either way, getting customer feedback is invaluable to your brand, and can help to eliminate guesswork when it comes to your audience, so you can begin to focus your marketing efforts on the people that matter most.
Let’s check out a real-world example of one brand that clearly has a great understanding of their audience.
Here’s an Example of Successful Audience Understanding
I want to introduce you to a little-known brand called… Amazon.
Have you heard of them?
Okay, okay… of course, you have. Amazon is one of the biggest brands on the planet – and they quite clearly have the resources to conduct extensive market research and gather tons of customer feedback.
BUT what’s most clear with Amazon is that they use this feedback to their advantage.
Amazon is heavily customer-centric. They know exactly who their customers are and what they want. And in return, their customers feel a strong sense of loyalty to them.
They also listen when their audience sentiment changes.
We want faster delivery. Done.
We want easier returns. Done.
We want more products. Done.
Bottom line: if you want your brand to be successful, you NEED to understand your audience.
Defining Your Brand Identity
The digital revolution we’re seeing today has led to a dilution of brand identity.
This means that every brand is now saying the exact same thing!
This means that every brand is now saying the exact same thing!
How to Establish Your Brand’s Mission, Vision and Values
The mission, vision and underlying purpose of your organisation forms the core of your brand identity.
They work to guide you in everything that you do as a company in servicing your customers.
To help you establish your brand’s mission, vision and values, it pays to consider your overall objectives for your organisation.
Ask yourself things like:
- What do we want to achieve as a company?
- What problems are we solving for our customers?
- What drives us to do what we do?
In doing so, you can better define your brand and work to build out your unique identity as an organisation.
How to Create a Unique Brand Voice and Personality
Once you’ve got your mission, vision and values, you can use these to help you flesh out your brand’s unique voice and personality – keeping in mind the type of customers you want to attract.
For example, if you’re selling life insurance, you may want to sound serious, yet approachable to your customers and ensure that what you say is easy to understand.
On the other hand, if you’re a girl’s fashion label, you might want to have an upbeat and bubbly brand personality that attracts those types of personalities to buy your products.
Of course, whatever your brand voice may be, it’s important to ensure that you remain consistent in everything you say and do.
The Importance of Consistency in Brand Identity
Have you heard about the brand that wasn’t consistent with their brand identity? Yeah… no one else has either.
See, in order to command attention and start building a loyal following of customers, you first need to ensure consistency in your brand identity across all your marketing channels.
Consistency is the key ingredient that brings everything together to help you form a genuine connection with your audience
Without it, you’ll be constantly putting out mixed messages that will only confuse your audience and cause them to look elsewhere for what they need.
Outlining Your Brand Positioning and Differentiation
Defining where your brand is positioned in the market is another vital yet often overlooked part of a brand strategy.
If you don’t take the time to position your brand and differentiate it from the competition, you run the risk of blending in with the crowd and struggling to demand any attention from your audience.
Let’s consider the strategies and techniques you can use to do this effectively in your business.
How to Position Your Brand in the Market
When considering your brand positioning, it helps to look at your brand and wider industry from a bird’s eye view so you can get a better understanding of who’s doing what.
That way, you can determine where you need to be and what you need to be doing differently to get the edge on your competition.
Using your competitor research, as well as your brand’s mission, vision and values, you can then identify your unique and consistent position in the market.
How to Differentiate Your Brand from Competitors
If every brand was the same and there were no differentiating factors between any of them, it would make for a pretty boring market – not to mention an unproductive one.
By differentiating your brand in the market, you can stand out from those boring brands and let your customers know exactly why they should choose you over anyone else.
Consider what your brand can do differently to stand out, whether it’s:
- your customer service,
- your pricing,
- the way you solve your customers’ problems,
- or something else entirely.
Let’s look at an example of a brand that has nailed their brand positioning in the market.
An Example of Effective Brand Positioning
We all know Bunnings Warehouse.
Everyone’s favourite hardware store has done an outstanding job over the years of defining exactly where they stand in the market and staying consistent with their messaging to their customers.
Think about it…
“Lowest prices are just the beginning”
Every Australian knows that if they need anything for their home, garden or shed, Bunnings will have it cheaper than anyone else.
They even guarantee that if you see a lower price somewhere else, they’ll beat it by 10%!
Bunnings has positioned itself as the leader in the market by offering competitive pricing that you won’t get anywhere else.
So, as you can see, brand positioning is a simple concept on the surface, but it can have a powerful impact on the success of your brand!
Creating Your Visual Branding Elements
Your visual branding is arguably one of the most important elements of your brand.
This is how your customers come to recognise your brand, and recognition is key to building long-lasting customer relationships.
Let’s explore the different elements you need to consider in visual branding.
The Importance of Logo Design, Colour Schemes and Typography
The design of your logo, as well as the various colours and typography that you use throughout your branding, are actually far more important than many people realise.
That’s because, when designed well, these elements can evoke an emotional response in your audience that helps them feel a connection to your brand.
On the other hand, not taking the time and effort to get this part of your branding right can cause a disconnect between your brand identity and your visual elements – leading to confusion and a general lack of interest from your audience.
Of course, more than just getting your visual elements right, you also need to ensure that they are consistent across all your marketing platforms.
How to Achieve Consistency in Your Visual Elements Across All Platforms
Once again, consistency is the cornerstone to ensuring your visual elements can make that connection last between your brand and your audience.
Of course, the most effective way to ensure that consistency is to develop your brand’s guidelines.
These are the rules which you must stick to with your visual elements throughout all marketing materials and across every platform to help show off a consistent and recognisable brand to your customers.
An Example of Iconic Visual Branding
Here’s one global company that can attribute much of their success to a consistent visual brand:
Coca-Cola.
The visual elements of Coca-Cola’s brand – their logo, colours and typography – have gone relatively unchanged for more than 100 years now, making them one of the most recognisable visual brands on the planet.
In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t instantly think of the red and white logo with the cursive style font the moment they hear the name “Coca-Cola”.
That’s exactly what great visual branding can do for your organisation.
Crafting Your Brand Story
Every brand has a story, but not every brand is great at telling it.
Your brand’s story is part of what makes you unique, and the way you tell it needs to resonate with your audience.
The right storytelling conveys the messages you want to get out there in more interesting and humanistic ways.
It’s about more than just providing facts – it’s about creating value for your audience and connecting with them on an emotional and personal level.
So, how can you make that happen?
How to Create a Compelling Brand Narrative
The first thing you need to do to create a compelling narrative is to understand exactly what you want to say.
You can use your mission, vision and values, as well as your product or service offering to help you craft a consistent and persuasive message.
You also need to have a clear understanding of your audience and what they want to hear as well.
From there, it’s about crafting your brand’s story in the right way to make that emotional connection happen.
The Role That Storytelling Plays in Connecting with Your Audience
Storytelling content entertains your audience, which gives them more reasons to keep on reading and learning more about your brand.
Your stories can trigger the emotions of your customers, making them more open to responding to your call to action.
That’s because buying decisions are 20% logical and 80% emotional.
Storytelling content also works on forming deeper connections and trust with your audience – which, in turn, leads to brand loyalty.
Sharing your stories also gives you another point of differentiation against your competitors as well.
An Example of Effective Brand Storytelling
When it comes to effective brand storytelling, not too many brands do it better than Nike.
Nike has been using storytelling to market their brand for many, many years now, and has built an extremely loyal following in the process.
As a brand, they tell the stories of everyday people right up to elite athletes, and they share the different ways that they are always supporting and enabling them to perform at their best.
This is how crafting an effective brand story can make such a huge difference to your business.
Perfecting Your Digital Presence and Social Media Strategy
As our personal and business lives become increasingly intertwined with the digital world, it’s never been more important for your organisation to have a strong digital presence and social media strategy.
Why?
Because that’s exactly where your customers are spending all their time!
Let’s look at how you can build an online presence and leverage social media as part of your branding strategy.
How to Develop an Online Presence That Aligns with Your Brand
When considering how to develop your online presence, it’s important to make sure that whatever you do is well-aligned with your brand’s values and mission.
Whether it’s building a website or a social media presence, everything you say online should be in line with your brand’s unique voice.
If you sell children’s toys, you’ll probably be looking to build a website that appeals to parents and carers and uses simple, fun language that grabs their attention.
Of course, if you built the same website as a lawyer, no one would take you very seriously.
That’s why it’s so important to align your online presence with your brand.
How to Leverage Social Media for Brand Building
Social media is another great way to meet your audience where they are spending their time and ensure your brand is always in front of them to help you reach more people and grow your business.
One of the best ways to do this is to leverage platforms such as:
With these platforms, you can start a conversation with your audience and build the connection that will eventually lead to brand loyalty.
You can also use social media to keep them updated on what’s going on around your brand, as well as gather feedback on the problems they are having so you can develop the solutions they’re after.
Best Practices for Digital Marketing and Content Creation
Digital marketing and content creation don’t have to be a complicated task or a chore for your brand.
In fact, as long as you follow a few best practices, they can be really, really fun!
- Make sure you keep up to date with current trends – Things move fast in digital marketing, and if you’re behind the times, your audience will lose interest in what you’re creating.
- Understand your audience and learn about what they want to see from you – This is the best way to help you build that highly coveted emotional connection with them.
- Set up a content schedule – Come up with your content ideas in advance and schedule them with a calendar so that you know exactly what you’ll be posting and when.
By following these practices, you can keep your audience engaged with your brand and increase the odds of them buying from you in the future.
Speaking of engagement…
Dialling In Your Customer Experience and Engagement
Building up your brand’s customer experience and engagement levels is a huge part of a successful branding strategy.
When your customer experience is on point, this helps to build deeper connections with your audience that lead to brand loyalty and advocacy over time.
Let’s explore this further.
The Importance of Customer Experience in Achieving Brand Loyalty
As a marketing expert or business owner, you know that a great customer experience is the best way to ensure your customers will keep coming back time and time again.
Not only that, but they will also become advocates of your brand and spread the word to family, friends and strangers to help bring more customers your way too!
Of course, without a great customer experience, you’ll struggle to retain your customers and you’ll have to be constantly trying to find new ones – which is much harder than marketing to existing customers.
Building a great customer experience isn’t hard, but it is extremely important and can bring you many benefits when done right!
Key Strategies for Engaging with Customers and Building Relationships
Here are some techniques and strategies you can use to help build better relationships with your customers:
- Connect and converse with your customers on social media
- Collect feedback and listen to your customers
- Consider how every touchpoint throughout your customer experience is working to improve your relationship with them.
Each of these things will go a long way to increasing customer engagement and growing those all-important connections with them.
Here’s an example of a Brand with Outstanding Customer Engagement
One brand that’s hard to look past when it comes to customer engagement is Dan Murphy’s.
From their brick-and-mortar stores to their online presence, they are consistently engaging with their customers in several different ways to help nurture those relationships for the long term.
It’s quite clear when interacting with Dan Murphy’s that they have listened to their audience to understand what they want and considered every customer touchpoint to ensure their clientele are always highly engaged and satisfied.
Now, let’s talk about the importance of evolving your brand over time.
Monitoring and Evolving Your Brand
When you look at all the best brands on the market, you start to realise that they’re always evolving and reiterating their brand to boost performance and meet their customers’ changing needs.
Of course, this is something that should be part of your branding strategy as well.
So, how can you do that?
The Best Techniques for Measuring Brand Performance
Most brand performance metrics are all easily available to you. This includes:
- Website traffic
- Sales data
- Social media engagement
- And much more
You need to be using these metrics to understand exactly how your brand is performing.
You can also conduct regular customer feedback surveys to gather more information around how your brand is performing in the eyes of those who matter most.
From there, it’s about adapting and evolving to constantly improve on these metrics so you can continue to achieve success.
How to Adapt and Evolve Your Brand Strategy Over Time
As I mentioned earlier, constant iteration of your brand strategy is the best way to continue to set your brand up for success – especially as the latest trends and customer needs are always changing and evolving too.
So, take the performance metrics and customer feedback that you receive and use them in your decision-making to help find all the ways you can make little improvements to your branding strategy.
Over time, by doing this regularly, you’ll soon notice that these little improvements will add up to bigger changes that lead to more satisfied customers and greater brand success.
Here’s One Brand That Successfully Evolved – and One That Didn’t
It’s easy to forget that Netflix started as a DVD rental service, where they would post the DVD to your house, and you could return it once you were finished with it.
Of course, as times changed, Netflix evolved, ditching DVDs to become one of the largest streaming giants in the world.
At the same time, Blockbuster, a direct competitor of Netflix’s DVD rental service, chose to stick their head in the sand and continue to do what they’ve always done.
Now, they no longer exist, while Netflix continues to reap the benefits of constant iteration and evolution as part of their branding strategy.
Be more like Netflix.
Wrapping Up the Ultimate Branding Strategy Guide
I hope you’ve enjoyed our ultimate guide to helping you build a successful brand strategy!
By now, you should have all the tools and knowledge that you need to replicate a successful branding strategy in your business and help your brand stand out from the white noise.
Let’s summarise the key points once more.
The Key Takeaways from this Guide
- Take the time to understand your audience on a deeper level
- Define your unique brand identity to provide clarity in your messaging
- Position your brand to differentiate it from the competition
- Ensure consistency in your visual branding elements
- Create a compelling brand narrative
- Make sure you have a strong online presence
- Double down on your customer experience and engagement
- Always monitor your brand’s performance and evolve where necessary
With these in mind, you’ll be well on your way to building the ideal brand strategy that nets your business the results you’re after!
Our Predictions on the Upcoming Trends in Branding
As we look towards the future, here are just a few of Melotti Media’s predictions for where branding strategy is headed:
- We believe that great branding strategies are going to become much more personalised and customer-centric to help deepen those relationships, especially as the lazy marketers continue to use AI to produce monotonous and boring content.
- We believe that customers are also going to start looking more for brands that share similar values to them, such as protecting the environment and championing social causes, and branding strategies will evolve to reflect this.
- Finally, we believe the best marketers will use AI to complement their branding strategy, not run it. It’s about understanding where it can help you and what you still need to do on your own to better connect with your HUMAN customers.
Of course, whatever the future may bring, it’s sure to be an exciting time for all of us looking to grow our audience and develop our brands for success!
Now It’s Your Turn to Build a Successful Brand Strategy!
This guide has given you everything you need to get started and build your brand into something your customers will love.
Of course, if you still need assistance in building your brand strategy, our team at Melotti Media are here and ready to help you!
How can Melotti Media help you with building a successful branding strategy?
At Melotti Media, we understand that you want to get cut through in a competitive Australian market and naturally connect with your human customers.
However, you may find that you’re time-poor and spread thin or you still have a lot of unanswered questions.
But, you don’t need to worry.
If you’re looking for professional help with your branding strategy, Melotti Media can assist you in building a successful branding strategy while you focus on what matters most to you – growing your business.
Let’s start getting the results your business deserves!
To speak to your trusted Australian Message Marketers and Sydney content marketers, email us at enquire@melottimedia.com.au or phone 1800 663 342.
The Melotti Media Team
Melotti Media | Copywriting & Message Marketing Bureau
www.melottimedia.com.au
