How Effective Brand Strategy Can Impact Your Business

If you're starting a new business, it might sound tempting to first focus on the aesthetic part of your brand. Everyone likes to look at something pretty, right? However, while the look of your brand certainly matters, you can't count on only that to make your business successful.

What you need to take your business to the next level is an effective brand strategy. It's what will ultimately give your brand focus and substance. It will help you get your brand's message across to your target audience and create a meaningful connection with them.

The one thing that matters most when you're creating a brand identity project is the brand strategy. Without it, your designer will essentially be working in the dark, trying to figure out your company's goals. Unfortunately, some people don't understand the value of strategy and try to go straight into the design phase. If you're not working with strategy and design together, then your work is headed nowhere.

The point of the strategic part of the brand strategy is to align the management team in the company to try to define what the company is and what it stands for. Now, when you try to cut corners and not invest in an effective strategy, it becomes difficult to agree on what your brand should be all about.

In this article, we will explain what brand strategy involves, why it matters to the success of your brand, and look at some inspiring examples of great brand strategy.

What is Brand Strategy?

A brand strategy helps you articulate your core identity and communicate it. It's how you envision building and sharing your brand. Simply put, it's a plan to actively influence how people perceive your brand. It affects all aspects of business and prioritizes consumers' needs. It also takes into account the business's competitive environment.

If you want to build a healthy company, cultivate a strong culture, and make the people who buy your product or service more loyal to your brand, you need a well-articulated strategy. - Katy French, Column Five

According to Digital Silk, brand strategy includes:

• What your brand stands for
• The promises your brand makes to leads, prospects, and customers
• How your brand communicates your value propositions
• What personality and values your brand conveys through messaging

It was much more common for only global brands to have a brand strategy in the past. However, things have drastically changed. More business owners have realized the importance of building a brand and the strategy necessary to achieve it successfully.

Now, to get you started, DMARZ Designs suggests these questions to consider while developing your strategy:

• Why did you start your business in the first place?
• What is your brand purpose?
• What’s the vision for your business?
• Who are your target clients/customers?
• What problems are you trying to solve?
• What goals are you aiming to achieve?

Having a clear, defined strategy will help you accurately understand your brand, goals, and customers' needs. It will provide you with the necessary confidence to lead your business in the right direction.

Why Brand Strategy Is Good for Business

First and foremost, an effective strategy helps to create a strong brand. It enables you to determine whether your brand is moving in the right direction or not. It defines who you are as a business and focuses on your long-term goals.

If you don't fully know your business purpose, your audience, or you're just following design trends with no rhyme or reason, you'll find yourself in a constant loop of redesign hell and stagnation. - DMARZ Designs

Having just a pretty logo will only get your business so far. Let's look deeper into the specific benefits of working with a brand strategy.

1. Creates a consistent brand voice

This promotes brand recognition as well as customer loyalty. Retaining existing customers is seven times cheaper than gaining new ones. It also encourages internal and external brand advocacy.

Customers will perceive you as unorganized or untrustworthy if your brand is all over the place. This is why a defined strategy should be implemented from the beginning. Stay consistent in all aspects of your brand. Your customers will thank you for it.

2. It defines your brand's purpose

Customers no longer care only about a product's features. They're looking for something more substantial. They're looking for a brand that reflects their values and has a clear purpose.

For example, Vrity research found that:

• 55% of consumers said they pay more attention to brand values than pre-pandemic.
• 52% said they have bought from a brand for the first time because of its values.
• 82% said they would pick one brand over another—and pay more—because of their brand values.

Telling your brand story effectively is crucial to attract and retain the people you want to reach. If you want to share your purpose more effectively:

• Clarify your purpose, vision, mission, and values.
• Tell stories about your values.
• Start within your four walls.

3. It differentiates your brand

For your business to succeed, you need to clarify to customers why they should choose you over other brands. They need to know what's different and unique about your brand. A brand strategy is key to helping you communicate this to customers.

Marty Neumeier recommends you answer these questions:

• Who are you?
• What do you do?
• Why does it matter?

Also, the more you can stand out from other brands, the more recognizable your brand will become. Customers are drawn to brands they can easily recognize.

If you want to make your brand stand out, you have to:

• Know who your competition is.
• Create a strong visual identity.
• Look for gaps in your content.

4. Effective brand strategy reduces employee turnover

Just like it can help create loyal customers, it can also help make dedicated team members. In the long run, this will help you save time and money.  

Also, According to Energage, more than 75 percent of job seekers consider an employer's brand before they consider applying for a job.

On average, talent turnover costs companies $15K per employee. When you get up to executive levels, that number creeps upwards to more than $100K. - Eliza Green, Olive & CO

A great strategic foundation makes it easier for everyone in your organization to do their job. It creates a better work environment and an attractive company culture, reducing costly turnover. According to McKinsey research, 70% of employees said their work defines their sense of purpose. The more purpose you provide through brand strategy, the more retention you'll have.

5. Helps ensure brand growth

While it might feel tempting to leave your brand as it is once you've grown it, it's best to continue to expand it with purpose. It would help if you continued to keep your brand promise to your customers. Standing still will not benefit anyone.

Keeping your promise will require consistent and purposeful work.

You need the right focus, the right brand stewards, and the right intentions. A brand strategy serves as a compass to ensure you do this successfully. - Katy French, Column Five

Once you have your brand strategy established, work on creating a content strategy to keep your company successfully growing.

6. Gives focus to your marketing efforts

In particular, having a strategy helps clarify and narrow the scope of your marketing efforts. This ensures the effective execution of marketing campaigns. Also, you'll know who you are targeting, what their needs are, and how to best communicate with them.

Instead of wasting thousands of dollars A/B testing different campaigns, you'll hit the mark faster and maximize the return on investment of your marketing efforts. - Jon Persson, Cultmethod

Great Examples of Effective Brand Strategy

Last but not least, let's look at some companies that have done a fantastic job at implementing brand strategy. Now, before we move on, it's important to note that branding expert Arek Dvornechcuck believes that every successful brand strategy must include:

• Purpose
• Vision
• Values
• Positioning
• Personality
• Voice
• Tagline

Let's check out a few examples of brands representing these key factors.

Tesla

Tesla is an excellent example of a purpose-driven brand. Tesla believes in clean, sustainable energy and saving the planet. It ties the brand to a greater cause, which is a good way to go achieve your brand purpose

Today, Tesla builds not only all-electric vehicles but also scalable clean energy generation and storage solutions. It believes that the faster the world moves towards a zero-emission future, the better. This can be done through electric cars and other products like storage and clean energy solutions.

What can you learn from this example? Without a doubt, your purpose statement should be open for future expansion. In addition, the brand purpose will inspire your employees to work and give your customers a clear reason why they should engage with your brand.

Starbucks

Starbucks' vision statement is probably why the multi-million dollar coffeehouse chain has skyrocketed to success. It's clear that they have an ambitious goal.

If you have a clear vision of where your brand is headed, then you can make meaningful decisions along the way. - Arek Dvornechcuck, Branding Expert

Starbucks does an excellent job describing the future its brand is ultimately working towards. Your vision statement should help you clarify where you're heading as a brand, and Starbucks achieved this effectively.

Nike

One of the best examples of a triumphant brand tagline is Nike. ⁣You're expected to convey your brand's vibe in just a few words, and Nike does this incredibly well. It both inspires and bonds customers to their brand.

The goal of a brand's tagline is to convey the brand's spirit in the shortest way possible. - Arek Dvornechcuck, Branding Expert

Even though Nike's slogan was created over 30 years ago, it's still one of the core components of the brand today. This example shows us how important it is to define what we want our audience to remember us for. An easy-to-remember tagline will help achieve this goal.

Why You Absolutely Need Brand Strategy

We hope you can see the value in having a brand strategy be part of your business by this point. It will give your brand direction, create customer loyalty, and help your business grow. The benefits of having a clear strategy will outweigh any time or effort you think you will save without it. In the long run, you will feel the weight of not implementing a strategy since the beginning. We recommend avoiding any future headaches and building an effective brand strategy ASAP. Your business and customers will greatly benefit from it!

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