Why A Brand Strategy Is Important For Your Startup

Written by Luke Glassford

September 23, 2022

You may have heard the term ‘brand strategy’ before and not really understood what it meant, or simply thought ‘I’ll get to that later’ - but later never came. Luckily there are fantastic examples of amazing branding strategies all around to help inspire you.

For example, everyone knows what shop you mean when you hear the phrase ‘every little helps’, or what company is associated with the Christmas TV advert ‘holidays are coming’. That’s because their branding strategy is so clear and well executed across all of their products and services that it becomes ingrained in the mind of their customers. But first, what is a branding strategy?

Your brand strategy is much more than your businesses name, logo and colours - it covers a wide variety of different aspects which will make your company memorable and relatable to your ideal client base. A brand strategy is a long-term plan which aims to concisely and cohesively portray your company message, value, goals and vision to the customer.

The aim of an effective brand strategy is to enhance the customer experience, build trust and rapport with your ideal clients and increase revenue through an increase in sales. Ultimately, your brand strategy is the story you are selling to the world about who your company is, and why you do what you do.

Benefits of developing a clear brand strategy

The benefits of a strong and clear brand strategy are multifaceted. Firstly, it can show a commitment to your customers. It is a way of showing your customers exactly what they can expect every time they interact with your business. It is your promise to them of your standards, your values as a company and expectations.

For example, if your brand is focused on sustainability and you are discovered to be using unsustainable products, that could create a misalignment with your brand and break customers' trust in you as a company. A brand strategy is much more than just words. It’s action as well.

A strong brand strategy is also vitally important to support your marketing messages. Your marketing team (or yourself if you’re a solopreneur) are going to need to understand your branding strategy to its deepest core in order to convey that confidently to your audience.

Whether that is through social media, email marketing, PR opportunities, print marketing or simply your website, your brand strategy needs to be an integral part of the operation. A key thing to note here, is that if you employ members of staff, having a well-developed brand strategy also ensures staff members feel connected, understood and enjoy working towards a common goal.

To find out how Gambit Partners can help your business develop a brand strategy, arrange a FREE consultation call with our team below:

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How to build a brand strategy

Now you understand the importance of a brand strategy, here are some things you need to think about in order to build and develop a brand strategy:

What is the purpose behind your brand? Why do you do what you do? What problems do you solve? What makes you different?
Research your competitors. A lot of people forget about this step but ultimately you want to stand out as being different.
Who is your target audience? Make this as precise as possible - rather than saying ‘young men’, go deeper. How old are the men? What do they do for a living? Where do they live? Think about creating a buyer persona.
Establish a brand mission statement. What sums your company up?
Think about a brand voice. Do you want to be friendly and approachable? Do you want to use swear words? Do you want to use emojis in your content? This way, your brand voice will be reflected across all your marketing channels and things will feel cohesive for the customer.
Develop a logo and brand colour scheme which link to your messaging, values and also ideal customer.
Develop or reanalyse your brand strategy regularly so you can ensure you are still staying true to the messaging, values and promise to your customers. Companies change over time, and that’s great but your brand strategy may need to change as well to reflect that.

Ultimately it is your responsibility as the business owner to ensure your brand strategy is well developed, clear and easy to associate with your business. This can feel very overwhelming for people, understandably, so we offer help, advice and the ability to outsource your branding strategy to us.

To find out how Gambit Partners can help your business develop an effective brand strategy, get in touch with our team below:

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