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5 Actionable Strategies to Strengthen Your Brand

Is branding really essential to promote your business? The answer is yes!

No matter what type of business you are, there is a solution specifically tailored to your brand. The branding strategy is indeed possible both for traditional companies and for individuals or for B2C marketing or B2B marketing between two brands.

The advantages of establishing a branding action plan are numerous:

The branding strategy is an opportunity for the company to develop a truly unique offer that the customer will not be able to confuse with the competition.

Three pitfalls to avoid when developing a brand marketing strategy

Be careful to avoid the following pitfalls when developing your branding strategy:

  1. Not analyzing what your competitors are doing

Imagine creating a brand marketing strategy and deploying your message using a multitude of mediums only to realize after the fact that your main competitor has already launched a campaign very similar to yours. Believe us, this happens more often than you might imagine and the only way to avoid this is to do ample research on your competition before you take the plunge.

Make sure you check out what your competition is doing before you create your own product packaging.

Popular Read: How Corona Beer as a brand fell victim to the Coronavirus?

  1. Not paying attention to consistency

Taking a different art direction each time you launch a new campaign might sound light and fun, but it’s actually confusing for your audience and damaging for your brand.

If you own a fast food chain, for example, it would be weird to run a video showing celebrities eating at your house and some cartoon animation to explain where your ingredients come from. Your audience would struggle to recognize your brand.

The same goes for consistency in the tone you use to communicate with your audience across the various communication channels. Whether it’s social media, a print ad, or a video, make sure you always use the same tone.

Consistency is an essential element for a successful branding strategy. (image)

  1. Have a short-term vision

Without goals and without a mission, your brand marketing strategy will not be focused and lack direction. It’s important to know what you want to achieve in the long term, rather than just setting short-term goals for yourself.

For example, you might have in mind to expand internationally one day, or bring new products to the market, or even create a real community on social networks.

Also read: How to build visibility for your brand with Social Media marketing?

5 steps for a successful brand marketing strategy

Brand marketing isn’t just for giants like Nike, Apple, and McDonald’s. Any brand, regardless of size, can brand successfully by following five simple steps.

  1. Understand the purpose of your brand

Knowing the purpose of your brand is essential to your branding strategy. Ask yourself the following questions to help you:

It is during this first step that you will begin to define the look and style of your brand. It begins with choosing its color palette, its typography and the images that represent it. If you are unsure of the images and the most appropriate items for your brand, read our article on why creating a graphic charter is important for your brand.

  1. Research your target audience

Understand who your audience is by creating customer personas. A customer persona is a complete picture of your ideal customer. Doing this will help you make an emotional connection with your audience.

If you’re selling cheap cars, for example, your ideal client might be a college student between the ages of 18 and 25 looking to get her very first car. To determine the persona of your ideal customer, ask yourself these questions:

  1. Define and sell your story

You can sell your brand’s story through your message. The story you create and sell will allow you to connect with your target customers and encourage them to be loyal to your brand. Take the time to really develop a story that is engaging and encapsulates all the elements of your favorite novel or movie: characters, conflict, resolution, etc.

You don’t have to be a playwright. Your story may very well be straightforward. Just explain, for example, that your grandparents opened a bakery 50 years ago and that their passion (and their secret recipes!) have been passed down to you from generation to generation since then. This will surely give you the opportunity to say a word about their most famous cakes and pastries, and to add that all your ingredients are from organic farming, in a way that respects the environment and the community that you serve.

So you grab the attention of your target customers with a great story, while letting them be an integral part of it by interacting with your brand.

  1. Get to know your competitors

Just as it’s important to get to know your audience, it’s important to know your competition. Do your research, figure out how you are different from them, then focus on those differences to craft your marketing message. For example, if your main competitor is known to be the cheapest on the market, focus on why quality (of your products) is more important than price.

  1. Create style guides for your brand

Once you understand your brand and audience, think about how you can incorporate that knowledge into your marketing. Creating a style guide allows you to determine all of the elements relating to your logo, colors, fonts, branding tone, and more. This document will help any designer and marketer you work with to fully understand the message you are trying to get across and tell your brand story in the best possible way, while still maintaining consistency.

To conclude:

At MeDigit, we help businesses achieve brand awareness, using proven branding techniques to create strong brands that build and maintain trust.

MeDigit has been working for years on branding strategies and brand education which is an extension of our actions to help leaders and marketing professionals build a tangible brand image. Through reflections from some of the global brand leaders, we strive to promote communication on the value and role of the brand in today’s businesses.

So let’s connect to make your brand, THE brand.