I am not a gardener. I kill even the most confident of cactuses. And thus, I have invested heavily in synthetic house plants.
My mother is a good gardener, so I do know that successful gardening is about foundations – fertile soil, shade vs light, plant foods blah blah – all contributing factors to a thriving garden. I just haven’t put it into practice yet.
It’s no different with your brand. Poor foundations = either a short lived business, or one that never truly realises its full potential.
It’s said that 64% of consumers have stronger relationships with brands who share their values. They demand that brands demonstrate their ‘why’ clearly, and tell their audiences the reason they exist. Forbes
But even as a brand strategist, this insight makes me squirm because it’s so ambiguous.
Everyone wants that true connection with customers – it’s what spins the economic engine not to mention the personal-satisfaction engine. But it’s the practical steps to get there – that’s the hard part.
So – do you need to get clearer about your brands’ ‘why’? And what other critical factors should you consider for your brand and business to reach its full potential?
Let’s take a look…
Brand strategy comes before ‘lipstick’
We’ve all heard the saying ‘putting lipstick on a pig’. In a marketing context, it’s throwing a coat of paint at something before ensuring the architecture is sound. The beautiful logos and design assets of your brand are in some ways the easy part – the extension of the hard work. The hard work itself informs your ‘why’, your purpose, your competitive advantage and guides you as to how these things should be shown on your public ‘face’.
Without diving in and nailing these critical strategic functions of your strategy, you can easily lose sight of who you are, where your opportunities for sustained growth are and what to say ‘No’ to. But you’ve got to do the work. Otherwise your risk putting lipstick on a pig and making decisions without a framework.
6 key considerations to build a solid brand foundation
Drawing from the areas I work through with my clients to inform their brand ‘blueprint’, take a look at the gritty stuff you need to nail down:
1. Your brands purpose
- What if you were told you had to stay in business but you’re weren’t allowed to make money? – hypothetically of course 😉 Why would you and your team keep showing up each day? What do you get a ‘kick’ out of beyond the financial gains?
- You should start to uncover the drivers and values that exist in your business and attach these to your brand and to your marketing.
This isn’t always easy. But you need to go deep, be honest, think about what you’re enabling for people?, how do you make something easier?, less painful?, more enjoyable?, faster?
Jim Collins (Read the classic: ‘From Good to Great‘), sums this well in his Hedgehog diagram that forces businesses to find their ‘intersection’ between:
- What they’re most passionate about
- What spins their economic engine
- What they could become the very best at
2. How you do things differently
Why are your solutions better of different? (Think perceived OR real differences and consider aspects across your customer’s experience, your brand, your actual products and services, location, price, etc).
Think about how you’ll sustain those differences and what makes it hard for others to copy you? (Now and in the future).
3. Vision – what are you passionate about creating?
Think big: in other words what problem would you eliminate if every relevant company / person utilised your services/products?
What ambitions do you have? What are the hard numbers of your future success? (Your top-line commercial goals). And what is the timeframe to achieve this success / these goals?
4. Your brand personality
It’s time to humanise your brand. What better way to encourage deeper connections and understanding from your customers.
- Think about the ‘traits’ that define your brand? Which personality traits are fundamental to competing in your industry? (E.g. Knowledgeable. Trustworthy etc)
- And which traits are going to set you apart – which of the 12 brand personalities are you?
- Once you’ve decided who your brand is ‘as a person’, you need to acid check it. What evidence exists in your current business to support this personality? OR, how will you need to change to embody it?
5. Your brand’s (blockbuster-movie) story
Humans love a story. Love to be taken on the journey. The highs and lows of the characters…..the suspense and drama. Every great story has a few common factors that reel people in and make them curious to know more….Your brand is no different.
Consider:
- Why did your business begin? What was the need you were fulfilling or commercial opportunity to capitalise on?
- What is the timeline of events since – the sequential journey?
- Who are the characters that brought you to where you are today?
- And most importantly – what is the ‘plot’? The highs and lows of the story, the growth, the learnings / the happy ending or continued progress…..
6. Your best customers
Get to know them intimately.
- Who are you meeting the needs of? Who are you solving problems for? What are their individual demographics / job role / company size / company industry / turnover?
- Once you know the nuts and bolts of who your customer are, you need to dive deep on their personas – their challenges, issues or triggers do they have?
- How do your products/ services speak to their problems?
- And what is the impact of not solutioning that problem for them?
Solid brand strategy empowers teams
If you nail these critical factors (and a few others), it starts to become clear what your team are building, what you value, how you’ll grow, and where you should spend your marketing $ for max effect.
Add to that, good old-fashioned empowerment. These key functions of your brand strategy can often be difficult to articulate. They’re all sitting in peoples’ heads and hearts, the hard part is asking the right questions.
Once extracted, challenged and agreed upon however, it can create culture shifts in confidence and a strong sense of knowing where your business is headed.
Need help?
This stuff seems surprisingly easy on the surface, but it can be rather challenging once you’re sitting in a room with your team discussing it. Sometimes it comes down to a fresh lens, and a devil’s advocate in the room to ask you the right questions.
I love this stuff. It’s one reason I get out of bed in the morning. So reach out to me if this is an area your brand could use a little support with.