How To Create A Brand Strategy [Proven 14-Step Framework] — Transcript

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1. 0:00Stephen Houraghan here of BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this video you're gonna learn
2. 0:03how to create a brand strategy using this 14 step roadmap used by some of the
3. 0:11now when you build a brand for yourself or for a client essentially what you're doing is you're building an
4. 0:15entity that's going to connect a business to a group of people and try as
5. 0:20you might a logo and a brand identity is not gonna help you do that you need to
6. 0:24first understand who the audience is and what they want and then devise a plan to
7. 0:28show them that your business has what they want in a way that's gonna resonate
8. 0:33with them best and that's exactly what the brand strategy is so why is brand
9. 0:37strategy so important well if you have products or services that you want to
10. 0:41sell to ultimately grow your business then you want to give your business the
11. 0:44best possible chance to grow now if you think of any team in the world any
12. 0:49professional team in the world then they work hard on their techniques they
13. 0:53understand who their competitors are including their weaknesses and then they
14. 0:57go and devise a plan to go out and beat them now does this mean that every
15. 1:02team is successful because they have a strategy no but every successful team
16. 1:07does have a strategy and the same is said for every successful brand in the
17. 1:12world they all have a strategy for success so now that you know that you
18. 1:16need a brand strategy you just go out and whip one up right well it's not that
19. 1:20easy and although most businesses do understand that they need some kind of
20. 1:23brand strategy most don't know how to go out and develop one and that's what
21. 1:28we're gonna clear up in this video right now with this 14 step roadmap step
22. 1:32number one develop your internal brand now this is the very first step in the
23. 1:36brown building process and even some business owners who do understand the
24. 1:41value of brand strategy tend to skim over this quite quickly but it is a
25. 1:45really important step because it provides a solid foundation for your
26. 1:49brand and if your brand doesn't have a solid foundation it doesn't take long
27. 1:53for the cracks to appear so your internal brand includes your purpose
28. 1:57your vision your mission and your values and it's really important that this
29. 2:01stems from the leadership team because it is the leadership team
30. 2:06that directs the brand and if there's not a solid belief behind why
31. 2:10the brand exists then as I said it won't take long before cracks appear so
32. 2:14develop your internal brand stemming from who the brand leadership team is
33. 2:19and you'll have that solid foundation in place step number two define your target
34. 2:23audience now in order for any business to survive and then thrive they need
35. 2:27some kind of value that certain people want and these certain people are a
36. 2:32group and that is who your target audience is and it's your job as a brand
37. 2:36builder brand manager brand leader to understand these people as intimately as
38. 2:40you can understand everything about them so use every tool at your disposal to
39. 2:46paint a picture of who they are so your demographics your psychographics
40. 2:49understand the challenges their pain points and ultimately get to their
41. 2:53emotions because it's through their emotions that you're gonna be able to
42. 2:56really understand them empathize with them and connect with them step number
43. 3:00three map your market landscape now if there is a group of people that want
44. 3:05what you have then chances are there are a group of competitors already serving
45. 3:09those people so you need to understand that group of competitors as well as you
46. 3:14can because you need to understand what your audience already has available to
47. 3:17them in the marketplace why because you don't want to offer the same thing you
48. 3:22want to be different you want to give your audience something that they don't
49. 3:25already have as an option in the marketplace because if you just go out
50. 3:28into the market and offer the same as what's already out there you're just
51. 3:32contributing to market noise and you're not giving your audience a reason to
52. 3:36turn their heads and look towards your brand step number four uncovering your
53. 3:40market position so at this stage you'll understand who your audience is and
54. 3:43you'll understand who your competitors are and that is a clear picture of your
55. 3:47market landscape and having a clear picture of your market landscape allows
56. 3:51you to see gaps and opportunities in the market where you might be able to fill
57. 3:55and go in and give yourself or give your audience something that they don't
58. 3:59already have already so you need to understand those gaps and start to ask
59. 4:03some questions as to how you can be different how are you gonna be better
60. 4:08faster more convenient just a better option for your audience in the
61. 4:11marketplace to give them that reason to turn their heads that difference that
62. 4:16you're gonna make in their lives is gonna be the reason that
63. 4:19they turn and look towards your brand and ultimately choose your brand over
64. 4:23your competitors step number five shape your brand personality
65. 4:27now once you've defined the position that you want to own in the market
66. 4:30you'll understand the value that you're gonna bring to your audience and the
67. 4:33impact that you're gonna make in their lives so now you need to try and come up
68. 4:37with a plan and devise a plan to convince them of that value and show
69. 4:41them of the impact that you're gonna make in their lives now what we say to
70. 4:45our audience is very important but how we say it will have a big impact on
71. 4:49whether or not our message is received now on a human level we all connect with
72. 4:54people through our personalities through the characteristics that we display and
73. 4:59we connect with other things in the exact same way we connect with brands in
74. 5:02the exact same way if we see personality if we see characteristics that we're
75. 5:07attracted to then we're far more likely to be open to those messages so
76. 5:11understand who your audience is the characteristics that they're attracted
77. 5:15to and then infuse your message with those characteristics and your audience
78. 5:20will be much more open to your messaging step number six identify your brand's
79. 5:25tone of voice now this is an extension of the personality and another
80. 5:29opportunity to inject characteristics and personality into our brand now we
81. 5:34are in a content driven world today and there is content everywhere we see
82. 5:38advertisements we see social posts content articles videos and each one of
83. 5:43those is an opportunity for our brand to inject characteristics and inject
84. 5:48personality so that we can resonate with who our audience is so understand the
85. 5:53personality that you want your audience to be attracted to that you know that
86. 5:58your audience will be attracted to and then use your tone of voice to inject
87. 6:02more of those same characteristics and if you use that tone of voice across all
88. 6:07of your content then they'll feel a connection to your personality they'll
89. 6:11feel a connection to your brand when compared to you know your competitors
90. 6:14who are at they're just creating content that doesn't have personality that
91. 6:18doesn't have a tone of voice step number seven develop your messaging strategy
92. 6:23now the personality is the how behind your message how are you going to
93. 6:26deliver that message and the characteristics that you're going to use
94. 6:30to resonate there but the messaging strategy
95. 6:32is the what you're going to use so what is it that you're gonna say to convince
96. 6:36your audience that you have some value that's gonna impact their lives what is
97. 6:40it you're gonna say that's gonna connect with them and if you think about us on a
98. 6:46human level when we're in to introduce to something new we all think the same
99. 6:51way we all have this subconscious thought of what's in it for me that is a
100. 6:55primal instinct that we have and that's related to our reptilian brain we're
101. 7:00always thinking what's in it for me is this a threat is it a danger or is it
102. 7:04some value that's gonna help me survive so that is the first thought when we
103. 7:08have that we have when we come into contact with something new and that is
104. 7:13the first itch that we need to scratch with our messaging we need to scratch
105. 7:16that what's in it for me itch so we need to break our messaging up into a series
106. 7:21of key messages that's first gonna scratch that itch and tell them the
107. 7:25value that we're gonna offer in their lives but then we're gonna follow those
108. 7:28messages up with messages that show them that our brand is more than just a
109. 7:33transactional brand we want more from this relationship than just the
110. 7:36transaction than just their money and that is what the follow-up messages will
111. 7:40do so we need to split our messaging strategy up into messaging that's gonna
112. 7:45prove the value of our brand that's gonna show them that we have value to
113. 7:49offer and messages that are going to show them that we want more from this
114. 7:53relationship than just their transaction step number eight craft your brand story
115. 7:58now as humans we are fascinated by story and this is because it was the primary
116. 8:03way to pass information on from one generation to the next so it's built
117. 8:08into our DNA and when we hear stories we just listen more intently we're more
118. 8:12engaged and you know we always want to hear what the next step is and what
119. 8:16the end of the story is so that's built into our DNA and that's why we listen to
120. 8:21story and remember story far far more effectively than we do simple fact
121. 8:27sharing and this has been proven by neuroscience and we're actually 22 times
122. 8:31more likely to remember story based information than we are to remember fact
123. 8:36based information so if you're able to show your audience why your brand is
124. 8:40different and the impact that your brand can make in their
125. 8:43lives through a story or series of stories well then they're gonna listen
126. 8:48far more intently they're gonna be more open to that story because it's part of
127. 8:52their DNA step number nine develop your name and tagline now it might seem
128. 8:57pretty late in the process to be creating the brand name and the tagline
129. 9:01and this actually flies in the face of most brand building processes because
130. 9:06what you'll find is that most businesses and you know most brand names are
131. 9:11created by the business owner very very early in the business development stage
132. 9:16and it's usually created because you know they like the name or you know
133. 9:21they're emotionally attached to it some kind of way but if you think about what
134. 9:25brand name and taglines are they're just another communication tool and
135. 9:29another strategic tool to be able to send a message to your audience and
136. 9:34plant a seed in their mind so if you also think about the information that we
137. 9:38now have at hand we know the position that we want to own in the mind of our
138. 9:42audience we know who our audience is we know why we're different to our
139. 9:45competitors the personality that we want the characteristics that we want to
140. 9:50deliver the messages the stories we have all of this information at hand now so
141. 9:54we're in a much better position to be able to name the brand and develop the
142. 9:59tagline to plant the seed in the mind of our audience as to why our brand is
143. 10:03different what we want our audience to remember about our brand so we need to
144. 10:07take all of the information that we've gathered and developed up until this
145. 10:11point and use that when developing the brand name and the tagline step number
146. 10:1610 design your brand identity now this is where most business owners start the
147. 10:21branding process they'll go out into the market look for a designer to design
148. 10:25them a logo and then they'll deem themselves branded and away they go
149. 10:30but this really puts a bit of context into the idea that a brand is not a logo
150. 10:35because at this point in the stage we have developed 90% of the brand all of
151. 10:40the work that we've done up until this point all of that strategic work is 90%
152. 10:45of the brand and now we're just bringing it to life visually through the visual
153. 10:49identity and that's where we design you know the logo the typography the colour
154. 10:54palette the image style and all of these now put
155. 10:57more emphasis on the visual identity on that brand identity before if you're
156. 11:02developing a visual identity as the starting point for your brand well then
157. 11:06you don't have all of that strategic information and therefore your brand
158. 11:10identity doesn't have that strategic input but now you have all of that
159. 11:15information and now you can develop and design a brand identity that is speaking
160. 11:20to who the audience is that is delivering a message based on the
161. 11:24personality and the characteristics so through the brand strategy the brand
162. 11:28identity becomes more important because it has all of that information at hand
163. 11:33to use in the brand design process step number eleven craft your brand
164. 11:37collateral now this is where your strategy and your identity come together
165. 11:41and this is the dressing room for your brand launch so everything from your
166. 11:46purpose to your typography your color palette to your positioning strategy to
167. 11:51your personality to your image style they all come together through your
168. 11:55collateral so everything from your website to your brochures your business
169. 11:59cards your advertisements your billboards your point of sale any piece
170. 12:04of collateral any form of physical or digital communication from your brand is
171. 12:11part of your brand collateral suite so you need to develop that in this stage
172. 12:16and at that stage you are ready then to go ahead and launch your brand you have
173. 12:19all the tools at hand that are laced with your strategy and your identity and
174. 12:24you're ready to go step number 12 devise your brand awareness strategy now we've
175. 12:29already done some groundwork with audience in terms of understanding who
176. 12:32they are and this point in the brand building process we're going to find
177. 12:38where they're congregating so we need to understand where they hang out online
178. 12:42where they hang out physically where they congregate where they go to for
179. 12:45information about the problem that we have that our brand solves and where
180. 12:49they're gonna be most likely to be open to our messages then we need to
181. 12:53prioritize those congregations in terms of where our messages are going to be
182. 12:58most effective and develop specific messages for each of those environments
183. 13:02so that is what the brand awareness strategy does yes we've devised how
184. 13:07we're going to communicate to our audience what messages were gonna say
185. 13:10how we're gonna resonate with them through our characteristics and our
186. 13:14personality and their tone of voice through our brand strategy that we have
187. 13:18developed but now we're getting more into the tactical side of getting our
188. 13:23brand out into the marketplace and this is where marketing comes into play so
189. 13:27our brand awareness strategy and our marketing strategy are one in the same
190. 13:30and we need to tactically decide where we're gonna place our messages and where
191. 13:35to prioritize those messages step number thirteen launch your brand so you've
192. 13:40done all the hard work here you've developed all of your communication
193. 13:44you've developed your visual identity and your tactical strategy to place your
194. 13:48messages out into the market and now it's about executing now the type of
195. 13:53budget that you have will have a big impact on how quickly you move here if
196. 13:57you're working with a decent-size budget and you've got Google Ads to play with
197. 14:02Facebook Ads to play with then you can reach a lot more people through that
198. 14:05budget but if you don't have a budget then your marketing efforts are gonna be
199. 14:10a lot more guerilla-style you're gonna be doing a lot more hard work rolling up
200. 14:15the sleeves and getting stuck in there on forums and chats and really trying to
201. 14:19put your name out into the marketplace through those free platforms so
202. 14:23depending on your budget will depend on how quickly you can make an impact but
203. 14:27it's important to keep that perspective and it's also important to determine
204. 14:30what success looks like within your brand awareness strategy so how are you
205. 14:36gonna approach the marketplace and what's your strategy gonna look like in
206. 14:40three months time how are you gonna define whether or not that strategy was
207. 14:44a success so as you launch a brand keep that perspective in mind if you've got a
208. 14:47budget you're gonna make more impact if you've got less of a budget you're gonna
209. 14:51make less of an impact but keep that perspective so you don't get overwhelmed
210. 14:55and finally step number fourteen analyze optimize and evolve now a huge advantage
211. 15:00that business owners have today compared to 15 years ago or even 10 years ago is
212. 15:06the level of data that is available so analytics is a very very useful tool and
213. 15:12whether you do this yourself or engage somebody to help you it's important that
214. 15:15somebody understands the power of analytics and to be able to analyze that
215. 15:20data so you can see whether or not needle is moving or not and then it's a
216. 15:24case of optimizing improving evolving do more of what's working do less of what's
217. 15:30not make those changes be nimble and evolve over time and that is how you're
218. 15:35going to find out what it is that your audience is responding to what they're
219. 15:40not responding to and then do more of what they're responding to so if you
220. 15:43didn't know already but you probably did you can see now that a brand is far more
221. 15:48than a logo but luckily for you 90% of your competitors are still going out
222. 15:53into the market looking for a designer to design them a logo and away they go
223. 15:57they don't have any messaging they don't have a position in the market they don't
224. 16:01understand their competitors their audience and they're not connecting with
225. 16:04them they're not resonating with them so what you need to do now you need to make
226. 16:07that advantage work for you follow this 14 step framework and develop a brand
227. 16:12strategy for your brand so you can start connecting resonating with who your
228. 16:17audience is and you can start moving that needle raising that brand awareness
229. 16:21and growing your brand but I'd love to know if you learned something new from
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235. 16:44directly into your inbox but I want to hand it over to you now is there
236. 16:48anything that you've learned from this video do you now know that a brand is
237. 16:53more than a logo of course you know you knew that already but is there any
238. 16:56more steps that you can introduce into your brand building process to help you
239. 17:00connect and resonate with who your audience is if you've got any queries or
240. 17:05any questions or any challenges at all in relation to building a strategic
241. 17:08brand please let me know in the comments below I'll do my best to answer all of
242. 17:12those messages until the next time brand like a master and I will see you in the next video!