5 ways your brand strategy keeps you focused
A brand strategy is often the piece of the puzzle that’s missing in many small businesses. Are you wondering how to say what you do clearly? Maybe you don't know how or where to reach your audience? Is everybody in your business focused on different things? It sounds like you need a brand strategy.
Your strategy defines how you're going to reach your ideal customers and build rapport with them. It's the most important part of your brand as it sets out how you're going to stand out from your competition.
So how does your brand strategy keep you focused?
1. It sets out your goals
The purpose of your strategy is to keep you focused to get you to where you want to be. The very first part of your brand strategy is to set out your goals. Everything defined in your strategy should help you reach those goals. When you know what you’re aiming for you can make all your business decisions based on whether they’re going to get you to where you want to be.
2. It stops you from going off piste
Whether it’s just you in your business or you have employees, you’ll know that it’s very easy to get distracted by exciting new ideas before you’ve completed everything thats on your to-do list for now. Your strategy defines exactly what you stand for as a business and how you do what you do - your vision and mission. Along with your goals, these are the things that keep you on track. You can check everything against your goals and your vision and mission to see if it’s right for your business aims.
Ask yourself:
Does it fit your vision and mission but not your goals? If so, save it for later.
It doesn’t fit either? It might be time for a rethink or to drop the idea entirely.
3. It defines your target customer
Knowing your customers inside out is the key to success. Understanding their problems enables you to show you really get them and builds trusting and long-lasting relationships - which we all want with our customers!
With a clearly defined customer base, you can be much more targeted. Many people think a ‘niche’ is focusing on a particular industry or demographic, but it could be based around specific problems or aspirations people have. Being much more targeted not only makes your services easier to sell, but it also makes it a lot easier to reach more of your audience.
4. It focuses what you say
I’ve lost count of the number of conversations I’ve had with business owners who say ‘I can’t say what my business does clearly’ or ‘I don’t know how to say what we do so our audience understands it’. Your brand strategy should define your messaging so that it sets out what you want to be known for and answers your customers problems.
Once you’ve defined your messaging, you should communicate it over and over again so that’s what you’re remembered for. That way, everybody knows exactly what you’re offering. This leads to people trusting you because you’re not changing tack every two seconds, which builds long-term loyalty.
5. It makes your marketing simpler
Knowing your customers inside out makes your marketing much more targeted. After all, there’s no point being on all the social channels if your audience is only on Linkedin.
That’s not the only way your strategy makes your marketing easier. With your messages and themes defined you’ll always know what to say, which makes your marketing much simpler to do. You can pick themes or problems to focus on each month - even tailoring it seasonally too! When you’ve got a really strongly defined audience, you can ask them questions about their problems to constantly improve your marketing and help you to develop new services. All the different parts of your brand strategy work together in a little ecosystem which feeds each other to make you consistent and memorable.
Ready to define your brand strategy?
It’s all very well jumping in at the deep-end and marketing your business, but you really need to know who you’re marketing to and why. You also need to know what you’re going to say to them so they remember the reason why they should work with you.
That’s what I’m here for. If you’re finding yourself feeling stuck with how to say what you do, or you’re getting distracted by exciting new shiny things and finding it’s impacting how your business grows, I can work with you to get the customer-facing part of your business down on paper.
Book a virtual brew with me today to discuss how we can start getting your foundations in place and focus you for the year ahead.