The Bolder Guide To Business Brand Strategy

We all have brands that we find ourselves reaching for again and again—whether in our private or professional lives. Picking a certain soda when you’re shopping has a lot more in common with choosing a specific B2B service provider than you might think, and that shared element is often juicy, emotional, and effective branding.

Brand marketing strategy isn’t new, but with technology making it easier to find, research, and compare products and services, it is a critical part of any business. A study shows that consistent branding can increase revenue by up to 33 percent, so spending some time telling your brand’s story can have real impact.

What Is Business Brand Strategy?

Put simply, your brand is everything someone thinks of when they hear or see your name, both factual and emotional. People might think of your bright packaging, but also that you make them feel secure, efficient, and confident in their work.

It comes from your aesthetic, your voice, and your customer (or potential customer) interactions. It isn’t just a logo with a tagline and a color pallet (though consistent visual brand design is important); it is an amalgamation of how your business makes people feel.

A brand strategy helps you define who you are; you use this as your compass for how you are going to communicate with your target audience and create the perception you want.

Related: Build A Better Brand Strategy

Why Is Branding Important?

Branding your business is all about who you are talking to, what problem you are solving, and how you want to make them feel. In a sea of choices, making purchases often comes down to a gut feeling. Whether you are signing a contract for a B2B service or purchasing from an ecommerce site, branding makes a difference. Here are some reasons why branding is important…

Supports Marketing Strategies

Brand strategy and marketing strategy aren’t the same, but they support each other: your marketing strategy should figure out how to get your name in front of the right people, but your brand strategy is what they will feel once it’s there.

When you have a tight brand strategy, all of your brand communication lives in the same “world” with consistent identity, voice, language, and style. Even what many people think of as basic business principles, such as your purpose, vision, values, and mission statements, are all part of your brand strategy.

As a result, tying your business brand to your foundational principles keeps you focused and consistent in marketing and business development.

Drives Ad Targeting and Referrals

Bold, juicy branding knows how to get people talking—or tweeting, forwarding, and sharing.

You don’t create a brand strategy that you think will resonate with everyone; you write for who is going to absolutely love you. Who is going to feel a connection with your mission? Who needs you the most? Who is going to give you lifetime value as a loyal customer and be thrilled to share you with everyone they know?

Buyer personas can help with this as they represent specific customers within the target market. When clients trust you and can identify other people who would love you, that’s when referrals happen.

A strong voice and brand personality along with memorable customer experiences can turn an everyday transaction into something your clients just have to tell others about. That kind of relationship is where the magic happens.

Adds Value Through Emotion

Building a brand story is about emotional connection. Your brand is there to find your clients’ biggest problems or fears and solve them. That’s big stuff, and that adds value.

Clients become loyal when they enjoy interacting with your brand on more than just purchases, but also your content, marketing, education, and thought leadership. They should feel a connection to your style and approach—your brand’s world.

The elements of your brand, such as signature colors, design, language, should become easily recognizable and make your clients happy, even joyful, to see it. They know their problems are about to be solved.

Checklist For A Tasty Brand

• Knows its target audience or buyer persona in a narrow scope. Understand where they live online, what their problems are, and what they want as a solution.
• Taps into why you matter. What problem are you actually solving? Get to the root of what your target audience wants and why they want it. Think about how you could change their life.
• Builds authentic emotional connection with the audience who will love you most. Create your brand story for the people who are going to go nuts over you.
• A logo that looks fresh but is built on timeless elements with versatility for your deliverables and content. Know the difference between contemporary design and trendy tricks that won’t last the season.
• Uses consistent online branding that aligns with your social media presence and content marketing with fresh visual design.
• Is unique—no ripping off other brands or competitors. It’s not a good look.
• Reflects their company culture. Be genuine. Use your branding guidelines to strengthen your company culture and support your employees.
• Includes purpose, vision, mission, values, and tagline.
  • Purpose: Why do you exist?
  • Vision: What goals do you want to see completed?
  • Mission: How do we meet those goals?
  • Values: How will you conduct yourselves to meet those goals?
  • Tagline: A concise, memorable statement that conveys your brand story.

Examples of Bold Branding

Trends come and go, but impactful branding can last forever.

Apple’s “1984” Ad

During a Super Bowl XVIII break in 1984, audiences saw the Apple ad that is often referred to as “one of the most powerful and effective of all time.” In fact, you’ve probably seen it or references to it even if you weren’t born yet. It’s that iconic.

In the ad Apple doesn’t list their features and state how they’re better than the competition; in fact, no computers appear in the entire commercial. Instead, they dig deep into the fear of “uniformity of thought” with images straight out of the George Orwell novel 1984.

They tell a complete story in just a few minutes: the rest of the world is bent on conformity, but just like the young woman who disrupts the scene, you can throw a hammer against what the world thinks you should be. The new Apple Macintosh will help you do it. This cinematic feeling ushered in the less literal, more emotional brand strategy we see so often today.

Even though this is a single ad, this voice and positioning defined their brand as unique, disruptive, and rebellious. When people bought Apple products afterward, they felt like cool, independent thinkers who were on the bleeding edge of technology.

Liquid Death

By now, you would think that water brands couldn’t do much to disrupt the industry. Liquid Death proves that to be dead wrong.

From their bold can design to their language and irreverent content marketing, everything about their branding strategy says they know exactly who their target audience is. They don’t take themselves too seriously, but they do have core values that come through loud and clear: high-quality water, low environmental impact packaging, and tons of humor about the water industry itself.

If you are looking for support to create bold marketing and drive growth, contact the mintr team for a free product marketing audit.