The Foundations of an Effective Branding Strategy
Each branding strategy aims to increase brand awareness, in order to help consumers understand the Brand and identify with it. To achieve these objectives of familiarity and sales, however, a branding strategy built on solid foundations is required, let’s see together what cannot be missing in the Brand building phase.
With a superior knowledge of the brand, the possibilities of building links between their problems and the solution offered by the Brand increase in the public’s mind, reducing the purchase time and its repetition in the future.
In fact, let us remember that if we do not communicate we will never be appealing in the eyes of our buyers!
Analysis of the Current State of the Company Brand
We can only start from here!
The first step in building a Branding strategy is the analysis of the state of our Brand, only by having a clear understanding of the current situation can we in fact make improvements in line with what was done previously.
In particular, it is necessary to analyze:
- The company’s commercial offer, its business model, its current identity, its tone of voice, how it communicates and on which channels (from press to social networks, via website, SEO, SEA, PR, events, etc.) its current positioning on the market and the desired one.
- The definition of objectives and benchmarks to measure future results derives from this first phase of analysis.
- The next step is to analyze the external possibilities for the Brand. To decide how to proceed, study the status of the Brand and identify your starting position.
Analysis External to the Brand
By external brand analysis we mean an exploratory phase in which the market and stakeholders are screened. By stakeholders we mean:
An organization, group or individual that can influence or be influenced by the achievement of the company’s objectives, as defined by E. Freeman.
From the market analysis, the client company must draw the indications coming from the product sector and from the territorial regions of reference, with relative competitors and their positioning.
From the analysis of the stakeholders, the Brand must be able to understand the possibilities of expansion and approach to old and new segments of the public.
The division between online and offline interlocutors is now non-existent in this sense, the daily reality of customers includes both. For this reason, the communication of your company, to be effective, must be set up in an integrated way from this first phase.
Once these first internal and external data have been collected, we can proceed by analyzing the segments of the most interesting possible customers.
Audience Study and Touchpoint
From the study of possible customers, it emerges not only the possibility of finding new segments potentially interested in purchasing the products or services offered by the Brand, but also their behaviors and their needs.
These details on pain, needs and requirements are extremely valuable for the Company, which will be able to develop new products and services aimed at solving the specific problems of its audience.
With the aim of perfecting communication and directing it to the right recipient, it is important to use Buyer Personas. These are calculations of their ideal customers, with personal traits, socio-demographic characteristics, behavior, needs and requirements.
This study goes hand in hand with the research of stakeholders, to coherently develop all the contact points or touchpoints, between the company and potential customers.
Definition of the Company’s objectives and Brand positioning
With data relating to your Company, the market, stakeholders and customers, we have the basis for defining the Brand awareness and sales objectives. The way to reach them must now be mapped out, with the right KPIs to measure progress step by step.
The main objective, the most complex to achieve, is positioning in the minds of customers .
To be recognized as a category leader or specialist in a particular sector, it is necessary to start from a detailed study of the fundamental characteristics to fill that role, together with the evaluation of competitors, their current positioning and their future objectives. Without forgetting the market and its evolutionary trends.
Once the ideal positioning and the objectives associated with it have been identified, its consistency with every aspect of the Brand Identity must be verified, to avoid any communicative friction.
All the steps and studies we have talked about are essential for starting a Brand, but also for verifying the Branding strategy in progress.
To decide how to proceed, do a self-assessment of the brand status and identify your starting position.