What's up brand builder Stephen Houraghan here at BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this video you're
going to learn what strategic brand management is and the 12 elements for success so you can
focus on and adjust the components that matter and manage your brand to its intended vision
now if you're new to the channel and you want to build brands that go beyond the visuals and the
logo using strategy psychology and creative thinking then you're in the right place hit
that subscribe button and the notification bell if you want to fast track your results
make sure you grab the pro brand strategy blueprint it's a free download and the link
is in the description now if you've seen any of my videos before you know that i'm a proponent
of the idea that a brand doesn't just happen a brand doesn't just come together with a few visual
elements a brand is an entity with many different moving strategic parts that all work together
in a system so what is strategic brand management well most brands in the world are little more than
visual elements visual assets fewer brands are developed from a strategy and fewer still are
managed ongoing consistently through strategic brand management but in reality unless your
brand has all of these strategic elements that understand who the audience is and the challenges
that they're going through and aims to connect and resonate with who they are and what they're trying
to achieve then your brand is not really going to achieve what its vision is if your brand even has
a vision in the first place only brands that have the necessary strategic elements at play have
any kind of chance at success and it is the strategic brand management that orchestrates all
of those brand elements and gets them all singing the same song so what are the responsibilities of
a strategic brand manager well the strategic brand manager is a hands-on role to say the least there
are many moving parts to a strategic brand and many different specialists and responsibilities
involved now although the brand manager doesn't necessarily execute all of these specialities and
doesn't execute all of these different tasks they do oversee every single element and oversee all of
those responsibilities and they can include brand design ux ui design copywriting and messaging
personality and tone marketing strategy marketing execution and optimization to name a few so why is
strategic brand management so important well as i've mentioned already there are many different
elements and moving parts to a strategic brand but there are also many many different touch points
to the modern brand today there can be upwards of 100 different touch points and if you have
different elements and different touch points throughout the brand experience there are many
different opportunities to have a misaligned brand to put a message out on one platform
that doesn't necessarily align with a message on another platform so it's really important
that the strategic brand manager understands all the elements at play understands all
of the touch points and more importantly understands the overall brand experience
and brings them all together through that experience so what's the difference between
brand strategy and brand management well brand strategy is all about setting in place a plan
for where the brand should go now that's set in place by the brand strategist initially brand
management is all about the ongoing management of the brand and the brand manager navigates
the brand to the vision for that future brand now in reality when it comes to big business you have
many different people working within the brand all serving these roles all filling these roles from a
brand manager to a brand strategist a marketing manager marketing strategist a brand consultant
but when it comes to small business you usually have a brand strategist up front that will set
in place that brand strategy and then you will have the business owner who will manage the brand
ongoing so now that we know what strategic brand management is we know that it's important let's
have a look at the 12 elements that it governs number one target audience and market segments
now although buyer personas are created very early on in the brand strategy development process these
buyer personas are not static they are dynamic they're evolving all the time the more brand gets
to know who its audience is and what they want the better they can adjust not just their brand
messaging but also their product line as well number two positioning and competitive advantage
now again positioning strategy is developed early on within the brand strategy and in reality this
won't change much but it is really important to keep an eye on what the market is doing that
differentiation is the competitive advantage and over time you will have other competitors upping
their game changing their offer and it's important to make sure that that competitive advantage
remains number three personality and tone now your brand personality is a direct correlation as to
who your audience is because your personality is trying to appeal to who that audience is but
this can change over time it shouldn't change often but it can change over time and old spice
is a great example of this old spice for 75 years remain the same brand and in 2010 they pivoted
their personality they pivoted their messaging to appeal to that younger audience they didn't change
their brand identity or anything else within the brand they really focused on that personality that
tone of voice so that they could appeal to that younger generation and that updated target market
number four brand messaging and storytelling now consistent brand messaging is a fundamental
principle of brand strategy and branding in general and it's never been as important as it
is today with so many different touch points but just one misaligned message can derail an entire
cohesive and consistent brand experience so it's really important that this is managed meticulously
number five brand identity and presence so the visual identity of the brand whether it's on the
website whether it's at the shop front it needs to be consistent it needs to be providing the same
experience now the big challenge here is managing those assets making sure all of those assets are
up to date and consistent and if there are any changes to systematically roll them out at the
same time and archive all of the outdated assets number six customer journey and brand experience
now the brand manager should have an almost intimate knowledge understanding and connection
with who the audience is what they're going through what challenges they have what they're
feeling what they're trying to achieve because it's through this understanding that they can
make better decisions they need to consider that audience through every decision and every
expression of the brand to make sure that they're appealing to who that audience is so knowing the
journey that the customer is on the steps that they take to become a customer and the experience
that they go through to become that customer is really really important number seven brand culture
now creating and managing a brand culture is more than just creating a happy place to work
now of course that is the crux of it if you have a happy place to work if your employees come
in they have satisfaction in their job they know what they're doing they're attached to
the purpose and the values of the brand then that is a strong brand culture and again that's
not just about having a happy place to work that feeds into the output of the brand and
ultimately the brand equity as well number eight employer branding now employer branding leans on
a strong brand culture you have to have that strong brand culture in place you have to have
that happy place of work that your employees will talk about because it is that reputation amongst
employees amongst the workforce that you're trying to build and if you have a strong employer brand
that feeds into every other element of the brand number nine brand architecture now as your brand
grows so will your product line or your service line and possibly your brand portfolio as well
now it's really critical to have organizational structure and that organizational structure is for
internal clarity but it's also important to have communication structure as well to make sure that
externally the brand is not confused that your audience is not confused by which brand belongs
to which company or which service belongs to which brand so it's really important to have that brand
architecture in place and that is in the role of the strategic brand manager number 10 marketing
strategy so through the brand strategy you'll know the who the what and the how the brand is going
to go out and express itself in the market but through the marketing strategy you need to know
the where and when so you need to understand your audience in terms of where they congregate where
they go online where they go to talk about the problem that they have that your brand is going
to solve at on a basic level when you have that information then you can start to devise a plan
for the marketing strategy to put messages in front of your audience in the right place at
the right time to influence how they feel and how they think about your brand number 11 marketing
execution now marketing execution happens on a specialist level it doesn't happen directly from
the strategic brand manager because there are so many different elements so many
different disciplines within managing a brand the execution of the marketing strategy could include
seo search engine optimization it could include sem search engine marketing ppc pay-per-click
display advertising content marketing social media marketing and these are just a few you
can't expect a strategic brand manager to be able to execute on all of these they oversee all
of these different tasks and they are executed through specialists and number 12 measurement
and analysis now at the beginning of the video i said that i'm a proponent of the idea that a brand
is not just something that you build and then it's done it's not something that you throw together
it is dynamic it is a living and breathing entity and just because you set a strategic plan in place
just because you set the course it doesn't mean that the brand is going to get there you need to
monitor the brand you need to analyze the brand you need to analyze the activities of the brand
the marketing activities the messaging to analyze what's working and what's not and with that
information make adjustments where necessary now as you can see strategic brand management is not
for the faint of heart there are a lot of moving parts there are a lot of elements a lot of touch
points and a lot of responsibility there are a lot of specialists that you need to manage a lot of
possibilities in terms of the marketing strategy the messaging that you can put out there into
the marketplace and the brand manager needs to consider all of these they need to consider each
and every element every touch point every platform that they can put their brand out on and make sure
that they streamline their efforts there's no point in trying to spread yourself too thin if
you try to be everywhere at the same time and you don't have the resources for it then you're
not going to achieve that vision for the future of your brand so think about the resources that
you have think about who your audience is where they congregate focus your efforts and monitor
and analyze what's working what's not and make the adjustments where necessary if you want to learn
more about building your brand as an actual asset then this video on how to create brand equity
will help you out until next time brand like a master and i'll see you in the next video you