What's up brand builders! Stephen Houraghan here of BrandMasterAcademy.com and in
this video you're going to learn seven steps to become a brand strategist
so you can enhance your branding career raise your expert profile
and start to help your clients on a higher level to create brands that are
built to succeed.
now if you're new to the channel and you want actionable brand strategy tips and
techniques to grow your business well then hit that subscribe button and
the notification bell and you will be well on your way
now brand strategy is becoming an increasingly important topic
within the branding space and there's a couple of reasons for
this firstly you have a lot of influencers out there entrepreneurial
influencers the likes of Gary Vaynerchuk and
Richard Branson and Grant Cardone all talking about the importance
of brand and branding so entrepreneurs and business owners they're now
listening to all of this content that's out there telling them they need to be more strategic
in the brands that they build so they know now that their brand is far more
than just a logo and a website now of course there's a big gap to close here there are still
a lot of small business owners and entrepreneurs believing that
you just need a logo and a website to be successful but there is
a growing number of entrepreneurs in the market
now that are growing and they're listening to these influencers they're
understanding the importance of brand and brand strategy
and they're going out into the marketplace looking for it and the
second reason that brand strategy is becoming more important is that you have a lot of branding
professionals now understanding what's going on in the marketplace and
stepping up to meet the needs of those entrepreneurs and in doing that
they're also distancing themselves from the previously crowded branding
market the likes of designers out there offering their services for really really cheap that is a saturated
market and those designers and those branding professionals
who are adding strategy to their services are able to differentiate
themselves from all of those other me-too service providers so they're the two main reasons
that brand strategy has become increasingly important
and if you're considering transitioning into this space then it's a win-win you
have consumers and customers out there who are looking for this service and you're also distancing
yourself and differentiating yourself from all of
those other me-too service providers so that's what I want to go through
in this video I want to give you a step-by-step plan that you can use to
become a brand strategist step number one gain industry experience
now when it comes to branding there are many facets
and many roles within branding that contribute to the brand building
experience and contribute to that building of that brand so you
have brand designers you have copywriters you have
social media marketers so what is it that you do what experience
are you bringing to the table if you don't have any experience you need to
decide what area you want to get involved in and then get
that experience under your belt because you do need to bring some kind of
branding experience to the table to go into a brand
strategist role because a brand strategist is essentially
mission control for the building of the brand they need to have their
finger on the pulse they need to understand every facet
that is involved in building a brand so you need to bring some brand
building experience to the table step number two grow your digital marketing
knowledge now one of the first things I did when I decided I wanted to become a
brand strategist is I went and I got a digital marketing
diploma now the reason I went and I got that diploma was because I
knew that marketing was the front lines of a brand
now i'm not saying that you need to go out and get
traditional education there is so much information available online but you do
need a very good understanding and you need
to have your finger on the pulse as to what marketing options are available for
a brand because essentially marketing are the front lines
of a brand and when it comes to building a brand as a brand strategist you need
to understand what those options are step number three
hone your communication skills now there is this
broad misunderstanding that branding is something visual that a business owner
or entrepreneur needs to go out and grab themselves a logo on a website
and because they are now visual and they have a visual brand they are branded but
the reality is that branding is all about communication
it's all about communicating your brand in a way
that influences the perceptions that your audience has
about your brand and there are many more tools for communication than just
visual you have messaging you have visual storytelling
you have copywriting you have emotion there are many different facets
when it comes to communicating your brand that as a strategist
you really need to understand you have to have a good grasp of communication so
you can use those tools of influence to shape the perceptions of
your brand in the mind of your audience step number four
learn how to art direct now one of the core
tasks of a brand strategist is to really understand who that audience is and
understand the market landscape and then devise a plan
and a position and a differentiation strategy that will help
the brand stand out in the marketplace but it's also a really important task to
be able to visualize what that brand will look like in the
marketplace so you can bring that brand to life visually now this doesn't mean
that you need to come from a design background
although you do have a lot of strategists now coming from
that design background and if you do have that experience then it is an added
advantage but the visual aspect here of a
strategist's role is being able to visualize what that brand looks like
and then help whoever they're working with to bring that brand to life
visually step number five understand all brand building roles now as a brand strategist maybe as a
freelance brand strategist you will have your hands on some of
these roles yourself so maybe you're designing the brand maybe you're
building the website or writing the copy when it comes to freelance brand
strategy that's how it's done a lot of brand strategists
do have their hands on some of those some of them don't some
brand strategists are just consultants and they just give advice but some brand
strategists do have their hands on some of those
roles but when it comes to developing a brand strategy for your client whether
you have your hands on those roles or not you need to have a 10,000 foot view of all of the roles
and all of the skills involved in building a brand
so again this really depends on the size of the business and the scope of the
project but you might need to understand print design or UX design UI design printing
environmental design copywriting social media marketing
Google Adwords so there are many possible roles involved
in building a brand and it doesn't mean you need to be an
expert in all of those roles but having a good understanding of what roles
are involved in the brands that you build is really really important
step number six understand neuroscience and psychology now
again as I've mentioned before when it comes to branding what we're trying to
do as brand builders is influence the mind of the audience as to how that brand is seen how they're
going to perceive that brand where they're going to position it
in their mind because it is in their mind where they position the brand
it's not anywhere else so having an understanding
of the mind that your brand is trying to influence is really really important
for the strategist to to have a full scope view of that because
again human behaviors are repetitive we have these patterns of behavior that
you know we tend to do over and over again and if
you have an understanding of those patterns
and why we do what we do then you're going to be at
a huge advantage as a brand strategist now this doesn't mean that you need
a doctorate it doesn't mean that you need to be a psychiatrist
or have a white coat or anything like that but having an understanding
of psychology and neuroscience as a brand strategist is a huge advantage
step number seven learn a brand strategy development process now as i said before
there are a lot of elements within a strategic brand so you really
need a system in place to ensure that every single one
of those elements are considered to make sure that the brands that you
build have a consistency about them have a certain
quality of outcome about them so you need to take the time to understand
who that audience is and exactly what they want what they're feeling what
they're going through and the journey that they're on the
emotions they're going through and then look at them and the market
that they're looking into as to what options they already have so
what are their competitors offering out there in the market and
then using that information to define a position in the market and
from that point you need a system to then take
all of that information and then go on and develop the brand into
more of a human entity that's able to communicate and resonate with who that
audience is so here i'm talking about developing out
a personality and a tone of voice and a messaging framework and a storytelling
framework all that are designed to resonate with who that audience is so
again there's a lot of elements when it comes to strategic brands and
having a system in place to develop those elements for a brand strategist
is really important now a fortune 500 brand strategist is not going to have to
worry about having their hands on the design of the brand or
the development of the website or the copywriting but
chances are they will still have a very very good understanding
of all of these roles they would just be able to focus more on the strategic
thinking but when it comes to you more than likely you're trying to bring
brand strategy to smaller to medium-sized businesses so you're
going to have to have more of a hands-on role
in the development of the brand and all of those different elements but don't
allow that to intimidate you this is simply a case of going out and
getting the information that you need so that you can
build brands that have far more chance to be successful in the marketplace if
you're able to understand all of those roles if you're able to
take each one of these steps then you're going to be able to move
closer to transitioning into a brand strategist role
and helping those clients on a higher level so that they're building brands
that are actually built to succeed if you like this video please give it a
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but i'd love to hand it over to you now i'd love to hear from you what are your
experiences when it comes to transitioning into a
brand strategist role have you done that already
and what have those experiences been are you in the middle of that and what are
your challenges if you've got any questions at all please leave them in
the box below I'll do my best to answer all of those
until next time brand like a master and I will see you in the next video!