What's up brand builders! Stephen Houraghan here of BrandMasterAcademy.com and
in this video you're gonna learn a fourteen-step brand strategy development
process that you can use to build brand strategies for your clients and
dramatically increase their chances of success and just as importantly charge
more for your premium service.
now if you're new to brand strategy if you're new to this channel and you want actionable
brand strategy tips and techniques to grow your business well then hit that subscribe button
and the notification bell as well and you will be well on your way so brand strategy
now this was a term that was a bit of an enigma for me for a while because I
heard a lot about it I understood that brand strategy could lead to more
comprehensive better-developed brands but I didn't know too much about it so
I did a lot of research I read a lot of books and over time I seem to have all
of these random pieces to a puzzle but I didn't really know how they all fit in
together how they all connected and how they all worked together to build a
strategic brand but over time through trial and error I learned I understood
what piece meant what what piece went where and how they all work together and
I used that to develop my own system on my own 14-step process to develop
strategic brands and that's what I want to go through in this video step number
one hold a discovery session with your client now you can do this face-to-face
with your client you can do this over the phone but this is a really really
important step to building that brand strategy because so much of that
critical information that you use to build a strategy comes from these
sessions so you need to learn everything you can about your client's business
about the industry that it's in about the audience the competitors and all of
this from their perspective so they're telling you from their perspective what
their understanding is of all of this information so it's really important
that you ask the right questions here to gather all of that information and
that's what this session is all about it's all about that information-gathering
so you have the ingredients that you need to go and build your
strategic brand step number two develop internal brand now pretty much anybody
in business any entrepreneur or business owner has come across the terms purpose
vision mission and values now a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners will
quickly go ahead and grab a template and draw up a quick statement and then check
that off the list they'll stick those statements in the bottom drawer and
they'll never be seen again but the internal brand is actually a fundamental
part of the brand it provides that foundation on which everything else
is built so it's really important that this internal brand is developed from that
information that you gather from the client because if they believe in the
brand if the brand that you build for them is really believable to them that
everything within their psyche everything within their beliefs and why
they're doing what they're doing comes through in your brand and they believe
in that brand then that brand has a far greater chance of success step number
three define your target audience so you need to know who it is that you want to
connect the business to in order to be able to develop a brand that will
resonate with that audience so you need here to dig into who this person is now
there might be more than one person that you're trying to connect this business
to there might be two there might be three but it's really important that you
understand each and every one of those audience personas and develop a detailed
audience persona so you understand who they are you understand the challenges
that they're going through the journeys that they're on and what their wants are
what do they want what did they need and when you have all of that information
you can use that later on to really resonate with who they are so it's
really important here that you gather that information you really dig into
who the people are that you're trying to connect the business to so you
can develop out those audience personas and use them later on in your messaging
step number four analyse the market landscape so you need to know who else
is playing in this space what other brands are in this space who's
dominating the space and why are they dominating what are they doing so well
what do their customers love about what they're doing and who else is also
playing in this space what are they doing well and what are they not doing
so well so it is really important that you understand what your competitors are
doing well but really what you're looking for here is what they're not
doing so well where their leaving gaps open in the market because those
gaps represent opportunities step number five define your difference now this is
where the bulk of the work is done within the brand strategy because really
everything else flows from here you need to identify the one thing that you are
going to do better than your competitors and that you will want your audience to
remember about your brand because all your messaging all your communication
with your audience is going to stem from this difference this is what you're
going to plant your seed in the ground and plant your seed in the mind of your
audience as to what position you want to take why do you want to be remembered
what do you want them to remember about your brand step number six define your
brand archetype now brand archetypes are a very very useful strategic tool to
help your business and your brand connect with your audience through
personality now if you don't know what brand archetypes are I've done a couple
of other videos on them I'll leave the links in the description below and the
links above as well but they are a very very useful tool that you can use to
develop out your brand strategy and your brand personality so define what
archetype will best appeal to who your audience is the desires they have the
characteristics they display and then use that as your foundation to develop
your brand personality step number seven define your brand voice now what you say
to your audience is really really important but the way you say it is just
as important because you really want to resonate with who they are and if they
hear a certain language a certain tone of voice that resonates with them that
feels familiar to them then you're far more likely for your messages to land in
their mind so take the time to develop out that brand voice and ask yourself do
we want to be corporate or professional or friendly or rough and gritty what is
it that we want to display what characteristics do you want to display
through our brand and how can we use our brand voice to display those
characteristics step number eight craft your brand message now your brand lives
in the mind of your audience and they perceive your brand
however they perceive your brand the fact of the matter is
you don't actually have control over how they perceive your brand but you do have
influence and that influence comes in the form of your brand messaging you can
tailor your messaging to who that person is to the journey they're on the
challenges they're going through the emotions they're going through and if
you craft your message well enough it will resonate with them and that will
influence how they perceive your brand in their minds so messaging is really
really important in shaping how your brand is seen in the mind of your
audience so this step is critical step number nine develop your brand story now
brand storytelling is becoming more and more important because neuroscience has
discovered that we don't actually make our decisions through our logical
neocortex brain we make our decisions through our reptilian brain and our limbic
system which is based on emotion so essentially we make all of our decisions
based on that emotion and story really gives a brand the opportunity to tug on
those heartstrings and really connect their brand and the idea with the
emotion of their clients so you really need to take the time to develop a story
now it's important to note here that your story is not about your brand it's
not about the founders it's about your audience who they are the journey
they're on the challenges they're going through if you're able to develop a
story that's gonna click with them that's gonna resonate with who they are
and the journey they're on then they will feel emotionally connected to your
brand step number 10 create your visual brand now the advantage that the brand
that you're building now has over all of the other brands in the marketplace is
that this is where most brands start the brand building process with this visual
identity and this is where the designer comes in creates the logos and the image
style and the typographies and the color palettes and this really is where the
brand comes to life visually but you can tell already that we are up to step
number ten now there have been nine steps in developing a strategic brand
before this so this brand is a lot more comprehensive it's a lot more detailed
and it's a lot more tied in to who the audience is what they want the emotions
that they're going through so it's far more likely to resonate than just a
visual brand out there with a nice-looking website
and a nice-looking logo so what you do have here is an opportunity to take the
characteristics that have been defined within the strategy and infuse them
within the visuals of the brand so that is a distinct advantage of strategic
brands and the design of strategic brands is that you can develop and
portray those characteristics through those visuals step number 11 develop
your tools for brand expression so this is your collateral this is your website
your social media pages your brochures your business cards any single touch point
that you have that your brand has with your audience is an opportunity for
you to connect with that audience through that touch point so every
single touch point needs a tool of brand expression and this is where you develop
those tools so take the time to use the brand identity to use the strategy to
develop out these tools of expression step number 12 develop a plan for that
brand expression so you have your brand now you have your strategy the visual
identity and all of that collateral and your brand is ready to go so before you
go out and launch your brand you need a plan for that launch you need a plan for
that expression so this is essentially your marketing strategy so where are
your audience congregating now you've already gathered this information in the
audience persona development and now you have that information you need to
develop a plan to go out and engage that audience where they are so what digital
platforms are you using are you using content are you using ads are you using
SEO what are the individual tactics and the overall strategy for your brand
expression step number 13 launch your brand so this is where your brand comes
to life and is introduced to your audience and this is all about execution
so you've got your visual brand you've got your brand messaging and now you've
got your plan of expression so this phase is all about going out and
executing on that plan so creating that content creating those ads creating
those social posts so anything that's within the execution plan is executed
within this phase and step number 14 monitor optimise and manage that brand
so you have given this brand every opportunity for success you've done
everything right you've taken the time to understand who
the audience is and to develop a position based on that audience and the
market conditions you've taken the time to develop a personality and messaging
and storytelling framework that will resonate with who that audience is to
develop a visual persona with those characteristics that will be displayed
to resonate with who that audience is and then of course a plan for that brand
expression but a brand is not built overnight it does take time and you need
to monitor and optimise what's working and what's not and make those changes so
you can optimise for your brand growth now this is just a brief overview of the
brand strategy development process and each and every one of these steps goes
into a lot more detail with smaller steps to develop out each one of those
brand elements but the key takeaway is this that building a brand takes time
and effort you don't just build a brand overnight it does take a lot of time a
lot of finessing and a lot of understanding about the brand
development process but if you do have a process in place then you can
systematize that process and you can use that time and again to develop brand
strategies so that your branding business runs like a well-oiled machine
the end result is a service that's far more comprehensive than what your
competitors are offering and a service that will better prepare your clients'
brands for success and they're going to see you in a different light they'll see
you as completely differentiated from all those other service providers
offering cheaper logos cheaper brand identity designs cheaper websites
they'll see you as a far more comprehensive service provider they'll
see you as a specialist and they'll think to themselves I want that person
working on my brand to help my business but I would genuinely love to hear from
you about your experience when it comes to developing brand strategies for your
own brand or for your clients have you come across any challenges at all do you
have a process in place does it look similar to this is it more comprehensive
than this is it shorter than this can you take any of these steps into your
own process and if so which steps are you going to take as I said ask any
questions in the comments box below I'll do my best to answer all of those
questions if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and hit that
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comments below what your thoughts are what your challenges are what your
questions are until next time brand like a master and I will see you
in the next video!