Brand Strategy Process [Build Your Brand]

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 subscribe button and the notification bell as well those likes and those subscribes really help the channel if you want more actionable tips and techniques like this then head on over to BrandMasterAcademy.com and get yourself signed up for the list it's free and I'll drop those tips and techniques right into your inbox but as I said please let me know in the 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!