What Is Brand Strategy & How to Build Powerful Company Branding?

Brand. Every business craves it but very few have mastered it. Google? Search, ads, SEO, money. Facebook? Reaching to friends, family. And now business. Money. How did they make it? Is brand strategy something you can plan for, or is it something that is conferred to some businesses by some fortunate, expedient circumstances?

In the real world, brands become famous due to both hard work and luck. But if the Muses are not exactly on your side, don’t fret: there are certain steps you can do to mitigate the situation and give your business a chance.

In this article, we surveyed the best practices around to help you build a powerful company branding. It’s not foolproof for sure, but it sure beats having no plans and leaving your business groping in the dark anytime.

Brand, the Basics

Salesforce has carved a name as the prince, the Google of SaaS crowd

One of the most important aspects of winning in business is building a powerful brand. Any entrepreneur dreams about their brand becoming a by-word, a standard that other brands are compared to in their own product category. One that headlines any brand statistics undertaken by various think-tanks.

Developing powerful company branding takes a lot of hard work and effort, and it does not happen overnight. Crafting a brand strategy is essential to launch your brand to greater heights.

Definition of Brand

Before we dive into the nitty-gritty of brand strategy, let’s define what a brand means.

According to the American Marketing Association, a brand is “a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.”

Simply put, your brand represents everything that defines and differentiates your company. Branding your company is not just about your logo or slogan. Your brand captures everything there is to know and feel about your company, covering everything tangible and intangible.

What is brand strategy?

What is brand strategy?

A brand strategy is an overall plan that outlines how you intend to build and strengthen your company brand over time. It clearly defines your brand, what it promises to do, and how it delivers on the promise.

The brand strategy pinpoints the ways in which your key messages get to your customers in ways that are meaningful to them. For example, what branding strategies work in the age of AI?

Branding in the Age of AI

Awash in information, people today have so much power in their hands to vote brands in or out of their wallets in an instant. For businesses out there, this is a two-edged sword.

On the one hand, they could suddenly find their business thrust on the limelight for the wrong or right reasons. One small misstep could mean a step down the ladder of brand acceptance. And a chance for their competition to pounce. Hello, Kodak.

On the other hand, they could be the competition waiting for that chance to pounce when the top dog comes tumbling down. Is that you, Fujifilm?

For the faint of heart, this is not the usual way of doing business. Unless you’re simply tending to a small pop store out of civilization for all practical purposes.

If you are the consummate businessperson, no other period in commerce is better for you to thrive. With immaculate attention to the details of your products and services matched perfectly to the needs and expectations of your customers, it is only a matter of time for you to shine.

You can raise your price beyond the market prices and your loyal customers will never haul you off the road for sheer impunity. Why? Because you could be a superstar giving them the customer experience that is top of their list when looking for a business to patronize.

Now that we’re clear about brand strategy definition, let’s explore what makes for an effective brand strategy. Here are some tips to help you build a brand strategy template for your company:

How to Build Powerful Company Branding

1. Focus on vision, mission and values

Caterpillar is known for many things. Its clear statement of its vision, values and mission holds all of its operations tightly together.

Your vision is the reason why your company exists. Your mission is what your company does, and your values are the ways in which you do what you do. All these serve as a springboard to crafting your brand strategy and a compass for everything else that you do. These well-defined assets set you apart from competitors.

Google’s vision statement encompasses all their company branding efforts: “provide an important service to the world – instantly delivering relevant information on virtually any topic.” The company’s mission statement is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

With these at the core of its brand strategy, Google stays true to its purpose, making them one of the most powerful brands on the planet today. You could be enjoying its search engine or its file sharing software and you know you are dealing with a reliable brand.

2. Build on customer knowledge

This goes beyond knowing who’s buying from you on a regular basis, or what types of individuals or businesses you want to sell to. The more specific you are about knowing who your target market is, the better for your brand strategy.

To gain a clear understanding of your target customer, you must walk through their journey. And the journey starts way before they call or email you.

What motivated them to contact you? Do you have the best solution to their problem? Are you equipped to meet them where they need you? What do they think and feel about your company?

Customer research helps you understand their perspective and priorities, anticipate their needs and convey your message in a way that resonates with them. It also gives you insights on what they think about your company, and how they feel about your brand.

You don’t have to do it manually too. Nowadays, powerful CRM tools could pull in these kinds of information for you without sweating it out needlessly.

One such brand leading the pack in building customer knowledge is Amazon. With its broad range of customer types, the company closely studies its customers’ journeys, problems and pain points, and finds ways to make their lives easier. One customer at a time. Two-day shipping, streaming movies, grocery delivery and a responsive service team are all borne from continuous customer research.

Of course it helps that Amazon is fully invested in AI software to manage that massive volume of customer knowledge.

Another customer-obsessed brand is Netflix – collecting a huge amount of customer data to provide hyper-personalized recommendations. It uses data to help customers find new shows and create original content that caters to what their customers want to see.

Mind, too, that customer knowledge by itself is meaningless unless you find the means to deliver tangible, positive customer experience along what you know about your customer. If you find yourself short of ideas, you will find that investing in a good customer experience software sets you off to a good start.

3. Cultivate meaningful relationships

Starbucks cultivates meaning with each pack and cup of coffee

The most powerful brands have a strong emotional appeal to their customers. Why does someone spend good money on a cup of Starbucks brewed coffee every day when they could either make these at home or get the same thing from a gas station? After all, it’s just coffee. But not for Starbucks customers, especially the ones on their loyalty program.

Starbucks has mastered the art of creating an almost cult-like following by combining personalization, remarkable customer service, and a strong loyalty program in its brand strategy.

All of these make their customers feel like they belong to an exclusive club, one that satisfies their needs and makes them feel good.

When reflecting on your company branding strategy, strive to achieve long-term relationship goals with your customers. Loyal customers are more engaged with your brand and provide more value to your company over time.

At this time, you could be looking at how your company dispenses with customer service, a crucial element to how your customers view your brand. If you think this department is suspect, it’s time you consider shopping for a good customer support platform.

4. Develop competitive awareness

Keep your customers close, and your competitors closer. Your company is probably not the only one providing the same product or service in the market, but your company branding is unique to you. Work to keep it that way.

Know the other players in your field and keep an eye on what they do. Competitive knowledge gives you an edge in continuing to improve. It helps you discover new ways to serve your customers and set your company brand apart.

These days, you can get help from business intelligence tools to give you the insight on your competition that you need. Be sure to look up one, because you can’t certainly hire corporate spies to do the job for you.

In the highly competitive athletic wear category, Nike stays ahead of the competition. The only apparel brand included in the top 20 list of the world’s most valuable brands, Nike does not sit on its laurels.

The brand innovates on design, delivers great product quality, and perceptive marketing.

And while rivals may be busy trying to get ahead in terms of product innovation, Nike invests heavily on product and process innovation. They are always one step ahead of everyone else.

5. Be consistent and flexible

From Cinderella to Captain America, from light mood to dark, brooding mood, Disney’s brand has remained consistently strong despite the multiple brand transitions.

Perhaps one of the best brand strategy examples of consistency and flexibility is Disney. With its expansive, global reach, it can be quite a challenge to communicate and stay relevant to its customers in a consistent manner.

According to Tom Boyles, Senior Vice President for Global Customer Managed Relationships at Disney Parks and Resorts, at Walt Disney World alone, there are 11.2 billion possible interaction points for the Walt Disney Company brand itself and the guests. Disney strives to make most if not all these touchpoints as magically pleasing to the guests as possible.

Being an established brand doesn’t mean you have to keep doing the same thing over and over again, then say that it’s a proven formula and it will work forever.

Disney keeps itself relevant throughout the decades by being flexible, especially in responding to customer needs. They shifted their strategy from ‘customer relationship management’ to ‘customer-managed relationships’ – giving their customers control on how they experience the Disney brand in the way that delights them.

Consider that brand consistency and flexibility cuts across the entire customer experience. This should foster trust and confidence in your company brand.

6. Get your team on board

Successful company branding entails consistency across all brand touchpoints. This could be your visual identity (i.e. your logo, color palette, typography, etc.), your website, your front office personnel, up to your customer service hotline.

It is essential for all employees to understand and support your company branding efforts. By being aware of how they interact with customers and how they represent the brand, they gain an understanding of their role in fulfilling your brand promise and making your strategy successful.

Zappos is known for its unique approach to customer service. Tony Hsieh, the company’s president and CEO rallies his team and builds their customer service culture around these ten core company values:

1. Deliver wow through service.
2. Embrace and drive change.
3. Create fun and a little weirdness.
4. Be adventurous, creative, and open-minded.
5. Pursue growth and learning.
6. Build open and honest relationships with communication.
7. Build a positive team and family spirit.
8. Do more with less.
9. Be passionate and determined.
10. Be humble.

Are you ready to launch your own brand?

There you have it, the branding dots and the chess pieces that you need to either connect or move carefully and precisely.

In the real world, you are probably up against the biggest names no matter which industry you decide to invest in. Just make sure to do your homework well. When you do, the world is a huge market that could easily allow a new player with novel, winning ideas.

So do your homework. Find a great product or unique service and get your hands dirty. Luck rewards the best worker after all.

By Astrid Eira

Astrid Eira is a resident B2B expert of FinancesOnline, focusing on the SaaS niche. She specializes in accounting and human resource management software, writing honest and straightforward reviews of some of the most popular systems around. Being a small business owner herself, Astrid uses her expertise to help educate business owners and entrepreneurs on how new technology can help them run their operations. She's an avid fan of the outdoors, where you'll find her when she's not crunching numbers or testing out new software.