There is a misconception about brand strategy that costs businesses opportunities long before they realise anything is wrong.
Many people believe the purpose of a brand strategy is to improve their profile, write a better website or create more effective marketing. Those things may happen, but they are not the strategy. They are simply the visible outcome of a much deeper process.
A good brand strategy changes the way your business is understood because it changes the story people tell themselves about you. More importantly, it often changes the story you tell yourself about your own business.
One of the things I have discovered after working with business owners, professionals, consultants, speakers and authors for decades is that most people don’t have their story clear. They know what they do, they know what they have done, and they know what they would like people to think about them, but they haven’t worked out which story is the most valuable to tell or which story the marketplace is actually looking for.
As a result, they throw a little of this and a little of that into the marketplace hoping something will resonate. They change a headline, rewrite an “About Us” page, adjust their services, redesign a logo, experiment with different marketing messages and hope they eventually find something that works.
I call this Spaghetti Branding. Throw it against the wall and see what sticks.
It isn’t strategy. It’s experimentation without direction.
Unfortunately, many businesses approach their branding, positioning and marketing this way and then wonder why none of it seems to work together.
It’s also one of the worst ways to begin a website project. Instead of discovering a stronger market position and building a website that supports it, they simply recreate the same website with new colours, different photographs and slightly better words. Nothing fundamental changes because the thinking behind it hasn’t changed.
If you’re preparing to rebuild your profile, positioning, website and marketing, here are the six things I believe you should do before your first strategy session.
1. Discover what you don’t know about your public profile and how your old story could be the real problem.
Most people know the story they want to tell. Far fewer understand the story the marketplace is actually hearing. Every website, LinkedIn profile, Google search, article, interview and social media post contributes to your public profile, whether you intended it to or not.
If your public brand is communicating an outdated story, an unclear message or simply the wrong strengths, your marketing will always be working harder than it should. Before you rebuild anything, discover the gap between the story you’re telling yourself and the story your audience already believes. You may discover that your biggest branding problem isn’t your website or your marketing at all. It may simply be that your public story no longer represents who you have become.
2. Give people a new WAY to understand your expertise and your brand.
People don’t remember businesses because they describe their services well. They remember businesses that change the way they think.
The strongest brands introduce a new perspective. They help people see their problem differently, understand new opportunities and recognise value they hadn’t considered before. Your positioning should never simply explain what you do. It should give your audience a new way of understanding why your approach is worth paying attention to.
When your thinking changes, your audience’s thinking changes with it.
3. Decide what problems you solve best and which AUDIENCES will benefit most from your best work.
Trying to appeal to everyone is one of the quickest ways to become memorable to no one.
Every successful business has clients who achieve extraordinary outcomes and others who simply receive a service. They are rarely the same people.
The objective is not to find more customers. The objective is to become known by the right audience for solving the right problems exceptionally well. When you become known for solving meaningful problems for a clearly defined audience, your positioning becomes stronger, your marketing becomes more relevant and your reputation begins growing naturally.
4. Gather and consistently prove your results so people understand the promise your brand makes and what they receive by choosing you.
Every brand makes a promise.
The question is whether you can prove yours.
Testimonials, client stories, measurable outcomes, published work, case studies, awards, interviews and years of experience all contribute to your credibility, but only if people can easily find them.
People don’t simply buy confidence in your service. They buy confidence in your ability to produce the result they want. The more consistently you document your client successes, the easier it becomes for future clients to believe that choosing you is a safe decision.
5. Build your brand in public by sharing your thinking, your client work and your results.
Your brand should not exist only inside your business.
It should exist wherever your audience is looking for answers.
Write articles that challenge conventional thinking. Share observations you’ve made through your work. Explain why you approach problems differently. Celebrate client successes. Demonstrate your expertise consistently enough that people begin recognising not just what you do, but how you think.
Authority is rarely created by saying you’re an expert.
It is earned by allowing people to repeatedly experience your thinking.
6. Make it easy for people to find the most current version of you.
Every article, interview, presentation, podcast appearance and social media post should lead people back to one place where they can fully understand your business.
Your website should become the central source of truth for your brand. It should clearly explain your positioning, demonstrate your expertise, showcase your client results, publish your latest thinking and make it obvious how people can work with you.
When your public brand consistently leads people back to one trusted destination, every piece of content you create continues building your authority long after it has been published.
Brand strategy isn’t about creating a better-looking business.
It’s about creating a better-understood business.
When people clearly understand your story, understand why your thinking is different and can see consistent evidence that you deliver results, your profile becomes more compelling, your positioning becomes stronger, your marketing becomes more effective and your website becomes a valuable business asset rather than simply an online brochure.
That is what great brand strategy should achieve.
One Final Thought
Here’s the truth.
Nobody is going to care more about your brand than you do. If you don’t invest in it, improve it, talk about it and consistently share it with the people you believe you can genuinely help, don’t expect the marketplace to do it for you.
Brands don’t grow because they’re clever. They grow because their owners keep showing up with better thinking, better evidence and better results.
If you treat your brand like an afterthought, don’t be surprised when your market does the same.
Make your brand important. That’s how ideas become businesses, businesses become brands and brands become market leaders.
Get Your Public Brand Intelligence Report
Before investing in a new website, a rebrand or another marketing campaign, first discover what your public brand is already communicating.
Your Public Brand Intelligence Report provides an independent assessment of how your profile, positioning, website and public presence are currently being perceived. It identifies the gap between the story you want the marketplace to hear and the story it is actually hearing, while highlighting practical opportunities to strengthen your authority, clarify your positioning and improve your commercial results.
Because…
Brand Intelligence tells you how to tell your STORY to your AUDIENCE in a new WAY that gets new RESULTS.
Book an appointment with Nova Strategic and receive your Public Brand Intelligence Report.