Strategic Brand Management: Building an Identity

Strategic brand management is difficult when you are building your brand from scratch, but by following a few simple steps, you can create effective brand positioning and build your brand identity quickly.  By answering a few simple questions, you can determine what your retail branding strategy needs to be and develop branding strategies that really work.

Who Are You Trying to Target?

The first task when developingstrategic brand management is determining who is in your target audience of potential clients or customers.  Research your market to determine who your ideal prospect is and create retail branding that speaks directly to that audience.   If your market is accountants and stockbrokers, you probably do not want a branding strategy with cartoon characters and whimsical fonts, but that type of branding may be beneficial when targeting an artistic market.

What Message Are You Sending?

Once you have determined your target market as part of your branding strategy, determine what you are trying to provide to that audience.  Remember that perception is extremely important, and you want to be sure the message your customers receive is the message you intended to send them.  Brand positioning and the message you send is often based on the reputation of a company, and a company just starting out has not developed that reputation.  Therefore, if part of your strategic brand management is promoting exceptional customer service, you must provide exceptional customer service or your brand will suffer.

Why Choose You Over Competitors?

Probably the most important part of any strategic brand management, especially with a new company, is why a consumer should choose your company over that of your competitors.  The best way to include this information in your branding strategy is by knowing your competitors.  You must understand the weaknesses and strengths of companies that you are competing with and counteract those attributes through your branding.  If a competitor’s brand is known for reliability, be sure that your company is just as reliable, if not more so.

Brand Personality

Once you have determined who your market is, what you are offering, and why people should choose your brand over another, then it’s time to create your brand personality as part of your strategic brand management. You want the personality of your brand to shine through to the customer so that they equate that personality with your company.  Your tone, image, and story should be consistent with that personality in order to remain consistent with your retail branding and your image.  Incorporate this personality into all marketing plans as well to remain consistent.