Brand Strategy and Content Strategy: How to Make it Successful

In a high-tech, fast-paced competitive marketplace where sought-after products, services and experiences can be duplicated in the blink of an eye, brand is key to building organizational distinctiveness that can be leveraged to competitive advantage.

But what exactly is brand strategy and how does it make a difference? The following are a few tips about brand strategy and how to make it successful in your organization:

In a nutshell, a successful brand strategy:

1.   Pinpoints a differentiated promise to a defined set of stakeholders;

2.   which is supported by a distinctive identity;

3.   to establish relevance and create a competitive preference;

4.   and provide a platform for delivering on organizational promises ;

5.   to meet business objectives.

Differentiation is how you begin to make a name for yourself, whether it’s as the company that promises to make technology simpler or the retailer that promises lower prices. A distinctive identity gives visual style and voice to that promise. Understanding the mindset of the people you’re targeting ensures relevance so that what your offering meets a real need or desire in the marketplace, tangible or intangible, and creates a preference over what competitors are offering. Brand management should then inspire all actions in the company in the pursuit of business objectives.

If any of the elements from our list is missing from or misaligned in your brand strategy, any competitive success you realize is likely to be short lived. The last two items are perhaps the most important, and yet are the ones most often overlooked in brand strategy. A company that positions its brand just to create buzz and drive short-term sales is missing their real opportunity.

Ultimately, the purpose of brand strategy and brand management is to build brand equity – the enduring element that creates momentum and builds reputation, competitiveness and ultimately profit. It’s what enables your company to launch new products and pursue opportunities in new markets and industries – because it sets you up to credibly deliver the same practical and emotional benefits over and over again. It’s a big part of why people who bought the iPod felt they had to have the iPad. And it’s what has enabled Walmart to quickly grab market share in the grocery business and for GE to grow from home appliances to everything ranging from medical equipment to power plant operations. In fact the practice of brand management is increasingly embraced in order for digital content strategies to be successful. Red Bull was so successful with their branded content strategy that they were able to cross-over from a product to a media company.

“Red Bull has taken the brand rigor that made it a global beverage titan and done something vanishingly rare. With an unceasing, and meticulously produced and managed stream of high end action sports- and youth culture-oriented content that spans web, social, film, tablet, print, music, and TV, the giver of wings has become what every brand wants to be these days–a media company in full.”

Brand Matters’ method for connecting business to brand is our Brand Differentiation Model™ – a three-step proprietary process based on the winning methods of economics, branding and consumer packaged goods strategic frameworks. Key elements include:

• Competitive analysis
• Identification and prioritization of the target audiences
• Development of an aligned and consumer-relevant brand promise
• Creation of brand distinctiveness through brand guidelines: visual identity, name, style and brand language
• Marketing and messaging strategy through integrated marketing planning
• Brand story telling consistently
• Build content strategy and continue to ensure connection to brand strategy