Create a brand strategy

- Your brand strategy defines who you are, where you're heading, how you're getting there and why. This is an extension of your business strategy and it's used to influence your marketing strategy. This entire course is committed to helping you build and maintain your brand strategy. However, there isn't one template for this. You can document your strategy however you see fit. It may be a visual presentation, a multi-page write up, or a set by set playbook. The strategy serves two purposes.

The first is to encourage you to work through all the aspects of branding so you can get to the core of who you are. Secondly, the strategy serves as a guide. It's a way to determine how you'll approach your marketing efforts and it defines your expectations. I'm going to leave you with a handful of questions that I encourage you to answer as part of your brand strategy. And you might not have all the answers just yet. Look for ways to answer these questions as you get further and further through this course. The start of your strategy is to define what you brand is.

You can simply introduce the answers from our conversation on what makes up a brand. There, we reviewed eight components, history, competency, mission, market orientation, scale, organization, reputation, and stability. From there, take a closer look at the market. Where do you want the brand to be? What do you want the consumer perception to be? And then the strategic and the most challenging piece, how can your brand get there? How will your brand match the consumer perception? What will attract customers to your brand? What will detract customers from your brand? And finally, the management component.

What trends will impact the industry? And how will you measure growth? Answer these questions thoughtfully and get input from other stakeholders and you'll be well on your way to creating an effective brand.