It’s strategic branding. Now, what is strategic branding?
Let’s start with strategy. Based on the author of the book “Playing to Win”, Roger L. Martin, he said that a strategy is choice. It’s about making specific choices to win in the marketplace.
So being strategic means to be intentional with the choices you make in your business.
Now, what is brand? Brand is your logo. It’s the perception people has towards your business. It’s like your reputation, you can’t control it, but you can influence it to a certain extend.
So branding is the action of shaping & influencing how people perceive your business.
If we combine it together, strategic branding is about being intentional & thoughtful in shaping & influencing how people perceive your business. But is that important? And more importantly, why is it relevant to your business?
See it like this. In any business, if you want it to be successful, you would want to get more people to buy stuff from you for more years at a higher price. That’s usually the point of branding. That’s how you get profitable & successful in business, by growing a brand.
But that kind of success don’t happen by accident. When growing a brand, you need to be intentional & deliberate. You don’t want it to happen by default. Getting lucky is not a good strategy. You would want to have some control it so that it’ll put you in a position to win.
Let’s get practical, so what can you do to be more strategic with your branding?
I’m borrowing this from the godfather of branding himself, Marty Neumeier. It’s the 5Qs of strategy.
- What is our purpose?
Having a clearly defined purpose is like having a north star. If you get lost along the way, you will know how to get back on track. - Who do we serve?
The purpose of a business is to create & keep customers. It only make sense that you know exactly who they are & what they are like. - Where should we compete?
The marketplace is crowded & full of noises, especially in today’s digital age. The way for you to win is to choose a better space to compete in. - How will we win?
To win, you need to give people a reason why to choose you over others. And the way to do that is by being so different that you’re only option for them. - How will we grow?
For a business to grow sustainably, you’ll need to have a culture of innovation inside the company. The marketplace changes all the time & so should you.
By having these questions answered, you’ll be able to be more intentional & deliberate with how you do things, how you make decisions in your business which will eventually shapes how people perceive your business, which will then helps grow your brand & making your business more profitable.