Tesla. Apple. Nike. Trader Joes. Dollar Shave Club. These lasting, impactful and memorable brands all have one thing in common: a strong brand strategy. As a company, it’s not enough to have a brand strategy and stop there. The reason these brands, among many others, have stood the test of time and are so ingrained with society and even pop culture, is because they continue to evolve their brand strategy, challenging themselves to differentiate their business, expand their audience, align their employees and rethink how they market themselves on an ongoing basis.
Beyond Your Current Strategy
Having a current brand strategy is a great place to start, but how can you evaluate it to understand if you’re in need of something new?
Here’s a few signs that could mean you need to look at refreshing, or possibly even reinventing, your brand strategy:
For Employees
- Your employees, across more than one discipline, are unsure of your purpose or how to invent or take action in a way that’s in line with the brand.
- Your employees have a hard time articulating how your brand is different, or they have a hard time articulating what category your brand is in.
- Your employee retention has gone down.
For Customers
- Your customer affinity or loyalty is beginning to stagnate or even shrink.
- Your point of differentiation feels stale or is simply no longer salient to customers.
- Your product or services and experiences are highly differentiated, but appear to be or are seen by customers as the same as competitors in outbound marketing or sales materials.
- Your expanding or changing your business offerings or your entering a new market.
- Your customers lack an emotional connection to your brand.
- The market you’re in is changing and the current brand strategy no longer applies to the shifting landscape.
- You have a recent merger or acquisition, and internal audiences are unclear who you are as a brand or which brand they should “choose” and why.
For Marketing and Growth
- Your marketing or sales teams are relying on nostalgia to qualify leads or close sales.
- Your marketing and sales are highly energized, engaging, and successful in filling your funnel, but conversion is low or customer satisfaction is low or on the decline.
- Your growth rate is declining.
Don’t wait to check more than one box, any one of these could necessitate a deeper look into your current brand strategy and indicate you might be in need of a refresh.
Don’t have one at all? It’s time to build one.
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