While some steps may seem more important than others, a comprehensive approach will always result in a stronger brand.
In the past, we covered these steps individually, but never brought them into one place for easy consumption. Here’s a quick rundown of each — just click on the links to take a deeper dive.
1. Brand Discovery [why is brand discovery so important?]
In advertising, discovery is multifaceted — ranging from full brand discovery to discovery for individual campaigns. Brand discovery is the process of finding out as a brand:
Who you are. Everyone thinks they know who they are as a brand, until they take a step back and look objectively. Who are you, really?
Who you say you are. It’s important to have a unified internal message to present to the outside. Are your employees (your greatest brand ambassadors) all on the same page?
Who others say you are. What is the outside world’s perception of you?
Brand discovery can be thought of as the foundation of your brand. You wouldn’t build a house without a foundation — and you shouldn’t build a brand without one either.
2. Brand Voice [it’s not what you say, but how you say it: creating your brand voice]:
Sure, what you say is pretty important. But when it comes to creating a brand voice, how you convey who you are is the real star of the show. That’s because your brand voice has the crucial job of conveying your company’s personality, values, passions and qualities — all through the use of carefully constructed word choice, sentence structure, language style and voice tone.
A clever, strategic brand voice is a crucial part of your branding and marketing efforts. It’s about expressing yourself in a way that will give off the impression you want to make with your target audience.
3. Personas/Audience Discovery [why audience discovery is so important]:
After you’ve taken the first two steps in almost any advertising effort (brand discovery and brand voice), the next step is audience discovery. We’ve already established who you are and how you convey who you are, but now we need to look at who you are saying it to.
Failing to establish a target audience can lead to huge losses down the line in the form of poorly performing campaigns and wasted advertising budgets. By taking the time to discover who your target audience should be, and creating a detailed profile for who they are, you’ll be able to maximize your marketing efforts and dollars.
4. Consumer Research [brand research: a walk in your consumers’ shoes]:
It’s easy for companies to say, “Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of our consumers.” It certainly makes sense when trying to figure out what they see in your brand, why they buy your products and what attributes are most important to them. The problem is, most people within the company have a predisposition to lean towards what they believe is important for the brand. So in reality, the whole “in their shoes” idea goes right out the window.
That’s where research comes in. Brand research captures customer brand perceptions through surveys, interviews, focus groups, database analytics and other methods, which often reveal hidden gems about what consumers actually value. It may confirm what you believe is important but, more likely than not, you will see that consumers value a completely different product attribute.
After you have completed the research, the next step begins — using what you learned about your consumers to tailor a message to them.
If you have any questions about these steps and/or how we can help you accomplish them, please reach out. We’d love to offer some insight.
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