Why strategy is vital when developing your brand promise and why you should stick to it?
Many CEOs distrust this fluffy thing called branding. Usual things like Finance, Operations, HR and IT happen inside an organisation. One can develop policies and procedures to govern and manage these. We’re not saying it is easy – far from it – but these business functions are right there under your nose, and any good CEO has a significant degree of command over it.
But branding and marketing? Man, this stuff mostly happens outside your organisation. Outside: the realm of fickle customers, opinionated social soapboxes and sceptical media. “How do I control this chaos? Why isn’t my advertising working? Why aren’t clients just buying my great offering?”
Ironically, branding is mostly about trust. It is how everyone outside perceives your brand. And understanding it is arguably your best lever for growth. When your brand is trusted, making a sale is infinitely easier.
A benefit of having a trusted and reliable brand is that you can ask for higher prices. It is vital to plan how you will get your brand to be trusted by your audience. The latter happens very strategically. Brand strategy is the guide by which an organisation operates, behaves, communicates and interacts, which in turn influences how your brand is perceived. It also determines how you are different from or better than your competitors. Brand strategy is the foundation of an organisation and helps develop and document precisely who you are, what you do, how you do it and why you are doing it. It also outlines and quantifies your brand values. Most importantly, it encompasses your brand heritage, legacy, personality, customers and customer-brand relationships and ultimately establishes your brand essence – The heart of your brand.
A well-constructed strategy not only dictates messaging in marketing and sales but guides and influences future business decisions. Nobody trusts schizophrenic brands. People believe authenticity and sincerity.
A documented brand strategy makes branding, marketing and reputation management a controllable, procedure-driven function, measurable by business goals reached. It is precisely this that helps you to be genuine and authentic. And this should be excellent news to those CEOs.
If you truly understand your brand strategy and you know what your brand essence is, you can refine your brand promise. A brand promise is what you tell customers, implicitly or directly, they can expect from your brand. It establishes what your customers anticipate in terms of quality and consistency and gives them a perception of your brand. Because it is a statement of your brand’s unparalleled value and benefit, it is essential to understand your customers’ unmet needs. If you do not know what need you fulfil for your customer, your brand promise will disconnect from them. A brand promise is not a brand purpose. A brand promise is what you assure your customers you will do all the time, consistently, while a brand purpose supports the brand promise and explain to customers “Why you are here?”. What is your reason to exist?
Great brands deliver on their promise, every time and all the time. And because customers trust great brands, they buy from them.
But there is another thing – great brands connect with their customers and build relationships with them all the time.
Ask yourself: “Do I deliver on my brand promise every single time I connect with my customers?”
