Marketing strategies are created to ensure that a brand and its offerings are correctly showcased so that people want to buy into a business. Not every company is able to achieve marketing success, and that’s one of the reasons that such a high percentage of businesses fail in the first year. One mistake that many business owners make is separating their brand strategy from their marketing strategy, when they really should be a cohesive collaboration.
Marketing is all about communicating your value proposition to your audience and your branding is not the same. Branding is all about differentiation and how you define yourself and your identity in the market. While these things are often looked at as separate entities, both strategies are wholly essential for creating that lasting impression on your customers.
The problem? Aligning those two strategies together is not easy to do! Is your marketing message consistent? Do you have a clear vision for what you want? Is your brand healthy? There are tools such as brand health tracking that you can use to ascertain whether it is, but you have to be willing to actually use those tools in a meaningful way. So, let’s take a look at some of the best ways that you can align your brand with your marketing strategy:
- Start with what your purpose is. Before you can align your brand and your marketing strategies together, you have to consider why your brand exists in the first place. You also have to think about the impact you want to make with your brand, as this will inform your purpose and help you to guide your branding and marketing strategies together. You cannot put these two things in the same space until you know what you’re doing it all for. The purpose you have for your branding should be the same for your marketing because you need to reflect those core values and your beliefs together at the same time.
- Define your position. How is it you want to be perceived by your customers and other businesses in your industry? If you know the perception you want from others, you’re going to be able to make yourself unique and different, which helps you to stand out. The way in which you position yourself and your business should be the basis for your value proposition, your brand voice and your brand personality. You have to remember that the way you position yourself in the beginning is how your customers AND your competition will perceive who you are.
- Create a brand story. You have to be able to sell your story more than you would just selling a product. The message that you give out into the business world is your brand story and you have to put this across in a meaningful way. Understanding the narrative that connects customers with your brand is going to be the full foundation of your marketing campaigns, your brand content and the channels you use. Social media, for example, is going to be where you tell your stories and connect with your customers. The story and narrative you create for yourself should be appealing to all and so you have to craft this in a way that makes people want to flock to your business.
- Get your team on the same page. If you want to put your brand strategy and marketing strategy on the same page, your team has to be aligned with it, too. You need everyone in your business working together but how do you ensure everyone is on the same page? Your team will be the ones pushing your brand message and driving your business forward, so collaboration and creativity coming together will be down to what your team can do. They will deliver and execute your vision with precision and that means that everyone has to be on the same page.
Putting your brand strategy in the same pot as your marketing strategy will ensure better cohesion with your business marketing. You want to gain that constant level of feedback, measuring, improving, passion and courage. It takes work to get your business truly aligned but when you are watching your marketing strategy and your brand come together, there’s nothing quite like it!
Take the time to write a new narrative for your team to follow so that branding and marketing are working as one. Once you do that, the world feels like your oyster!
