How do you Write a Strategic Brand Proposition?

What is a Strategic Brand Proposition?

If you want to build a successful brand for your company, you must consider two key elements: the strategic side of the equation, also known as your strategic brand proposition, and the visual side of the equation, also known as your creative brand proposal.

Consider this in terms of your personal identity. You are a brand, whether you realise it or not. Like Richard Branson and David Beckham, for example. It doesn’t matter if you’re not as well-known.

There is an outside and an inner to every one of us. The exterior refers to our skin or exterior layer, which is what people see when they look at us. This is what we’re talking about when we say “brand identity.” It’s our outward appearance, which we adorn with the brands we want to be identified with. Whether or not we are aware of it on a conscious level, we all have a brand identity. So, the creative brand proposition is how we appear on the outside – in terms of corporate branding, that is our logo, colour palette, typefaces, photography style, graphics, and so on – and that’s pretty much it.

Consider our “inside” – I don’t mean our bones, flesh, and organs, though they obviously play a role; I’m referring to our brain. It’s where ideas come to you and decisions are made. It’s where your self-beliefs live, as well as your thoughts and attitudes. It’s where you define your ethics, norms, and ideals, as well as your pleasures and passions. It’s where you may pick who you are, who you want to become, and what you want to do with your life if you so desire.

This is what we’re talking about when we say “brand strategy.”

So, which is the most critical? Without a question, the strategic aspect is the most crucial. What is the reason for this? So, let’s consider brands in terms of people once more. The superficial part of attraction is what we look like, but meaningful relationships thrive when two people have a deeper connection. That is due to their personalities and characters, which indicates that your intellect matters far more than your body in a truly interdependent relationship.

But, since we all know how important first impressions are, it would be crazy to overlook the aesthetic aspect – wouldn’t it be fantastic to combine the two…? To have a fantastic body as well as a fantastic personality. Of course, it would, which is why a great brand solution must take into account both factors. But keep in mind that having a solid plan in place is always preferable to having a fantastic design concept. What good is a stunning visual identity if it doesn’t have any depth?

There is another significant financial argument for the importance of branding. When a company is appraised, the gap between its book value and what someone is willing to pay for it is referred to as “goodwill,” which is merely another phrase for the brand’s inherent value. It’s what’s left when everything else has been removed. As a result, an investment in a strong and compelling corporate brand proposition is likely to pay off handsomely. In fact, it’s worth a lot more than its weight in gold…

So, presuming we all understand what we mean by a creative brand proposition, let’s take a closer look at some of the things to consider while developing a strategic brand proposition. If you’d like a digital copy of the document that outlines the framework we employ in greater detail, please fill out our contact form or email us.

“Take care of the top line: your strategy, people, and goods, and the bottom line will take care of itself.”

Steve Jobs, American entrepreneur

At its core, branding is about establishing and maintaining trust, which implies that a brand must follow through on whatever promises it makes. The best and most successful brands have a philosophy that is entirely consistent. Every aspect of who they are, what they do, and what they believe in reinforces the other. Your brand lives in the hearts and minds of your stakeholders, such as employees, customers, and suppliers. It is the sum of their experiences and perceptions at all times and in all touchpoints.

The following are some of the goals that a good brand will achieve:

• Using a clear and consistent voice to establish vital themes
• Adding to your credibility and dependability
• Developing emotional and rational connections with your stakeholders
• Increasing the number of sales and profit margins
• Increasing client loyalty, advocacy, and ambassadorship
• Increasing your employees’ confidence, pride, and contentment through empowering them.

Create Room in the Marketplace for Your Brand

You’re halfway there if you can think of one good reason why clients should choose you over the competition. Your brand is a physical manifestation of your goal and purpose. You probably have a good concept of what you want to do and how you want to do it, whether you’ve written it down or not. If you haven’t already, you should. A life without significance is pointless. A brand strategy provides our life significance.

Vision Statement

You must first create your vision. When it comes to branding, this is undoubtedly the most misunderstood aspect. It should be both emotional and empowering. Profit, turnover, and market supremacy should not be the primary considerations. It should serve as a rallying cry for your industry’s superiority. Your vision statement should reflect your vision of perfection for your consumers, staff, and other stakeholders. It’s almost like an ideology, so be big and aggressive and change the game. What does utopia look like if you were the government of your industry sector? That’s how you see things.

Mission Statement

Then you’ll need a task – which, once again, appears to be causing a lot of uncertainty. The mission statement is just a logical and rational conclusion to the strategy you’ll use to reach your imaginative goal. Your brand’s purpose and the impact you want to have on the world should be defined in your mission statement. It should explain what you do for others and how you plan to reach the goals you’ve set for your business. Imagine yourself on the day you depart from the company. This is an excellent method to think about what your objective is. What do you want to be remembered for? That is, after all, your mission.

Values, Opinions and Promises

Values are frequently chosen without much thinking – they might occasionally be chosen just to check a box without regard for how significant they are. If you’d like a copy of our list of about 250 inspiring ideals, please let us know and we’ll give it to you. It is not intended to be exhaustive, but it will aid in the activation of the grey matter. Values are more than just a collection of words. They must be described in the context of your company, its products, and its stakeholders. Values are frequently expressed as your opinions about your industry and the promises you want to make to your stakeholders. Values are collective, timeless, and important components of your brand that are likely to last throughout the life of your company (if chosen well).

Brand Promise

An internal rallying cry for excellence is a brand promise. It’s pointless to make a promise you can’t or won’t fulfil if you can’t or won’t move heaven and earth to keep it. A promise jeopardises a company’s reputation by promising clients that the brand will live up to the high standards it sets for itself. It’s the standard to which you must live up every time someone interacts with your brand. It’s what you guarantee to all who come into contact with your company — employees, suppliers, investors, associates, and consumers – that you’ll set the bar high, therefore your promise must be admirable. However, make sure it’s attainable and that you have the tools in place to track compliance.

Tone of Voice

Another aspect that is sometimes misunderstood is vocal tone. The cornerstone of everything you say is your brand voice, which is an expression of your personality. The tone of your brand should be consistent across all touchpoints. Although the message may be different, the manner in which you deliver it and the language you employ should be consistent with your brand concept. It’s not just what we say that matters, but how we express it as well. That includes our body language in face-to-face conversations. Customers will instinctively perceive if your employees do not believe in your brand offer. To be believed, a brand must be genuine. As a result, the tone of voice is frequently used to assess confidence, enthusiasm, and pride.

Insights

Insights are informed opinions based on facts. It’s critical that we can tell the difference between a unified viewpoint and a well-informed one. An insight is a meaningful truth that we uncover and can use to provide your brand a competitive advantage. Our strategic brand proposition methodology takes a research-driven approach to insight production, allowing us to come up with believable conclusions and solid suggestions based on evidence rather than personal opinion. However, individuals with the most expertise and knowledge develop the most effective insights, and this is how we combine the concepts of induction and insight to offer the most powerful outputs. We perform a number of audits with various stakeholder groups in addition to consulting industry reports and desk research to ensure we receive a comprehensive spectrum of data from which to draw conclusions.

These are some of the places where we explore for new ideas and gain insights from:

• Employees
• Management
• Shareholders
• Directors
• Suppliers
• Associates
• Marketplace
• Partners
• Competitors
• Customers
• Consumers
• Resellers
• Prospects
• Products
• Services

As a result, we’re able to build three main groupings of insights that lead to the core proposition.

• Cultural
• Business
• Brand

Core Proposition

Your core concept is at the heart of your brand strategy. Your fundamental offer might be a corporate strategy as well as a consumer-facing one. There should be a number of proof points behind it. These proof points summarise the brand’s dynamics across a variety of categories and rank them in order of relative relevance.

Qualifying statements that lead up to the fundamental claim are referred to as proof points. These can be essential phrases or single pieces of communication, but they can also serve as a checklist for marketing the brand through public relations activities in order to increase brand recognition and encourage trial. Each one demonstrates why the central claim is correct. Sound bites must be repeated consistently across all mediums to build a brand. We can then create a matrix to transmit critical messages to relevant target segments based on this information.

Messaging

Although messaging is a direct result of your strategic brand proposition, it will only have an impact if it is tailored to your target market’s needs and desires. To maximise conversion and minimise churn ‘before the sale,’ a message proposition must speak to suspects, prospects, and customers at every stage of the sales pipeline process, and then to increase customer lifetime value via word-of-mouth marketing to colleagues, friends, and family ‘after the sale.’ To rationalise their decision-making processes, the message proposition must empathise with client pain concerns. Almost all of our decisions are influenced by a mix of emotional and rational elements, with the former being far more influential than we might realise. A solid understanding of client groups, demographics, and psychographics is required for a communication proposal. We can only plan an efficient message platform if we have clear understanding on hierarchies, profiles, and personas.

Service Charters

Internal or external service charters are possible. They are a set of promises made by a brand to a certain group of stakeholders. They must be visible, supported, and implemented. They must be genuine, quantifiable, and specific. An organisation can apply its brand strategy in the real world by using customer service charters and staff service charters to create a set of principles that regulate the expected behaviour of its people in their interactions with each other, your customers, and all other stakeholders.

Brand Steering Wheel

The brand steering wheel model has been stress-tested by some of the world’s most successful brands and will yield the highest ROI. It operates on the premise that a successful brand should be built directly from the firm’s truths and underlying values, translating these insights into the way the firm manufactures its goods and, in turn, how it speaks to and presents itself to customers. The core offer is at the heart of all we do in terms of marketing communications, brand recognition, and lead creation.

At the End of the Day

So, there you have it: the strategic brand proposal. What happens next, though? The most important thing is to make sure it doesn’t end up collecting dust on a shelf. It should be used to construct your creative brand proposal, ideally as part of a larger strategic marketing plan (we’ve established a framework for this as well, which we’re happy to share if you’re interested). Then you’ll need to generate sales and marketing material (website, brochure, etc.). Then, with your target markets, create brand awareness and lead generation initiatives.

In Conclusion

An investment in our strategic brand proposal process is a reliable and trustworthy way to ensure that all of your marketing operations are as effective and efficient as possible in supporting your company’s sales efforts and achieving the objectives set out in your business strategy.

To learn more about how our strategic brand proposal process can help you reach your marketing goals, please contact hello@insightbeforeaction.com