…and Watch It Thrive
Scaling your brand from the chaos of a startup to a more structured growth phase is both exciting and challenging in equal measures and should not be left to chance. More than that, it has to be intentional, right from the start.
Answering the questions ‘How to build a scalable brand?’, requires a long-term brand strategy that features flexibility while embracing brand identity, values, visuals, and voice.
I am going to show you how, with the right approach, you can retain brand authenticity whilst progressing through growth phrases.
If you need help and guidance in how to grow your brand without losing your way, why not have a chat with Clare? It is so simple! Just book a brew to discuss your ideas and discover how a professional creative can help you to scale up your brand.
How To Build A Scalable Brand
When first designing and creating a brand story, identity, and core values, the focus tends to be on today’s audience and products. However, as companies grow, they have to adapt to market changes, new audiences, broader product ranges, more employees etc., but the brand should remain recognisable.
Step One: Core Values and Purpose
What are your core values? One of the biggest challenges of scaling up your business is maintaining brand identity, so drill down into what your brand stands for.
These values will form the foundation upon which you build consistent messaging and actions – crucial for scalability without losing brand identity. (You will find more information in my blog the importance of brand values.)
Have you heard of a brand purpose framework? This is a strategic tool that helps you to clarify and define your brand’s ‘why’, comprising:
- Brand purpose statement: Think beyond making a profit. What are the benefits of your brand? e.g. “Why does my brand exist?”; What will its long-term impact be?”
- Core values – the fundamental elements guiding your brand which I have discussed above
- Target audience – who your brand is for, and how will it impact their lives?
- Social impact – what are the positives of your brand for your industry, community or society?
- Messaging – how will your brand communicate its purpose?
- How will you measure the effectiveness of brand messaging and individual campaigns?
If you are struggling a little, here is Patagonia’s brand purpose:
“To build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”
How to build a scalable brand? A brand purpose framework provides the guiding principles for your brand’s activities and messages as you scale it up. Understanding your brand purpose will help to establish its authenticity.
Ensuring you communicate this purpose in a way that resonates with your target audience will establish trust while setting you apart from competitors.
Step Two: Visual Identity
Are you consistent? Wherever your brand shows up, customers need to recognise it. This doesn’t mean that your logo is carved in stone! Although visuals should be consistent, they can be flexible in how you use them for certain campaigns or on different platforms.
Brand visuals should align with the personality of your brand and resonate with your target audience. They will evolve naturally as your brand grows and adapts to new challenges.
I talked about the importance of a brand refresh in last month’s blog and if your brand has timeless visuals (think about the golden arches of McDonald’s or the Nike tick), you will only need a brand refresh from time to time, rather than a complete rebrand.
Step Three: Brand Voice
How do you talk to your target audience? Having a distinctive and authentic brand voice makes it easier to recognise across all touchpoints. During the startup stage, your brand is dependent on your personal drive and vision.
In fact, you may be the only person talking to customers on your socials, website and the phone! However, as you scale up and hand over this responsibility to others, there is a risk that your original brand voice and authenticity could be diluted or even lost.
Use a brand purpose framework to create a style guide for your brand’s tone of voice, phrasing for messages, and storytelling techniques for audience engagement. Being consistent and clear in communicating your commitment to core values, demonstrates brand authenticity, fosters a connection with your audience and builds trust as your brand grows.
Step Four: Systems And Tools
How do you ensure consistency while building a scalable brand? Use systems and tools to help you! Once you have a style guide, you ensure consistency by implementing it across marketing activities using systems like CRM and social media schedulers.
Use their in-built analytics to measure the success of your brand’s activities and messages. A lot of these tools are inexpensive, so even with a limited marketing budget, your brand can show up in the right places at the right time.
Step Five: The Personal Touch
How to build a scalable brand without losing that personal touch? Make sure that employees know what your brand stands for and the importance of customer engagement across all touchpoints – website, social media, phone/email, customer service, customer experience.
Scaling up your brand can affect your audience connection. Attend networking events, exhibitions, webinars, workshops etc. Use video content on your website and social media channels to reinforce that personal connection.
Employ customer feedback and surveys to reinforce your commitment to the loyal followers and brand community you have worked hard to establish.
Step Six: Brand Strategy
How to build a scalable brand? As I stated at the beginning of this blog, growth is a two-edged sword and scaling up your brand brings many new challenges.
As your brand progresses through growth phases, you may need to refine messaging, products / services and brand visuals to ensure its relevance to your target audience.
Regular performance reviews are key to the evolution of your brand, use analytical tools to determine what is working and what isn’t. You can read more about how to review your brand in this blog post.
Having a brand strategy with in-built flexibility will provide a solid foundation for your brand vision, allowing it to adapt to market trends, changes in customer expectations, and fluctuations in trading conditions without losing momentum.
How To Build A Scalable Brand
This blog demonstrates that building a scalable brand requires a long-term flexible brand strategy to provide both a foundation and adaptability.
Investing both time and money into your brand identity and brand visuals while harnessing tools to grow without losing authenticity, will help to prevent your brand losing its way, and the need for more expensive solutions down the line. If you need help with how to build a scalable brand and watch it thrive, contact the brand strategy specialists at Make a Brew. The kettle is always on, so let’s have a brew and chat about your vision!
