As a business owner, you know that to increase sales, you have to market your products to the right people. When looking at how to market your brand, a creative strategy will integrate your brand strategy with a marketing strategy, to bring your brand to life.
If this sounds like too much to think about, try this.
Your brand strategy addresses these two questions:
- Why does your brand exist?
- What does your brand stand for?
Therefore, a brand strategy provides the foundation – the ‘why’ and ‘what’ of your brand.
A creative strategy brings your brand to life, using these main components:
- Creative Concept – the central idea that directs and brings together the creative work
- Messaging – the main points you aim to communicate to your audience
- The appearance of your brand, including logo, colour scheme, typography and images comprise your brand’s Visual Identity
- Marketing Channels – platforms you use to connect and communicate with the audience
- The specific content you will create to support marketing campaigns, e.g., photography, social media posts, posters, advertisements etc, are collectively the Creative Assets.
So, a creative strategy is about how you communicate the ‘why’ and ‘what’ of your brand.
How to market your brand effectively
In order to effectively market your brand, your brand strategy and creative strategy should work in harmony to:
- Increase brand awareness
- Drive customer engagement
- Boost sales
You need to understand your audience’s behaviours, needs and preferences so your brand can form a deep connection with them.
In order to avoid confusion between the two strategies, I will explain a bit more about their similarities and how they come together to create a memorable brand experience.
Aligning with your brand vision and values
Both strategies should align with the essence of your brand.
The brand strategy defines the goal and outlines what the vision, mission, and core values are, whereas the creative strategy is more tactical, deciding how these will be communicated.
From basic visual and messaging elements to which marketing channels will be used to communicate with your audience.
To market your brand effectively, brand alignment is essential for clear messaging and consistency wherever your brand and audience connect.
The target audience
You need to ensure you attract the right audience for your product/service.
The brand strategy helps to identify their main characteristics, such as their likes/dislikes/pain points and demographics.
Identifying the type of people who will buy your products/services provides information about their needs and aspirations, allowing the customisation of brand messages.
The creative strategy designs communications using visuals/messaging that will resonate with your audience by focusing on their needs and aspirations, and by choosing marketing channels to draw them in.
When considering how to market your brand, the strategies should work together to foster a strong and loyal relationship with your audience.
Market differentiation
Accentuating the uniqueness of your brand against the competition.
The brand strategy helps customers to understand what is unique about your brand, defining its USP and highlighting its value to them.
The creative strategy uses visuals/messaging to express your brand’s personality, highlighting its uniqueness via creative assets.
When planning how to market your brand, both strategies work together to make sure it creates a first and lasting impression on your target audience.
Creating a strong brand identity
Every brand in the marketplace has a unique style and personality.
As I said in the introduction to this article, the brand strategy creates the ‘why’ and ‘what’ of your brand, establishing a foundation through the brand mission, vision, and core values.
The creative strategy brings your brand to life via the creative assets, giving it a personality and voice via visuals/messaging across all customer touchpoints.
Creating a strong brand identity is reliant on the two strategies working together to build a trusting and loyal audience and is essential when planning how to market your brand.
Measuring success
Both strategies monitor progress and measure success.
Within the brand strategy are KPIs or measurable targets.
You can use the data produced to measure performance and so make clear, informed decisions going forward.
Within the creative strategy is data from customer engagement, to determine whether brand messaging is reaching and resonating with your audience and achieving the expected results.
The data from both strategies is crucial for:
- Improvement
- Refinement
- Relevance
- Adapting to change
Although, as I have shown above, brand strategy and creative strategy have similarities and both work together to answer the question ‘How to market your brand’, I will now take a look at their differences.
How to market your brand through strategies
Strategy purpose
Brand strategy: Concentrates on macro-level through expressing the core brand identity. Sets brand goals by defining the target audience, analysing competitors and establishing the mission, vision and core values at the heart of the brand.
Creative strategy: Brings the brand to life at micro-level through creative assets.
Strategy method
Brand strategy: Relies on analytical methodology i.e., research and analysis of the market, competitors and the target audience with data used for strategic decision-making.
Creative strategy: Is creative, imaginative, and artistic rather than analytical. Has a more experimental and continuous improvement approach to brand development.
Strategy results
Brand strategy: Generates foundation principles/documents such as positioning statements, brand architecture and guidelines, and value propositions.
Creative strategy: Produces tangible deliverables such as creative assets, website, marketing campaigns, and other content.
Strategy timeframe
Brand strategy: Long-term goals with occasional revisions, typically three-five years.
Creative strategy: Continuous improvement allowing flexibility to adapt to changing trading conditions/environments. experimental approaches allow for adjustments according to campaign success and feedback from customers.
Strategy metrics
Brand strategy: Intangible measures like perception, equity, awareness, and loyalty. Evaluates brand presence in the market at macro-level.
Creative strategy: Uses measurable data e.g., customer reach/engagement, campaign success and sales figures.
Strategy teamwork
Brand strategy: Pulls together high level stakeholders such as executives and brand managers.
Creative strategy: Requires creatives to work together to produce deliverables.
Strategy skills
Brand strategy: Requires analytical thinkers with strategic skills.
Creative strategy: Requires those with creative vision and expertise in design principles, graphic design, and copywriting.
Strategy effects
Brand strategy: Drives the reputation of the brand and how it is perceived. Goals are set for long-term growth. Aims at prolonged success.
Creative strategy: Drives audience engagement with immediate returns on campaign goals. Aims at immediate success.
Hopefully, the information I have explained in this article will be useful when planning how to market your brand. However, if you still feel a bit bamboozled and would rather talk it through with the experts, the kettle is always on here at Make a Brew! We live and breathe brand strategy and creative strategy, so book a brew here to discuss how we can help you to create a memorable brand experience for your customers!
