Seven steps to building

a successful brand.
What is a brand?
A brand isn’t just a logo. Alone, a logo is just a picture – nothing more. A brand’s a
promise your customers believe in. It’s a promise about who you are and what benefits
you deliver, that gets reinforced every single time people come in contact with any part
of your business.
A brand is a promise that your customers believe in. And branding is the packaging and
presentation of your promise.

The benefits of building a brand

Brands pave the way to marketing success. They build name awareness. They build
equity. They increase the odds of business survival. They make selling easier. They create
customer loyalty.
Oh, and they generate profit.
Without a brand, you have to build a case for why you deserve the customer’s business
every time you want to make a sale.
7 steps to branding success
Building a brand is like building a house. They have two things in common. They both need a site to occupy –
a house needs a plot and a brand needs a market position. They both require a plan to follow to achieve the
desired outcome.
The following steps will help you to plan, position and build a successful brand for your business, product
or service – and help you achieve your business goals.

Step 1: Decide what to brand

Most of the time, the choice is simple: are you branding your company or something that your company
offers – a product or service?
We’d normally recommend you create one strong brand for your business, then extend that brand to cover
everything you offer. This increases brand equity and creates a virtuous circle of recognition.
The alternative is to build a business full of brands: this can be very expensive, time-consuming and
confusing for your customers. However, sometimes it’s simply the best solution – and if that’s the case,
we recommend you create a stand-alone profit centre for each new brand.

Step 2: Do your homework

Research is key to building a successful brand. When you truly know your customers – who they are,
where they are, and what they want – you can target them cost-effectively with little or no waste. Once you
understanding their needs, wants and desires, you’ll also have a sound platform not just for building your
brand, but for growing your entire business.
Of course, you may already have done your research – and be the proud owner of a teetering pile of paperwork.
So now might be the time to revisit the data, polish up the conclusions and probe any gaps you find.
If not, there’s no time like the present to get digging. Here are a few tips to help you gather the right kind of
information to inform your marketing strategy.
Research tips

1. Identify your target market.

Your information will only be as good as your market research sample.
Be careful when selecting your market research sample group to question. To get useful market research
data, your sample group needs to be relevant to and representative of your target population.

2. Design your survey or market research questionnaire carefully.

Make sure that it's focused specifically on the information you need to know, and that you haven't
included any questions that may offend anyone. Many people are put off by questions that ask them
how much money they earn, for instance. If you offend or confuse them, they won't bother to fill out your
market research survey.
The key information that you should aim to acquire is:
• Who they are?
• Where they live?
• What lifestyle do they lead?
• What car they drive?
• Their perceived need for your product or service?
• Would they buy it from you?
• How much would they be willing to pay?
• Have they heard of your company or product? If so, from where?
• Where would they go to source this type of product or service?
• Have they sourced it elsewhere? If so, where and why?
• What magazines and newspapers they read?
• What TV channels or shows do they watch?
• What radio stations do they listen to and at what times?
• What websites they visit?
• How do they like to be communicated with? Email, phone and/or by post?

3. Keep it short.
If possible, your market research survey or questionnaire should all fit on one page. Long forms
intimidate some people; others see multiple page forms as just too much of an imposition on their time.

4. Always provide some opportunity for detailed answers.

Not everyone will take advantage of it, but some will, and sometimes these written-in comments are the
most valuable of all.

5. Work out your market research recording techniques first.

Telephone market research surveys are popular, but how are you going to record what the respondents
say? If you're orally interviewing someone, will you record them or take notes? The purpose of market
research is to gather and analyse the data, so you've got to have a system of recording the data worked
out in advance. Websites like www.surveymonkey.com are very effective tools, as they record and
provide reports on the data collected. And, if you’re surveying fewer than 100 people, it’s free.

6. Invest in the process

The amount of market research you do is limited only by your time (if you're doing it yourself) or your
budget (if you hire someone else to do it). But market research is necessary at all stages of a business's
life, if you want continued success. Only market research can truly keep us in touch with what's most
important – your customers, and their needs and desires.

If this sounds like a daunting task and you’ve yet to venture forth with a clipboard and a forced smile, don’t
worry – we can carry out the research on your behalf.
Step 3: Define your offering
Once you understand your customers – their wants, needs, desires and expectations – you should revisit
your offering and start to lay the foundation for a brand that accurately reflects the essence of what your
business stands for, how you operate, what you promise and who you serve.
Our ‘Putting your brand into words’ workshop will help focus and structure your thinking by taking you
through the following exercises:
• Creating your vision
Think of your vision as the picture of where you ultimately want to be.
- Define your long-term aspirations
- Explain why you’re doing what you’re doing
- And the ultimate good you want to achieve through your success
• Establishing your mission
Think of your mission as the route you’ll follow to achieve your vision.
- Define the purpose of your company
- State what effect you intend to have on the world around you
- State what you do for others
- And the approach you follow in order to achieve your aspirations
• Identifying your values
You need a set of principles and values that guide how you operate.
- What you are and aren’t willing to do to achieve success
- They’re fundamental to what your business is and stands for
- They’re essential to the brand image that’s reflected to the public
• Writing your business promise
Your business promise is the pledge upon which you build your brand and stake your reputation.
- What do you assure those who come into contact with your business
- The expectation that you live up to every time people experience your brand
- Your promise is the essence of your brand
- Your promise is essential to your brand strategy
- Don’t make promises that you can’t deliver on consistently
- Delivering your promise is essential to building business trust and loyalty
- It’s something translated into and presented as a motto or tagline
• Understanding your character
Your brand character is the personality of your brand.
- It’s an accurate reflection of your vision, mission, values, and promise
- Is it serious or sombre, fun or playful
- Is it youthful or very grown up
• Defining your brand
Your brand definition shrinks all your thoughts about your business mission, values, and promise into
a concise statement.
- It defines what you do and how you differ from all other solutions
- It defines your promise to your customers
- It’s the face of your brand
- It serves as the steering wheel for your branding strategy
- It influences every turn you make in presenting your brand
• Inventing or confirming your name
If you already have a brand name, you can use this exercise to check if it truly reflects the attributes
of your brand. If you don’t have a brand name, it’ll help you list the attributes that you want to reflect
in your name.
- It identifies the terms out of your brand identity statement that you most want your name to convey,
reflect, or support
- It identifies the aspects of your brand promise that you would like your name to advance
- It will help you identify words that define the character you want your name to convey

Step 4: Find your market position

The process of finding a place to build your brand in your market and in minds of customers
is called Positioning.
Positioning is the precise job of differentiating your offering, then slotting it into a free spot in the market
to fulfil an unfilled need.
Having completed your market research, you should know who your customers are, but more importantly
you should know who is most likely to want what you’re selling. You should know their needs and desires,
where they are, how to target them, what kind of messages will motivate them to buy from you, and what
kind of customer experience will make them loyal to your brand.
You’ve also put your brand into words and defined what’s unique about your offering. Now it’s time
to develop your marketing and communication strategy.

Designing a marketing and communications strategy

Your marketing strategy is the big-picture insight that guides your marketing activity and makes sure all your
activities add up to success. A good core strategy gives a special kind of high-level direction and purpose
to all you do.
There are several types of marketing strategies and you need to decide which one best suits your business
offering. These include:
• Market expansion strategies
This is the most common strategy in marketing. The idea is very simple. Just pick some new territory
and head out into it. Oh, and don’t come back until you’ve struck gold.
• Market segmentation strategies
This is a specialisation strategy in which you target and cater to or specialise in just one narrow type
or group of customers. The advantage of this type of strategy is that it allows you to tailor your product,
or service and your entire marketing effort to a clearly defined group with uniform, specific
characteristics.
• Market share strategies
Another common and powerful strategy is to increase your market share through your marketing activity.
In essence this means taking some business from your competitors.
• Life-cycle strategies
Every product category has a limited life and old products are replaced by new. The result is the
never-ending cycle of birth, growth and decline. This strategy looks at long-term trends and evolves
as the products evolve.
• Positioning strategies
A positioning strategy takes a psychological approach to marketing. This strategy focuses on getting
customers or prospects to see your product or service in a positive light.
• Simplicity strategies
This strategy focuses on targeting customers and prospects with products that offer a simple alternative
to increasingly complex technology they don’t need.
• Quality strategies
This strategy is favoured by already established brands that have built up a reputation for superior
quality products or services.
• Reminder strategies
Products that are routinely purchased to remind customers that they still exist use this strategy.

Unless you have a marketing degree or the inclination to absorb a library of strategy books, we recommend
that you get us to create your strategy for you.
But if money’s tight and you have no alternative but to do it yourself, here’s what your strategy
should include:
• Introduction
• Your vision, mission and business promise
• Strengths and weaknesses
• Opportunities and threats
• Competitor analysis
• Target market analysis – primary and secondary
• Ideal customer profile
• Customer needs, desires and expectations
• Key objectives
• Core strategy
• Key messages
• Potential channels to market
• Media plan and costs
• Tactics
• Implementation action plan
• Summary
Step 5: Create the right impression
The average consumer faces an average of 3000 promotional messages every day. They only tune into
messages that appeal to their wants and needs. They ignore messages for offerings they already buy from
a trusted supplier. Unless, the offering being presented is unique, attractive, different and better.
To grab their attention – and win their custom – you need to be all of these things. To keep their custom you
need to deliver on your promise. Your promise needs to match their desire and expectations.
Create a face and voice for your brand that’s unique, simple and strong representation of your business.
It should reflect your brand character and embody your promise to your customers. It must be consistent
in image and tone across all your marketing communications. It must be targeted in message and powerful
enough to grab your customer’s attention – and win their custom.

Top tips for marketing success

• Invest in your logo
Your logo is the most important expression of your brand. Invest in getting it designed professionally and
compliment it with a tagline that sums up your offering to your customers.
• Create a theme
Creating a consistent theme for all your marketing materials is a great way of expressing the personality
of your brand and making it memorable. Ensure the theme is relevant to your business and your promise
to your customers.
• Create the right tone
The tone of your message is vital if it’s to attract and retain your customers to the brand.
Speak to them directly – use you and us – and find a way of talking that matches their own
conversational style. This could be irreverent and humourous for one audience, or serious and
straight to the point for another.
• Present yourself consistently
Repetition builds reputation. Ensure that every element of your brand is presented correctly and
consistently to your customers.
• Live by your strategy
You’ve invested in a marketing strategy; so ensure that you execute the plan in its entirety. Make sure that
your marketing campaign is integrated and is supported by sales activity at every stage in the process.
• Deliver on your promise
Once you’ve created the visual and verbal elements of your brand – presented it consistently and
strategically to your market – and attracted new customers, all you have to do is deliver on your promise
to keep their custom.
Step 6: Launch with a bang!
Whether you’re launching a new brand or revitalising an existing one, your brand identity needs to be
announced as part of a complete brand story.
Before you enlist the understanding, interest, and support of others, be sure you know your story, chapter
and verse. You need to be clear about why you’re doing what you’re doing.
To prepare for your brand launch, ready your answers to the following questions:
Q1. Why are you undertaking this branding effort? Build awareness? Create an emotional connection?
Differentiate your offering? Create and enhance credibility and trust? Motivate purchase?
Q2. What do you expect your brand launch to achieve?
Q3. When and where should you launch?
Q4. How should you launch and what’s your message?
Q5. What’s your budget?
Q6. Who should you invite?
Q7. How do you promote it?

Top tips for a successful launch

• Time your launch to coincide with public interest in your story
• Launch a PR programme to get your message into the market
• Promote it to your target market
• Secure a key speaker with kudos
• Plan your event down to the finest detail
• Invite 70% more people than you can accommodate
• Confirm RSVPs
• Position your brand and your customer promise
• Unveil, present, and/or demonstrate you product or service
• Encourage feedback
• Network like crazy
• Follow up enquiries and sales leads
Step 7: Keep your brand fresh and relevant
OK – so changing the essence of your brand is officially A Bad Idea. It can create scepticism in your
audience, and harm your credibility. Neither of which you want (unless you’re running some sort of complex
tax scam).
Then again, it’s absolutely vital that you keep your brand’s presentation looking fresh and relevant over the
years. After all – markets and cultural reference points change.

Top tips to keep your brand fresh

• Encourage feedback on your marketing material
• Review your materials regularly
• Ring the necessary changes
• Keep on top of changes in market trends
• Keep on top of changes in the law
• Spot opportunities
• Refresh your materials every quarter
• Keep your website up to date
• Communicate regularly with customers

10 ways to spend less on marketing

Because marketing is a creative activity, you can always find new ways to make an impact and attract
sales, even on a small budget. Here are some ideas that will help you maximise your impact while
minimising your budget:
• Capture as much customer data as possible and build a database. Target the database by email every
time you have something new to say or offer
• Make your communications more visually striking by including images or using creative, dynamic
layouts. This visual style gets more reader attention than any letter, brochure, or ad, making it more
effective and efficient for you
• Improve the appearance of your logo. Most logos are boring, but great companies have great logos
• Be visible on Google and Yahoo search engines. This is inexpensive and works for local as well as
global markets
• Release a survey or host an event to generate publicity
• Send out press releases to the media regularly, or whenever you have valuable news to release.
Editorial is free and endorsed by the media
• Find something simple and inexpensive to offer along with your most popular products or service
in order to pick up add-on sales
• Give out coupons to encourage prospects to try your product or service, so that its qualities become
obvious to them. Don’t however, give away price-cutting coupons or discounts for no good reason –
think of other ways to increase sales appeal
• Offer (or improve) a guarantee, one with no small print. If you have a good product or service, stand
behind it
• Vow never to lose a customer. Whenever you have a customer who’s upset or at risk, find out why and
win them back
• Discover where you lose the most prospects or potential customers and the concentrate your marketing
at this point to convert more of them into customers
21 Forbes Place, Paisley, Renfrewshire PA1 1UT. Telephone: 0845 643 0993, Email: pascal@brandsavvy.co.uk, Web: brandsavvy.co.uk
Registered in Scotland, No. SC318760