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[Brand Strategy Series] Setting Your Food Business Apart Step 3: Company Strategy

Sep 16, 2020 | Brand Management, Brand Strategy, Marketing Plans, Package Design, Real Food Brands Podcast

[Brand Strategy Series] Setting Your Food Business Apart Step 3: Company Strategy

During this three-part Brand Strategy series, we’ve covered competitors and customers, so now it’s time to look at the final C: Company. This is where we put together all of our inputs and start to look at outputs. Get specific about these components of company strategy, and you’ll figure out how to really set your brand apart.

Today on the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food & Beverage Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva finishes our series on Brand Strategy. In this episode, Katie breaks down how to synthesize your Competitor, Consumer, and Company info to determine what truly makes your brand stand out.

1. Competitive Advantage

What advantages do you have over your competition? What comes easily to you might not be as easy for other brands? Is there something special about what you do or how you do it that could make your brand stand out? What capabilities does your business have or resources that others may not have access to?

2. What Are You Really Selling?

We did an entire episode focused on identifying the more emotional benefits of what you are selling, not just the functional benefits. You can listen to that episode here if you want to dig in further, but it comes down to a few key insights about your consumers, their pains and gains, and, ultimately, what your company is doing to solve their problems and/or delight them. This isn’t just about functional benefits someone gains from using your food or beverage products, but the emotional benefits that will keep them coming back.

3. Brand Pillars

What is at the foundation of everything you do, based on your key points of value? Your brand pillars are the common themes that run throughout all conversations you have. They must be relevant to your consumers and ownable in your competitive set. Katie recommends boiling it down to three main pillars, which you can use again and again as a litmus test to check for fit on future products, suppliers/materials, partners and collaborators, marketing efforts, and so much more.

4. Brand Positioning

It’s important to make this statement clear and concise. Who is your ideal consumer? What category are you operating in, or closest to? What is your point of difference, and what are the proof points? What is the true benefit to the consumer? These are the questions discussed during a positioning work session. There is so much value in the process of creating a positioning statement because it forces you and your team to have some healthy debate around these questions so you can document succinct statement (for internal use).

5. Brand Personality

In order to build trust and connect with your community of ideal consumers, your brand needs to have a real human quality behind it. Choose 4-6 adjectives that describe your brand as if it were a person. This can guide everything from copywriting to packaging, anything that requires creative decision making.

If you’re looking to dig into these topics further, Katie will be launching the Food Brand WorkshopTM Series soon, with the first on-demand workshop being Brand Strategy Fundamentals. You’ll get a video with her step-by-step process, along with a workbook and private Facebook group hosted by Katie to help you actually get the work done. This is a workshop after all, and we’re looking forward to getting started with you to set your brand apart!

Visit realfoodbrands.com/workshop to get started.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out at katie@realfoodbrands.com.

Now, let’s go shake up shopping carts!

In This Episode:

  • Why it’s important to work through your brand strategy following a step by step process.
  • How to identify your competitive advantages and key points of value.
  • Why you need to understand the actual benefits of what you’re selling.
  • How your brand pillars, positioning and personality help bring your brand to life.
  • What to do when your strategic thinking changes over time.
  • How to use your brand strategy (hint: this strategy will not just sit on the shelf!)
  • How the NEW The Real Food Brands Workshop™ will help you get started on your brand strategy.

Quotes:

“The work that goes into setting a strategy to make your brand stand out isn’t easy, but if you ask me, it is FUN!” – Katie Mleziva

“There are functional benefits consumers get from your products, but we also want to look at the more emotional benefits they get from your brand as a whole because this is part of what will keep them coming back – to your brand specifically—for more.” – Katie Mleziva

“While the process itself is valuable, a brand strategy is not something you just want to sit on the shelf. This is work you’ll want to reference regularly.” – Katie Mleziva

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