Developing your brand strategy helps you get clear about how you can stand apart in your category and reach the people you need to speak to in order to grow. But when should you do this work?
Today on the Real Food Brands Marketing Podcast, host and Food Brand Strategist Katie Mleziva illustrates why the best time to get started on your brand strategy is right now, and how this work has made a difference for her clients no matter where they are in their food business journey whether starting up, optimizing or scaling up.
1. Brand Strategy in the Startup Phase
One example is a client of Katie’s who started working on his brand strategy immediately, during the startup phase. He had identified an unmet gap in the market and was developing a product that they believed would fill the unmet needs of a specific ideal consumer. However, he knew with the number of competitors in an adjacent market he could get “lost in the sea of sameness” if he wasn’t clearly positioned to stand out.
Developing a brand strategy at this phase helped this client make some foundational decisions about what was and was not a part of their brand. The work they did became a framework for everything from product development to package design to marketing plan decisions because he had a reference for who he wanted to talk to (ideal core consumer + secondary audiences) and what story he wanted to invite people into with his brand to solve their pain points.
2. Brand Strategy in the Optimization Phase
For brands that already have products in the market, working on your brand strategy can get you to the next level by connecting the dots and synthesizing what you’re hearing from consumers. You can add that consumer feedback within the context of any other information you know about your category, market, and more.
Many brands at this stage have thought about who their competition is, who their ideal consumer is and what makes their products unique, but many don’t think about how it all fits together to dig below the surface to explore – and document — things like pain points, features and benefits, competitive advantages, brand pillars, and personality, etc.
Generally, businesses at this stage need brand strategy work to help them identify what is currently working, where there might be gaps, and, most importantly, where there are opportunities to drive efficiency and growth.
3. Brand Strategy for Businesses That Are Working to Scale
After gaining initial traction, some food business founders and CEOs are actively working to scale, with research and metrics to help them validate their growth hypothesis and really take things to the next level with a regional, national or global reach. For these companies, brand strategy can help organize more complex information and make key decisions to help the brand stand out from bigger brands, copycats, and others in the category. As these businesses grow past the original early adopter audience they will rely more on word of mouth and recommendations, so having a consistent brand is vital to appeal to the fans they already have and help them spread the word to multiply the work the brand is doing. Without a documented brand strategy in place, it becomes harder for a larger team to stay integrated and create a cohesive brand experience.
This isn’t to say you can’t make some. progress without a documented strategy, but Katie shares that this is a process big brands are using (a streamlined version, of course, we want to keep you nimble!) and she doesn’t want us to let them have all the fun! She adds that everything becomes more efficient when you have one in place that everyone working on your brand can use as the North Star to guide decisions to consistently position your brand to stand out in a way that delivers on your promises to your ideal audience.
Now, let’s go shake up shopping carts!
Quotes:
“Once he (Katie’s client) had the foundational brand strategy pieces in place he could make decisions about all the other pieces of business.” – Katie Mleziva
“Developing a brand strategy can help connect the dots into a cohesive strategy around positioning that gives clarity and confidence to move forward with a brand that is well-aligned with your vision and values” – Katie Mleziva
“Bigger companies use brand strategy all the time. They are always working on this and optimizing. A lot of smaller brands think this isn’t within reach or is just about visuals, but I’m here to change that. I want to make sure all of you have access to this information. I don’t want it to be just about who can shout the loudest!” – Katie Mleziva
In This Episode:
- Why now is always a good time to work on your brand strategy.
- How some businesses are able to grow before they have a documented brand strategy.
- Why it’s so important to get started on your brand strategy.
- How brand strategy can guide decisions for a brand from starting up to scaling up.
- Why food and bev businesses looking to optimize and/or grow should look to their brand strategy.
- How brand strategy can help you when you’re working to reach your business goals.
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