The decision to develop a brand strategy or refresh your brand strategy will be typically driven by a specific need. Either you are just starting out and need to establish your brand, or you’ve found that your current brand strategy is holding your business back. Regardless, it’s critical to ensure your new brand strategy takes your business where you need it to be.
Experience shows us that many brand strategies fail because they are inwardly focused. They are myopic in that they lead with product features and benefits and the business’s explicit needs to create growth and increase profitability. And while this approach may have worked in the past, more and more brands are realizing the value in working from outside in.
The key to this successful brand strategy approach is empathy.
Empathy allows you to see your organization – what it does and how it does it – not as a set of flowcharts and spreadsheets, but as bundles of value, values, and meaning. Your products and services answer specific needs or open up new possibilities. That’s value. Your way of doing business is ethical, honest, transparent, and socially responsible. Those are values. The totality of the value you create, and the values you embrace, is meaning.
When you become aware of the meaning people see in your business and brand, you are better able to build upon, amplify, and radiate that meaning through your products and your workplace. Current customers come closer in to your brand. Your meaningful brand draws in more like-minded prospects. Your employees find new purpose and meaning in their work. Recruits see a desirable place to advance their careers.
Empathy leads you closer to what people are seeking in their lives. It shows you how to align what your brand offers to what will make people feel more fulfilled, gratified, and satisfied.
Your brand strategy will have many components. Make sure each bit is driven by empathetic insights. Reach out to people in new ways. They’ll respond back gratefully.
For further reading, you may like: Why you need a brand strategy.
