A brand strategy is the foundation of any good company, and certainly of any marketing that company does. It’s the building blocks, the content, the substance of everything you’re going to say and communicate a from there on in. So how do you write a brand strategy? Beyond that, how do you execute a brand strategy? How do you help your customers not just know about you, but experience you?

We’re going to go through the full brand strategy process in this post – we’ll discuss:

• What a brand is
• Brand research
• Part 1: Your customer
  • Customer segmentation
  • Customer personas
• Part 2: Brand identity & positioning
  • Internal identity
  • Competitor analysis
  • Uncommon denominator
  • Brand promise, value proposition and positioning statements
• Part 3: Brand expression
  • Messaging frameworks & hierarchy
  • Visual design
• Key lessons
• Next steps

What is a brand?

We all experience countless brands on a daily basis. Dozens likely before you even get out of bed, if you’re like me and still use your phone as your alarm clock.

So we know a brand, we feel a brand. But what makes them powerful? What gives them their pull over us? And really, how can a brand strategy help us?

Brands defy logic. Why would we prefer a Burberry trench coat over one from H&M? What advancement does a Hunter rain boot have over a typical set of wellies? When will everyone admit that Starbucks coffee is actually terrible?!

Brands go beyond a product and beyond a rational reason. They go beyond differentiators, value propositions. None of these brands have become what they are by being ‘better’, ‘cheaper’, ‘faster’, etc. actually, nothing that ends in ‘-er’ at all.

Great brands know that they’re more than a logo or a tagline. It’s about an experience, a feeling, a community that represents the brand. It’s the emotional connection that is so reliable and memorable that it is forever linked to you.

According to Jeff Bezos,

He’s not wrong.

Said another way, it’s the space you take up in a customer’s mind.

So how do you influence that? How do you strategically and intentionally create that experience for your customers so that you have a brand that is bigger you – bigger than any of your component parts. How do you build a brand that delivers on experience and is the first company people think of when considering a purchase in your category.

This guide will walk you through building a brand strategy that defines who you are, connects you with your audience, and positions you for long-term success. Let’s break it down into actionable steps you can take, whether you’re starting from scratch or refining an existing brand.

There are 3 sections to a brand strategy:

Note that the brand design, the messaging (and the website, the campaigns) – none of that comes till step 3. The earlier phases lay all the foundation for the expression to be clear and informed – perfectly and wonderfully ‘on brand ’. 

A caveat

I feel like a proper warning is necessary. Building a brand isn’t done in one workshop or through a (very thorough, may I say) blog post. The strategy development requires research and time, but moreover, the execution of your brand requires ongoing commitment. Your brands builds on itself – bit by bit – and the commitment and consistency is crucial to a brand that lasts. Your brand is even beyond marketing, beyond sales or any ‘customer-facing’ experience. It’s a culture and an experience that everyone who interacts with you, whether internal or external, should experience.

So beyond your logo (one expression of your brand), your brand also extends to your product development, your copywriting style, how you address emails, the music on a customer service line. It’s what can unite your team and defend against competitors.

So getting your brand right at the beginning is critical. It’s the foundation that impacts every part of your business.

Do your research

Skipping over the research is the biggest mistake made in brand development. I know you know your customers. But that doesn’t negate the need for research. While you may have been the customer at one stage, have ample experience in the industry, whatever reasoning feels logical – still take the time to listen to and take feedback from your customers.

Get to know what your customers are thinking, what they truly think and believe. It’s not for them to tell you what the solution is (product evolution or iteration isn’t the endpoint here), but it’s about knowing the customer so well that you and only you can build the experience they need.

Even if budgets are tight and timelines are ambitious, take the time for a quick questionnaire and some interviews.

Brand strategy research resources:

• A calculator to check the required sample size for a representative sample
• Survey tools like Typeform, Google Forms, etc. are all you need
• Data analysis has never been faster – NotebookLM does an incredible job of translating different forms of raw data and content into a usable form

Alright, my due diligence of caveats and pleas are over – let’s get into how to build a powerful brand strategy!

PART 1 OF YOUR BRAND STRATEGY: YOUR CUSTOMER

1.1 – Customer Segmentation

Segmentation is the first port of call here. Before we get to your target customer, we need to see the bigger picture.

Start a graph, select the relevant variables on each side, and plot the groups accordingly. Give each group a name based on their behaviour and from then pinpoint your target.

Here you’ll be able to see who your ‘adjacent’ groups are, who is well-served by alternatives – basically, who is worth your time and who isn’t. This context of the wider market lends more clarity and precision to your brand.

There’s a tendency to make your target bigger than it should be at this stage, but unless your budget is massive and you’re in an entirely new category, ‘mass market’ is not the plan of attack.

You can’t be all things to all people. When you try to please more and do more, you run the risk of watering down your brand, reducing your uniqueness and memorability.

Pick your customers, proud of who you’re truly there to serve.

1.2 – Develop Customer Personas

The heart of brand strategy is your customer. They’re what every other element of your brand – your value proposition, your design, your mission – everything – revolves around.

So knowing every relevant detail about your customer is a crucial step to brand strategy. Don’t worry about who you are yet – worry about who your customers are.

What does a customer persona include in my brand strategy? 

You don’t need to go through every bit of minutiae of their lives. Select the things that matter to your brand – the elements that bring people together. A SaaS company doesn’t need to know what coffee they drink, but they do need to know the buying committee. There will be unique things that matter for each industry, whether it’s B2B or B2C, or a myriad of other variables, but keep this relevant to you. Personas get discarded when there are too many extraneous details. Hone in on what matters to you.

But, go beyond the demographics. Beyond age, gender and income level (etc.), analyse their goals, their habits, their values. What really matters to them? What worries them? Understanding the layers of their problems are absolutely key.

External problems are the evident, ‘surmisable’ problems… but the internal problems are the core concerns behind those external problems. An external problem could be a hectic schedule and looming deadlines. An internal problem could be a fear of failure and a worry about people’s judgement. To get to the internal problems, a good question to ask is ‘What keeps them up at night?’. Those 4am plaguing worries are almost always the core, internal problems.

Then, bring it back to you. A lot of personas skip this step but it’s what connects them to your brand. Why would this target persona like your brand? What would attract them to it? What would do the opposite? Know what the ‘deal-breakers’ are.

I then like to synthesise all of these details in a concise paragraph that is the main statement of each persona. They say it’s harder to write an elevator pitch than it is to write an essay, and the sentiment applies here. You’ve gone into detail with your customer – the test is to now summarise it. Yes, AI can do this for you, but for the sake of customer obsession, I recommend giving it a go yourself first!

How many personas can I have for my brand strategy?

I recommend having anywhere from 1-3 target groups. At 1, there could be some important distinctions between your customer groups that may be overlooked. 2 is my preferred number. 3 is the absolute max.

When you have multiple personas, the key is the post-review. Create each persona, then ask yourself, ‘what do they all have in common’? What brings them all together?

Those are the key elements that matter in your brand development, and ultimately, what your brand promise and value propositions will be based on.

Structure of your customer personas:

I have 4 sections for each persona:

1. Demographics & summary paragraph (which I write at the end)
2. Lifestyle – habits, goals, values
3. Values, goals and problems
4. How it relates to you/your brand
5. The commonalities across personas

PART 2 OF YOUR BRAND STRATEGY: BRAND IDENTITY & POSITIONING

2.1 – Clarify your internal identity

Now that you know your customer, we can come back around to ourselves.  But (and it’s a big ‘but’), it’s always in the context of your customer. Try to see everything through their eyes. It’s your vision, but what is your customer’s vision? What’s matters to them? What do they care about in a company they support? Your brand will be better off because of it.

Your internal identity covers is all about your foundation – what will always be true? What are your nonnegotiables? What are the beliefs that you commit to? It builds the basis of why you exist, what you stand for and how you differentiate yourself in the market.

Key Elements of Your Internal Brand Identity:

The key elements that venture into the existential questions form the basis of your internal identity. I tend to answer them in this order and always see them in context of each other (I like a use a visual of a ‘brand house’ in my course and workshops).

• Vision: What’s your ultimate goal? What are you here to achieve? If your brand were wildly successful, what would the world look or your customers’ lives like as a result?
• Purpose: Why does your vision matter? Why is it important?
• Mission: How will you achieve your vision? What specific steps will you take?
• Values: What are the core beliefs that guide your actions? Your values should be more than just buzzwords—they should be specific, actionable, and reflective of your unique approach.

You’ll notice that there’s a key question for each of these elements:

You can always remember the key question associated with each:

• Vision = What
• Purpose = Why
• Mission = How

Keeping each question distinct will help you avoid conflating them together, or essentially say the same thing in each.

Your Brand Positioning

Now we know who your customers are and we know who you are. Let’s contextualise this in the interactive world we (including your competitors) all live in.

Your brand positioning defines how your brand fits into the marketplace and differentiates itself from competitors. This is where you map out your competitors, identify gaps in the market, and figure out what makes your brand uniquely valuable.

2.2 – Conduct competitor analysis for your brand strategy

So far, the elephant in the room has been your competitors. We don’t just live in a happy world with you and your customers. As we all know, your customers have options.

Start by identifying your key competitors, gathering visuals of their brand, themes in their messaging, apparent target and your analysis of their strengths and weaknesses. What do they offer that resonates with customers? Where do they fall short? Don’t just focus on how you’re better—acknowledge their strengths, as this will help you identify your own opportunities for differentiation.

Brand strategy competitor research resources:

• Each social media channel has an ‘ad library’, helping you quickly gather and review your competitors’ digital advertising
  • Ad Libraries:
    • Meta
    • LInkedIn
    • TikTok

2.3 – Your brand strategy “Uncommon Denominator”

If I could pick one framework or model to develop your brand strategy, this is it.

Your uncommon denominator is the sweet spot where your customers’ needs intersect with what only you can offer. It’s not just about what makes you different—it’s about what makes you better in ways that truly matter to your audience.

You’ve done all of the homework needed to complete this venn diagram:

First, go back to your personas. What do they want? What matters to them in regards to your product/the category?

Then, go back to your competitors. What do they do better? What hold do they have on the market? How is their offering different?

Then, what do you offer? What is core to your solution?

When working through this with clients, I like to have this on a white board and use a lot of post-its (classic strategist), filling out the large external portions of the circles first.

Then, we refine it.

First in the centre of the circle, let’s state the obvious. What are the fundamentals of what your customer wants that both you and your competitors offer. It’s the ‘cost of entry’ in this category. The assumed, the obvious.

Then, how do your competitors better serve your customers? What do they have an edge on? If they’re much more established and have a larger budget, I warn against trying to compete here. It could be true – you could be of a higher quality, I’m sure your customer service is better. But I want your ad dollars going to the messages that have the highest chance of resonance. Meaning, it has to be unique.

The key: Go for different over better.

Moving along the bottom side of the venn diagram – is there anything that you and your competitors are offering that your customer doesn’t really care about? Always a humbling question to ask!

And finally, the last section – where you and your customer overlap. What do you offer that your customer wants, that your competitors can’t touch? This is the most important question of your brand positioning, so we want to get it right.

3 things must be true:

1. Your customer wants it
2. You offer it (and can prove it)
3. Your competitor cannot compete with it

It’s a good litmus test when you’ve finally arrived at this point – the basis for everything from here on in.

2.4 – Crafting your brand strategy statements

This is where brand strategy can go off the rails. There are so many ‘statements’ that are said to be vital – value propositions, brand essence, positioning statement, etc. There are dozens of them, but there are only 3 you really need to pay attention to – I’ll even prioritise just 2.

Brand promise

Ultimately, what are you offering your customer? Beyond the tangible product or service, how will their life be better because they’ve purchased from you? What do they really care about? It’s emotional, it’s big, it’s important.

Value proposition

How does your product or service meet your customer’s specific needs, and why should they choose you over a competitor?

Positioning statement

How are you different from competitors? This is more focused on external relativity with your competitors, more than it is about you and your customers.

PART THREE OF YOUR BRAND STRATEGY: BRAND EXPRESSION

3.1 – Crafting your external messaging

Everything we’ve written, and in fact developed so far, is all internal. It’s not the version that your customer sees. You use it to inform everything everything external.

This is why I’m big on the fact that marketing strategy is really the execution of your brand strategy. A customer only experiences your brand through the campaign. So make sure you’re putting this brand strategy to good use – it’s the actions that come from it that truly matter. But now, you can make aligned, informed and intentional choices about how you show up externally.

So with that diatribe aside, let’s focus on your external messaging.

We can’t go from 0-100 with our customers in one interaction. An effective brand builds trust gradually, proving on itself over and over, so that eventually, you have living, breathing brand enthusiasts. But that takes time, consistency and a sequenced message.

You want to break down the customer journey, from awareness, considersation, acquisition, and retention (feel free to customise this to whatever works for you), and break down what your customer needs to know at each stage. You can also then look at what channels you’ll use to communicate that message.

At awareness, what helps a customer get oriented? What can they contextualise you, ready to take on additional details. What are the foundational details of who you are and what you do?

Then, what are some of your key messages? Your differentiators? What builds from one to the next, specific in their own isolation but when you zoom out, starts to colour in your full brand?

In addition to the messaging, you’ll also want to think about the different channels that each message will be communicated through. Awareness-focused channels could be your social media, press releases, events. Then, perhaps it’s your website, your email list. Each channel can take on a unique focus and message, knowing that you’re building a holistic picture.

My biggest tip is to avoid saying everything about your brand all at once. Think of your messaging as a journey, starting with awareness and moving toward purchase and loyalty. At each stage, you’ll introduce more layers of your brand, allowing your customers to experience and believe in your brand promise over time.

More brand messaging

From here, you can write your brand summaries and your brand story. Having done the homework, this is where a ‘elevator pitch’ comes back around. Future you will also thank present you for writing your brand summary in 10 words, 25 words, 50+ words. You now have the understanding of your customer and positioning to summarise your brand in a way that resonates.

Your longer-form brand story is also a useful exercise. Donald Miller’s book, ‘Building a Story Brand‘ gives a nice summary of how to ensure this stays within the customer perspective.

3.2 Visual brand design

We can now come back to the visual elements of a brand now that we have the foundation of who we are and what we stand for. With that aligned, how can we communicate that visually? It’s the visual extension of all that has come to be thus far. So enjoy the development of your logo, colour palette, fonts, imagery, etc. This leads naturally into your web design, email design, etc.

Consistency is absolutely key in your visual identity. I recommend choosing 3-4 elements or ‘brand cues’ that your really double down on. It could be your logo, an icon (if you have one), a particular colour. Going back to brand recognition, this is why we know Coca-Cola from a mile away and can hear the Netflix ‘loading’ sound and instantly want to relax on a sofa. Being consistent in these brand cues are a powerful tool to ensure your brand is unique and identifiable amongst the sea of competition.

Key brand strategy lessons:

• Customer First: Build your brand strategy around a deep understanding of your customer’s needs, desires, and pain points. Create detailed personas based on research to guide your strategy.
• Clarify Your Brand Identity: Build your identity through the lens of your customer, clearly understanding the differences between your vision, purpose, mission and values.
• Position Your Brand Uniquely: go for ‘different’ over ‘better’, positioning your brand with a new audience or emphasise something different that your customers truly care about.
• Consistent Expression: Ensure your messaging and visual identity consistently communicate your brand across all touchpoints. Know and commit to your brand cues.

Need help crafting your brand strategy?

Building a powerful brand strategy takes time, and you don’t have to do it alone. Here are two ways you can get expert guidance:

1. Join the Brand Strategy 101 course

If you’re looking for a more structured approach, our Brand Strategy 101 Course is an on-demand digital course designed to walk you through every step of building your brand. You’ll gain access to:

• Templates and worksheets that guide you through defining your customer, brand identity, and messaging.
• Real-world examples from brands that have successfully nailed their strategy.
• Video guidance with expert insights to help you avoid common pitfalls and build a strong foundation from the start.

This course is perfect if you want to work at your own pace and have access to the tools you need to get your brand strategy right from the beginning.

Bonus – if you sign up to our mailing list, we’ll send you 15% off for the course.

2. Work with us to develop a personalised brand strategy

For founders and marketing leads looking for one-on-one, hands-on guidance, we can work with you to develop your brand strategy. We’ll conduct the research and lead the workshops, ultimately delivering your brand strategy that has the action plan to bring it to life.

Learn more.

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And there we have it – a brand strategy that carves out your place in the world and helps you defend it for the long-term.

Leave a comment with any questions or experiences you’ve had in brand strategy to date. We’re passionate about building lasting and impactful brands, and are here to help!