How To Clarify Business & Brand Strategy for Brand Building in the Digital Economy

Business strategy is the operational plan of your business venture. And brand strategy is the marketing system of the business enhanced by branding, which is the soul of the brand strategy. The most common question most entrepreneurs ask in their brand-building journey is which should be the first brand strategy or business strategy. In brand building, branding is the first thing that gives life to your business. Though some entrepreneurs might want to argue and say, isn’t it that we always start with a business idea from the needs analysis? Of course, that is true and logical. But let’s explore the concepts in practice.

Determining what to focus on first in building a brand is crucial. The challenge is whether to focus first on a business or brand strategy. Well, a business strategy without a marketing strategy that involves a brand strategy might lead to failure, as branding is the core of the marketing system. Let’s start by saying brands start with an idea and develop into a business model through execution. However, building a profitable business that generates revenue needs more than a business strategy. So, what should you start with, business strategy or brand strategy? Let’s crack into the mystery here;

 

Business Strategy & Brand Strategy in Practice

In practice, a business idea is not a business until you put it into action with appropriate executions. And the execution is everything that you do for it to be recognized as a business and identified as a brand. That everything referred to here is the execution of the marketing plan and system through a brand strategy. And that involves branding for identity and awareness in the market. That is where the concept of brand strategy comes into play through branding.

You can also refer to brand strategy as a branding strategy. That means a brand strategy is a progressive process that promotes your business to establish itself as a brand in the market. You might have a brilliant business model, but taking it to a higher level for revenue generation and brand equity needs digging deeper into what should be the first business or brand strategy. So, what should come first, business strategy or brand strategy? Let’s explore and define these concepts and establish which should be the first in brand building.

Business Strategy

It is a long-term plan of action for the execution of the operational plan for achieving business goals for revenue generation and profit realization. It is a long-term plan designed to achieve set goals and objectives. Making money is usually the end goal. A business strategy can mainly focus on managing production operations and processes for strengthening performance and delivery systems. A business strategy only involves the business model and goals of performance. Now, let’s look at brand strategy and what it involves.

Brand Strategy

That makes your business establish an online digital space and offline as a brand of verified recognition and good reputation. The only time a business venture becomes a real business is when it is successfully branded and shared on Google as a brand with identity and working towards boosting its brand equity through branding and marketing its products and services for revenue generation and income realization. That positions it as a brand, not just a local business, but a global brand of impact in your industry and niche. Its focus is building and nurturing long-term relations for future conversions.

What Comes First Business Strategy or Brand Strategy?

In a digital economy like this, confusing business and brand strategy might result in getting confused with where your attention should be in your brand-building journey and process. A business with zero brand strategy can vanish to nothing in the market. A business strategy is about production processes, operations, and management to achieve goals, which you should understand as a long-term goal.

However, a business strategy without a marketing system that involves a brand strategy might lead to failure, as branding is at the core of your marketing system. Let’s start by saying that brands start with an idea and conceptualize it into a business model. Building it into a viable business needs more than that. The business strategy revolves around the production operations and processes. And these need nurturing through a strong brand strategy for systematizing your brand-building efforts.

Why Brand Strategy First?

A brand strategy should come first and is a priority for sustainability and success in brand building. Any business that lacks a solid brand strategy can easily drown in the oversaturated digital market. Bill Gates once said, “If your business is not on the Internet, then your business will be out of business.” It was back when the internet was still not as saturated as it has become.

Now is the painful reality for every business to have a solid online presence despite constant disruptions from emerging technologies, especially in digital marketing with AI Teach apps and tools. So, understanding your business as a brand is imperative for competitive positioning, presence, authority, and influence in your industry and niche. So, let’s dive in and explore these five aspects that outline a brand strategy for your business venture.

Branding

That is an exciting stage in building a brand in the digital economy. It is the process of creating an identity for your business venture. That process involves designing the physical and visual identity of the business logo, color palette, fonts, tone of voice, brand templates for presentations and packaging, and merchandise. Branding promotes cohesion and coherence in the feel and appeal of your brand to the world.

The brand strategy guides you for consistency and relevance with your marketing plan and system. Who doesn’t want to be a recognizable brand in a business landscape that has become a jackal of the fast and furious hungry tech lions that can shred any business reputation into nothing but confusion due to constant and untimely distractions and disruptions in the digital market?

Your brand strategy starts with the visual and tangible elements to establish a physical presence and feel in the market. That will help your clients and consumers instantly remember your brand from a glance without a word, at a glance on any branding-building platform, like your website or social media. Branding builds awareness at a glance but can get deeper with blogging as a marketing strategy.

Brand Identity

Brand identity is the perception of your business in the market as a unique brand. It is how customers differentiate your business from the rest. It sets you apart and helps your products or services stand out in a saturated market. Once your business venture has established its identity through the branding process in the market, it’s time to cruise and consolidate its brand identity for positioning, presence, authority, and influence through blogging based on the purpose and value of your business venture.

How do your customers identify with your brand? Here, most people think it is logos and color pellets. No, that is not. That is where you should build your reputation to lure attention from relevant crowds who feel your presence in the market and like what you offer. You become identifiable with your industry and niche market. That strengthens your positioning, authority, and influence and boosts your brand-building efforts.

Brand identity can be both tangible and intangible elements. However, in a brand strategy, brand identity is more pronounced and clarified through intangible factors, like emotional feelings and connection with the brand. That can be from its marketing strategies like blogging based on its purpose and value in the market and all the touchpoints that lead to being a loyal customer and advocate of the brand. A coherent and cohesive brand strategy will promote a strong brand identity for solid brand building.  

Customer Needs

Customer needs involve value and benefit provision for satisfying customer expectations and requirements in the market. The present-day customer needs unique experience and customization for relevance with their needs and pain points. That is where you should establish connection and relatability by offering what your customer needs, requires, expects, prefers, and wants in a quick, efficient, and convenient way.

The power of your brand strategy here does not only lie in not what your customers know they need but in making them realize what they never thought they needed and make them appreciate that awareness you have brought to their attention through content, specifically through blog marketing that is always comprehensive, informative, educational and inspiring with your target audience. That is the context of your brand strategy that will satisfy your business goals and objectives.

The basic needs on your offers could be a fair price, good service or product, and making the customer feel valued. Customer needs should also be of value and benefit, not just sweet spot pricing. Your customer needs analysis should not just be about providing products or services but benefit, usable, practical, and functional for optimizing a unique experience and connection with your brand and long-term business relationship. That is one of the main goals in brand marketing for brand building.

Customer Experience [CX]

Unique value proposition becomes the playground and axis of your brand strategy. It is the first thing your customers interact with, and see whether it spells out their needs and benefits to their pain points. Customer Experience is the marketing destination of your brand strategy in their journey to become a customer and advocate of your brand. That includes their interaction with the marketing materials, channels, product or service presentations, purchasing processes, and post-purchase follow-ups.

That involves their feelings about the brand and how you do your stuff at every touchpoint with the customer. Accessibility and communication for customer support and help optimize customer experience. You must be proactive and informative with messaging and product descriptions when required. That reminds me of an incident when I sold my first digital product on my Functional Literacy Store. The client needed some help. She was failing to open the file. There I was, got jittery, but within minutes, I told her to be patient while I verified what could be the problem.

Within minutes, I was ready to give her feedback on her query. Fortunately, she had fumbled with the issue on her side, and when I got back to her, she had sorted it herself but was happy with my concern and fast response. So always be available live for support. That will boost customer experience and promote good relationships in your brand strategy for sustainability in brand building.

Customer Service

Your customer service will make your clients accept your terms and conditions without second-guessing your reputation in the market. It is not easy, but with a sold brand strategy and professional marketing channels, your reputation builds up like wildfire with zero second-guessing of what your brand can offer and is offering in the market. That also verifies your identity and reputation to avoid being approached by unreliable clients that might give you hassles in handling late payments, which can be stressful on yourself and your resources like time and energy.

That is more of exercising customer care that maximizes and boosts brand identity, needs satisfaction, customer experience, and customer service delivery in brand building. If they can hear you, see you, and taste how you feel, they will accept and fall deeply in love with your brand. As someone observed, marketing is like asking someone for a date, and branding is why they say yes.” In other words, your brand strategy makes your business strategy more exciting and enticing.

Though customer service is not measurable, your brand strategy must target the main basic principles for human interaction, professionalism and competent presentation, convenience, and being proactive with solutions to ease service provision. Your brand strategy must inculcate a human-centric approach to bring in the human touch and customer-centric culture that most customers are yearning for in a business landscape that has come to be dominated by AI tech apps and tools and machine learning.

 Your brand strategy should enable a customer-centric approach through fair-priced and valuable offers. The sweet spot is how you present your products or services for accessibility with zero friction, frustrations, and delays in the purchasing process. That will boost sustainability in brand building.