Mastering Brand Strategy: Insights from Industry Experts

In today's competitive business landscape, having a strong brand is more important than ever. But what exactly does it mean to have a strong brand, and how can companies effectively build and measure their brand? To dive into these questions and more, we spoke with Shannon Deep and Kevin Kearney, two experienced brand strategists who shared their insights on the complexities of brand building and measurement.

Understanding Brand: More Than Just Visuals

One of the most common misconceptions about brand, according to Kevin, is that it's solely about visuals and design. He emphasizes that brand encompasses much more:

"A lot of senior leaders just think of brand as the pretty visuals and the design side of things. Shannon and I are not designers, and yet we run a brand agency. If that was the extent of what brand really is, we would be in big trouble."

Shannon adds to this by providing a comprehensive definition of brand:

"Brand is the sum total of all experiences that people have with your company. That could be positive and negative experiences, things in your app, things in your email marketing, experiencing your brand out in the world when you see it on a t-shirt or in subway advertising. It's the word of mouth that you might overhear someone recommending you or telling another person not to use your app or product."

This broader understanding of brand highlights the importance of being intentional and thoughtful about every touchpoint a customer has with your company.

The Challenges of Brand Building

Building a strong brand comes with its own set of challenges, particularly when it comes to getting buy-in from senior leadership. Both Shannon and Kevin highlight the difficulty in measuring brand impact, which can make it harder to justify brand investments.

Kevin notes:

"Brand is one of the hardest things to measure. It's not impossible to measure, so Shannon and I have rubrics and measurements and spreadsheets and formulas that we can show you, but there's also an intangible, immeasurable part of brand as well."

This intangibility can make it challenging when trying to convince leadership to invest in brand-building efforts, especially when compared to more easily measurable marketing activities like demand generation or performance marketing.

Measuring Brand Impact

Despite the challenges, there are ways to measure brand impact. Shannon and Kevin shared several approaches:

Share of Voice

One method is to look at share of voice across various channels:

• Search: How often is your brand being searched for compared to competitors?
• Earned media and PR: How much media coverage are you getting compared to others in your industry?
• Social media: What's your brand's presence and engagement like on social platforms?
• PPC: How does your paid advertising performance compare to competitors?

Awareness and Sentiment Surveys

Regular surveys can help track brand awareness and sentiment over time:

• Unaided awareness: Can people recall your brand without prompting?
• Aided awareness: Do people recognize your brand when presented with a list?
• Sentiment: What words or attributes do people associate with your brand?

Direct Traffic and Branded Search

Monitoring direct traffic to your website and branded search volume can indicate brand strength:

• Direct traffic: People typing your domain name directly into their browser
• Branded search: The volume of searches for your brand name

Buyer Purchasing Criteria

For sales-led companies, tracking why customers choose your product can help attribute pipeline to brand efforts:

• On initial sales calls, ask how prospects heard about you and why they're considering your product
• Use a system in your CRM to track these reasons, including brand as a potential factor

ROI Calculations

While more challenging, it's possible to calculate ROI for brand efforts:

• Compare the cost of paid placements to the value of earned media coverage
• Look at CPM ratios for paid vs. organic reach
• Attribute a portion of your pipeline to brand based on buyer purchasing criteria

Brand Strategy: Finding Your Authentic Core

When developing a brand strategy, Shannon emphasizes the importance of authenticity:

"Understanding what the kernel is at the heart of this company... what is the Beating Heart of what you end up doing for brand... what you're looking for is something that feels the most authentic for the most people at the company because that is the clearest, easiest path forward for everybody to be swinging with the same bat, speaking with the same voice, singing the same song."

This authentic core could be:

• The product itself and its transformative capabilities
• The founder's story and motivations
• An external cause or problem the company is addressing

Kevin adds that the "why" of a company should never change, even as you explore different ways to tell that story:

"The why we shouldn't be deliberating on like which why do we think is more compelling. I think it's which why is actually true... Once you're clear on the why, I think that's the authenticity piece for me, and then the framework that we described earlier with the different narratives, I think that's where you have room to explore and experiment."

Navigating Brand Changes and Acquisitions

The conversation touched on the challenges of changing or evolving a brand, particularly for larger companies or in the context of acquisitions. The example of Salesforce and Slack was discussed, highlighting how misaligned brand experiences can create confusion and potentially damage trust.

Shannon notes:

"You can see how inauthentic that feels for Slack's brand... It's a violation of the trust and the relationship that we have with Slack for them to be hawking Dreamforce on their homepage."

This example underscores the importance of maintaining brand consistency and authenticity, even as companies grow or merge.

The Future of Brand Marketing

Looking ahead, both Shannon and Kevin believe that brand marketing is poised to become increasingly important:

"We have a big belief that brand is going to be the main differentiator for marketing teams in the next few years, in the same way that product marketing became really big a couple years ago. We think brand marketing is due for its time in the sun in this new environment."

As markets become more crowded and products more similar, a strong brand can be the key differentiator that sets a company apart.

Balancing Founder-Led Brands

The discussion also touched on the challenges of founder-led brands, particularly when it comes to potential acquisitions or leadership transitions. Shannon offered advice on how to navigate this:

"Our advice to them and my advice to anybody contemplating this is doing your best to codify the founder in an ethos, in a philosophy that can then be adopted by the company as a whole... You have to get like a really strong executive comms and thought leadership platform that starts prioritizing the philosophy above the founder story, and then you have to filter that through your content strategy and your communication strategy."

This approach allows companies to maintain the essence of what makes them unique, even as they grow beyond their founder's direct involvement.

Key Takeaways for Brand Building

As we wrap up our discussion on brand strategy, here are some key points to remember:

1. Brand is more than just visuals - it's the sum total of all experiences people have with your company.
2. Measuring brand impact is challenging but not impossible. Use a combination of quantitative and qualitative metrics.
3. Authenticity is crucial in brand building. Find the true "why" of your company and build your brand around it.
4. Be intentional about every touchpoint customers have with your brand.
5. As companies grow or merge, maintaining brand consistency and authenticity becomes even more important.
6. Brand marketing is likely to become increasingly important as a differentiator in crowded markets.
7. For founder-led brands, work on codifying the founder's ethos into a philosophy that can be adopted company-wide.

By keeping these principles in mind and approaching brand strategy with intention and authenticity, companies can build strong, resonant brands that stand out in today's competitive landscape.

Remember, brand building is an ongoing process. It requires constant attention, measurement, and refinement. But with the right approach and a deep understanding of your company's core values and mission, you can create a brand that not only attracts customers but also builds lasting relationships and drives long-term success.

Article created from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ9YjZAxb3k