The Trilogy of Branding Success

Imagine your brand strategy as a three-piece puzzle, where each piece is crucial to the complete picture:

• Springboard: Think of it as the DNA of your brand—promise, positioning, purpose, vision, mission, attributes, and guiding principles. These are the immutable truths that define who you are.
  
  
• Identity: This is how your brand dresses for the occasion—logo, fonts, colors, patterns, imagery. It’s your visual handshake in both digital and physical realms.
  
  
• Story: Here lies the magic—the messaging. More than an elevator pitch, it’s the narrative that stitches your WHY together and resonates among your target audience.

Why Your Brand Story Matters (More Than You Think)

Did you know people are 22x more likely to remember your brand story than mere facts about your company? That’s not just impressive; it’s a clarion call to action. Your brand story shouldn’t complicate things; it should enrich your connection with your audience through context, authenticity, and relatability.

The Art of Storytelling: Crafting Your Narrative

Every great story needs an outline:

• Provide Context: Share the origins, the who, the why. It’s the heartbeat of your narrative.
  
  
• Be Authentically You: Authenticity isn’t just a buzzword; it’s your story’s soul. Ditch the fluff for the real stuff.
  
  
• Principles as Pillars: Your brand’s promises and principles are the storyline that supports your narrative arc.
  
  
• Speak Human: Drop the jargon. Your story should feel like a coffee chat, not a corporate memo.
  
  
• Empathy is Everything: Relate, resonate, connect. Aim to create the feeling of a shared journey, not a monologue.

   

The Narrative Mosaic: Short Stories of Your Brand

You have more than one story to share. Consider the mosaic of mico-narratives you can craft based on your company’s specific details: 

• Origin Story: The why, the when, the who. The spark that ignited your brand’s flame.
  
  
• Process Story: Your secret sauce. The unique HOW that sets you apart.
  
  
• People Story: The heroes behind the logo. The minds and hearts that fuel your mission.

Together, These stories celebrate your uniqueness and build an emotional bridge to your audience.

Fine-Tuning Your Brand’s Voice: The Litmus Test

Are your stories hitting home, or are they echoing in an empty hall? Testing and refining your narrative is key:

• Know Your Audience: Understand their perception of your brand. Align your stories with their expectations and interests.
  
  
• Engagement Is Everything: Deploy, observe, tweak. Look for leads, conversations, and engagement as markers of resonance.

Pro Tip: A talented copywriter can make all the difference here, weaving emotion and authenticity into every word while keeping jargon at bay.

Your Story, Your Brand’s Legacy

Crafting your brand’s story is an invitation to your audience to embark on a journey of discovery, connection, and growth. It’s about creating a legacy that resonates, engages, and transforms. Remember, in the heart of your brand lies a story waiting to be told. Make it one that not only captures imaginations but also encapsulates the essence of who you are and why you matter.

So, what’s your story?

The post How to Write a Brand Story That Will Resonate appeared first on Olio Branding.

In a way, it makes sense. Running a business requires juggling so many things – people, processes, customers, revenue, marketing – that brand strategy can quickly get shoved onto the “tomorrow” list… and potentially stay there.

The irony is that the larger your company gets, the more important having a brand strategy becomes.

Since your brand is what others think of you, you’ve been building a brand whether you realize it or not. And the larger you are, the more visibility you have, and the easier it becomes for that narrative to run rouge when you aren’t the one intentionally driving the messages and your reputation.

Conducting a brand audit provides you the baseline you need to make informed, creative, and powerful decisions for shaping your strategy that will propel you forward.

Five Reasons to Conduct a Brand Audit

1. Strengthen internal alignment
   When even the founders cannot describe their company or brand completely in sync, getting your promise, messaging, and other factors down on paper go a long way to getting the rest of your team onboard. Aligned internal stakeholders lead to aligned understanding from your audience.
   
   
2. Create more consistency in your marketing
   Messaging can take multiple forms but they all need to stem from the same starting point. A consistent visual identity, messaging, and tone of voice provides your audience with reassurance you actually know what you’re doing. A brand audit also identifies which channels do/don’t/could/should work for you. You’ll be looking at everything from website analytics to social engagement here.
   
   
3. Understand your target customers better
   Do you know what your target audience ACTUALLY wants and needs? Cares about? Gets annoyed with? Why they chose you? (Or, why they passed on you in favor of your competitors?) If you’re not asking them, you’re missing critical insights.
   
   
4. Vet your competitive advantages
   Unpopular opinion: Being different from your competitors isn’t enough. You need to understand what makes you the most relevant option for your customers. Different features or price makes you a commodity – what emotional or relevant factors make you the best choice?
   
   
5. Position for greater brand equity and revenue growth
   When your brand is firing on all cylinders, you’ll be better positioned for growth. Greater brand awareness leads to higher equity! Just look to Apple, a company whose brand catapulted their equity to nearly $1 trillion recently.

Brand audits can bring enormous value by revealing your strengths, weaknesses, gaps, and potential. A lot should go into them (I’ve got more info coming soon on how to do an audit) so it can be helpful to let me do them for you to minimize disruptions to your day-to-day business operations.

Want to learn more? Learn more here or book a Spark Session directly to get started! 

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Luckily, December is typically a slower month for providing services and slogging through meetings – which makes it the perfect time to plan for how to enhance your branding efforts for the following year! To get you started, here are 10 brand ideas you can use to grow your business in 2024

10 Brand Ideas for 2024

1. Develop a brand message: Create a brand message that communicates your brand’s identity and USP in a clear, concise, and memorable way. Use this message consistently across all marketing channels. This will help you differentiate your business from competitors and create a clear and consistent message across all marketing channels.
   
   
2. Create a brand voice: Develop a distinctive voice for your brand that resonates with your target audience. Consistency in tone and language can help your brand stand out and build brand loyalty.
   
   
3. Build a strong visual identity: Create a visual identity for your brand that reflects your brand’s values, personality, and goals. This includes your logo, color palette, typography, and imagery. Consistency in visual identity can help your brand stand out and build recognition.
   
   
4. Create a website that reflects your brand: Your website should reflect your brand’s identity and visual identity. It should also be easy to navigate and provide clear calls to action that drive conversions.
   
   
5. Use social media strategically: Social media can be a powerful tool for building brand awareness and engaging with your target audience. Develop a social media strategy that aligns with your brand’s values and personality.
   
   
6. Leverage content marketing: Use content marketing to provide value to your target audience and build brand awareness. This can include blog posts, videos, infographics, and more.
   
   
7. Develop strategic partnerships: Partnering with other businesses or organizations can help you reach a wider audience and build brand awareness. Look for partnerships that align with your brand’s values and goals.
   
   
8. Attend events: Attend events that are relevant to your industry and target audience. This can be a great way to build relationships with potential customers and partners.
   
   
9.  Step up your thought leadership efforts. Speaking presentations, blog writing, white papers, and guest podcast appearances all help raise your brand awareness, while positioning you as an expert in what your company offers.
   
   
10. Measure and refine: Use data to measure the success of your brand strategy and refine your approach as needed. This can include tracking website traffic, social media engagement, and sales data.

It’s important to note you do NOT have to implement all of these at the same time. If you’re starting from scratch, we recommend you begin with the first three on this list. Get your brand foundations in place and then choose where to begin implementing your messaging and identity. 

Looking for more information or want to brainstorm specific ideas for your business? Get in touch today to get started! 

The post 10 Brand Ideas Small Businesses Can Use to Grow Their Business in 2024 appeared first on Olio Branding.

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What is Brand Awareness?

Essentially, brand awareness is a marketing term that describes the extent to which customers are familiar with the distinct qualities or image of a particular brand. Put more simply, it’s generally how many consumers know who you are and what you offer to them.

Why is Brand Awareness Important?

To put it bluntly, if consumers aren’t aware of your brand, they’ll never think of buy from you. You can raise your level of brand awareness in the market through brand campaigns, advertising and other marketing tactics. This in turn helps to gain consumers trust, which leads to stronger customer loyalty, higher revenue, and better brand equity.

There are four levels of brand awareness. Do you know which you fall into?

1. Zero, Zilch, Nada
If you’re just starting out, pretty much nobody knows about you. Good news is that it’s only up from here.

2. Brand recognition
You’re making some waves and the market is beginning to be aware of you but not necessarily what you offer or how you can help

3. Brand recall
Customers definitely know who you are and what you offer. What they might not trust yet is why you’re the best choice for them

4. Top-of-Mind
Congrats, you’re the McDonalds, Google, Apple, Coca-Cola of your industry. Enough said.

“OK, great but how can I find our where my brand stands?”

Here are three things you can analyze today to help determine your level of brand awareness:

1. How big are your distribution lists / how fast are they growing?

2. What’s your reach / engagement on social media platforms?

3. Where do your website analytics sit now?

Compare today’s stats to where you were last month, 6 months ago, and 1 year ago. Your trends will say a lot about whether you have a lot or a little bit of work ahead of you.

If you’re interested in more specific answers and have a bit of time, a brand perception survey can reveal all sorts of useful information.

Want to learn more? Schedule a quick call and let’s chat. I’m pretty passionate about companies benefiting from their brand awareness efforts, and I’m sure I can help!

The post The Four Levels of Brand Awareness appeared first on Olio Branding.

First, let’s break each strategy down: 

Marketing Strategy: Reaching Your Target Audience

Think of a marketing strategy as your roadmap to success. It’s all about reaching your target audience, spreading the word about your products or services, and driving sales. A good marketing strategy defines where, how, and when to deploy promotions for your product.

Choosing the Right Channels: Determining which marketing channels, such as social media, search engines, or industry events, will help you connect with your target audience effectively.

Crafting Compelling Messages: Developing clear and persuasive messages that communicate the unique benefits and value your products bring to your customers’ businesses.

Creating CTAs (Call to Actions): Including specific instructions or prompts that encourage your target audience to take a desired action, such as making a purchase, subscribing to a newsletter, or requesting a demo. CTAs serve as a bridge between your marketing efforts and the next step you want your audience to take.

Brand Strategy: Creating an Emotional Connection

Now, let’s shift gears and dive into brand strategy. It’s about more than just selling products—it’s about creating a lasting impression and building meaningful connections with your customers. A strong brand strategy defines who you are, what you stand for, and how you want people to perceive you.

Defining Your Messaging Framework: Determining who you are as a company, what values you stand for, and the personality you want to portray. This includes elements like your brand story, promise, positioning, and persona.

Identifying Your Target Audience: Who are the individuals or businesses that would find the most value in your offerings? Understanding their needs, pain points, and aspirations is crucial.

Creating Emotional Connections: Going beyond the functional aspects of your offerings and forging emotional connections with your customers. This involves understanding their aspirations and aligning your brand values with theirs.

The Overlap: Where Marketing and Branding Align

While marketing strategy and brand strategy have distinct focuses, they do intersect in various ways. Let’s explore the areas where they overlap:

Consistent Messaging: Both strategies rely on clear and consistent messaging. Your marketing messages need to align with your brand’s values and promises, ensuring a unified voice across all customer touchpoints.

Customer Experience: Both strategies aim to create positive experiences for your customers. A well-executed marketing strategy enhances the customer journey, while a strong brand strategy shapes the overall experience, leaving a memorable impression.

Differentiation: Both strategies contribute to setting your business apart from competitors. Your marketing strategy highlights the unique features and benefits of your solutions, while your brand strategy emphasizes what makes your company special and distinguishes it from others.

Key Differences: Targeted Reach vs. Emotional Connection

Now, let’s pinpoint the key differences between marketing strategy and brand strategy:

Focus: A marketing strategy primarily focuses on reaching and engaging your target audience, while a brand strategy centers around cultivating a strong brand identity and building emotional connections with your customers.

Goals: The goal of a marketing strategy is to drive awareness, generate leads, and ultimately convert them into customers. On the other hand, a brand strategy aims to foster loyalty, create brand advocates, and establish a long-term relationship with customers.

Longevity: Marketing strategies often have a shorter-term focus, with campaigns and tactics designed to achieve immediate or semi-immediate results. Brand strategies, on the other hand, take a long-term perspective, aiming to build a solid foundation and maintain a consistent brand presence over time.

Tangibility: Marketing strategies tend to be more tangible and measurable, as they involve specific tactics, such as online advertising, content marketing, or email campaigns. Brand strategies are more intangible, focusing on shaping perceptions, emotions, and the overall customer experience. 

As you can see – while marketing strategy and brand strategy have distinct objectives and approaches, they are interconnected and crucial for the success of your business growth. By understanding the nuances of both strategies and leveraging them effectively, you can create a powerful and differentiated presence among your intended audience.

The post Marketing and Brand Strategies: Understanding the Difference to Fuel Your Growth appeared first on Olio Branding.

Every company has brand ambassadors but who are they and why should you care? More importantly, how can your company effectively engage and utilize them?

Let’s Start With the Who

If you aren’t familiar with the concept of brand ambassadors, they can be defined as someone who represents the company, offering their support and embodies the brand’s characteristics. They generally fall into three primary categories: paid, customers, and employees. Let’s do a quick breakdown of these:

Paid Ambassadors

Paid ambassadors include both Influencers and Affiliates. These are any highly-visible individuals with a following of fans who agree to help promote your brand. While engaging with influencers requires compensation, the benefit lies in the trust they have built up with their audience. Don’t just grab the biggest celebrity you can, however, focus on who will truly resonate with your brand’s audience.

Customers

Satisfied customers are the brand ambassadors perhaps most trustworthy to prospective customers. Someone who has tried your products or used your services, been happy with the results, and will happily share their experiences with just about anyone who will listen. These ambassadors will cheerfully refer you new business or validate another potential customer’s decision to work with you.

Employees

Employee brand ambassadors are such by default. Happy employees equal opportunities for happy brand ambassadors. Often, your employees already use the company’s products or services and are proud to tell their friends and family of their role within it, your services and products, or benefits community engagement efforts. On the other hand, unhappy employees are dangerous to the brand. When a weak company culture begins to affect their moral, the likelihood of customers having negative interactions with them increases.

Why Are Brand Ambassadors Important?

Every company should be recognizing and utilizing brand ambassadors as part of their overall brand strategy. Ambassador marketing helps grow brand awareness through a variety of channels. Ambassadors are also earned media and help authenticate your company in a way that paid media simply can’t. A whopping 89% of people most trust recommendations from people they know (word of mouth). What’s more, ambassador marketing has soared in recent years. 68% of brands say they plan to use, or launch, ambassador marketing programs in 2023. 

So How to Engage These Ambassadors?

There are dozens of ways to engage brand ambassadors, and your company or organization’s brand strategy, coupled with your marketing efforts, should help determine your best course of action. A few quick ideas to get you started:

• For influencers, having a good pitch is essential to getting them to agree to be ambassadors. Influencers have spent considerable time and capital building up their audience’s trust, and as such, will be very selective in which brands they promote. Do your research and look for any potential influencers who may already be interacting with your brand – they’re the most likely to say yes.
  
  
• If you’re not already, amp up engaging with your customers via social media. Respond to everyone’s comments, tweets, and likes. Retweet or repost your customer’s happy shout-outs. Address negative reviews in a thoughtful, caring manner (and hopefully turn an unhappy customer into a new ambassador!). Your ambassadors won’t necessarily be talking about you in hopes you will recognize them, but it will certainly go a long way when you do.
  
  
• Utilize your happy employees to create testimonials about why they came to work for the company. Did they use the products/services? Did they have an excellent brand experience previously? Were they drawn to the brand’s mission?
  
  
• No matter which type of ambassador you try to engage, make sure you’re giving them the tools they need to be effective. Make your social and blog posts easy to share. If you have products, make some samples available for both them and anyone they refer. Offer incentives, such as previews of new products and services, to better give them the feeling of being part of your brand’s inner circle.

When engaged correctly, brand ambassadors can be an extremely effective piece of your brand’s overall strategy and promotional efforts. If you want help identifying who could be relevant ambassadors for your company or organization, we can help! Connect with us today to get started.

The post Brand Ambassadors – The Who, Why and How appeared first on Olio Branding.

Companies that abdicate the responsibility of building their brand narrative run the risk of it going rogue.

Without a clear and consistent message, the audience will form their own perceptions of the company, which may not align with the company’s values or goals. This can lead to confusion and mistrust among customers and make it difficult for the company to achieve its business objectives.

When carefully managed, your company can actively influence how its brand is perceived by your target audience. This is done by crafting a clear and consistent brand narrative that stems from your company’s core purpose. Your brand platform forms the basis of all messaging and marketing efforts, providing guidance and alignment so your audience hears, sees, and feels what makes you the more relevant choice for them to build trust and loyalty in.

By taking the time to define and communicate your company’s brand narrative, you help your audience understand your brand promise – giving them something to relate to, connect on an emotional level, and ultimately foster a stronger, more successful brand. 

So where to begin defining your brand?

Here are three steps your company can take today to help define your brand strategy and promise:

1. Define your company’s “why”: Take the time to clearly understand the purpose and reason behind your company’s existence. This will give you a strong foundation for your brand narrative.
2. Look at your messaging: Review your current messaging and see if your “why” is woven throughout your content. If it’s not, consider revising your messaging to align with your company’s purpose.
3. Understand your target audience: Get to know your target audience and understand their needs, wants, and pain points. This will help you to craft a brand narrative that resonates with them and addresses their specific needs.

By following these steps, you can actively shape your brand and ensure that your target audience understands and resonates with your company’s purpose and values. This will ultimately lead to a stronger, more successful brand.

Interested in learning more? Contact me today to get started shaping a brand strategy your audience will interpret correctly.

The post Your Company Has a Brand but Are You the One Defining It? appeared first on Olio Branding.

When it comes to brand strategy, it seems that disrupter brands are all the rage these days. Clients I meet with want to be seen as disrupters, even if it’s not best for their strategy, because they believe it will make them more visible. True disrupters, like Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, and many more provide excellent case studies as to the power of taking on established industries and doing things differently. They identified something that was desired among consumers yet not available and created a new market offering. Disrupter brands can be lucrative when done right, making them a sought-after brand strategy. But is it right for your brand?

Could Your Brand Be a Disrupter?

Disrupter brands aren’t afraid to make waves or push the envelope to improve the way things are done. While your brand promise is a good place to start when it comes to evaluating whether your company is a Disrupter, here are some key criteria to consider:

1. Your company is offering something truly new.
   Uber disrupted the taxi industry. Airbnb disrupted hotels. Brands that find what’s missing in an industry and create something new to fill that gap will have disrupter potential. It’s important to note here that your offering must actually be net-new – not a modification of an existing offering. Brands that simply tweak how things are done are considered Challenger brands (think Lyft’s challenge to Uber). Challenger brands can be just as powerful and successful as Disrupters, so it’s not terrible if this seems more your lane.
   
2. You’ve been in business for a short time already.
   At first, your company has something akin to a craft-beer brand. You’re so new that you’re working to attract and retain early adopters but haven’t reached any sort of prominence. Because it can take time to gain traction with your brand awareness, your brand isn’t really capable of being a disrupter until you’ve begun influencing the larger conversation surrounding your brand and that of the powerhouse brands. Most disrupter brands have been in business for at least three years before reaching this level, and some took longer.
   
3. Your brand must be willing to take risks.
   In an era of consumers wanting less commitment (no more annual contracts!) and placing a higher emphasis on corporate responsibility, brands that are truly listening to what consumers want and craft their offerings accordingly are inherently taking on some risk because it’s new or different. Risk can range from product and service offering to bold advertising choices. It can feel like a “go big or go home” mentality. Brands that simply mimic what others are doing will never move past the Sea of Sameness.
   
4. Your brand must be willing to transition out of Disrupter status.
   That’s right – no true Disrupter brand remains a disrupter forever. Brands must live, breathe, and grow along with their companies. At some point, if your disrupter brand has been successful, competitors entering the market will rise to challenge you. A successful disrupter brand has two paths – either they sell to a powerhouse brand, or they become the de facto powerhouse themselves and must shift their brand strategy to fend off challenges from newcomers. Your leadership must be playing the long game if it ever wants to be a Disrupter.

The Bottom Line

Consumer behaviors and expectations are changing and brands must, in order to break through the noise or gain relevance, adapt accordingly. Disrupter brands may have an easier time of this since they’re the shiny and trending type. 

Not all companies, however, can or should be, be disrupters. Logically, if all brands tried to be disrupters, then none would be. There are other types of brands out there – Challenger, Powerhouse – that are also effective for brand strategy. It comes down to listening to your audience, carefully evaluating your brand, engaging your employees and Brand Ambassadors, and aligning your brand strategy with your overarching business strategy.

Want to explore this idea further? Schedule an initial conversation today.

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Five reasons you may need to rebrand:

1. Your customers don’t understand what you do, or they don’t care.

Customers need an emotional connection to stay loyal. Knowing and effectively communicating your WHY helps get them there. If. they don’t understand why you are the more relevant choice among your competitors, you’ll struggle to land and retain business.

2. You’re undergoing a merger or an acquisition.

Blending two companies together is an excellent opportunity to update your brand story and prevent customer confusion. You’ll want to retain the equity that each merging partner has accrued while forming a strong strategic identity for the future.

3. Your offering has changed.

If you’re moving into new markets or offering new products/services, your brand must be strong enough to support the effort while retaining the equity you’ve worked hard to build. Assuming you have earned the trust of your customers with your flagship product, you’ll want to make the path easier for them to understand that your brand is expanding.

4. Your competitors always seem to have the upper hand, or your market is in disruption.

Protect and grow your market share by helping customers understand what sets your brand apart from your competition. Companies that focus on a strong brand strategy historically outpace others who reduce or eliminate their brand spending.

5. You haven’t worked on your brand within the past 3-5 years.

Brands age over time – messaging can get muddy, visual elements can become outdated, or your company’s vision can change. Check-in to make certain your brand is firing on all cylinders.

Does Your Brand Need a Tune-Up? Discover if a Brand Audit is the right next step.

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