Answer These 6 Brand Strategy Questions If You’re Ready to Brand Your Business

When it comes to branding your business, it really begins with brand strategy. Although brand strategy seems difficult to some, it really shouldn’t be. By answering the questions below, you can begin to position yourself as an expert in your field. You’ll feel confident in who you are talking to, what your client’s needs are, and the solutions you can offer them.

What is Your Mission Statement?

Your mission statement is just that, a statement that explains your business’s purpose of existing. It is usually one sentence or small paragraph that explains what your business does, who you do it for, how you do it, and why you do what you do.

Here is a short, easy way to come up with a mission statement:

1. What does your business do? (ex. custom design and brand photography)
2. Who do you do it for? (ex. lifestyle and creative business owners)
3. How do you do it? (ex. design and brand photography services)
4. Why do you do what you do? (ex. to help build brands)

You provide  _____ that help ______ with ______ so they can ________.

Example: View Studio Co provides design and brand photography services that helps lifestyle and creative business owners with building their brand, so they can scale their business and increase sales.

What Are Your Personal and Brand values?

Understanding who you are, what you believe in, and what you value helps guide your decisions in how you are better able to help your audience. Starting with your personal values helps you better discover the brand values in your business. Brand values are the beliefs your business stands for. They are a crucial part to a strong brand, so it is very important to take the time to determine what they are. Your brand values are the core of your business. They determine your brand identity, the way you communicate with your audience, and the relationships you develop in your business. List all the brand values you find important and describe why you chose them. My advice is to choose the 4 most important ones and list them as your core brand values. Once you know them, think of them with everything you do in your business.

Who is your Target Audience?

You want to attract the right people with your business. You have probably heard the phrase, “if you talk to everyone, you talk to no one”. Narrowing down your target market by figuring out their gender, age, occupation, location, and what they are looking for will give you much more guidance on who you are speaking to. You will be able to efficiently market to your audience because you know who they are, where they live, and how to reach them.

Some may say that you must narrow down to a very specific target audience or niche. While this may be true for some, we don’t want to overlook or miss potential customers. For example, View Studio Co mostly works with Showit. So a target audience of ours would be Showit customers. Most Showit customers are lifestyle and creative business owners, so we are able to speak to them more efficiently, but we are not limiting ourselves to a very small audience. Figuring out your target audience will help you build a long lasting brand. 

What Does Your Audience Need?

Dive deep into what your audience needs are. For example, my clients may be struggling with brand images and needs a photographer. Or maybe they feel ready to launch a brand and need someone to help. Or their website is too bland, has no personality, and they desperately need help with its design. 

What is Your Solution to Their Problems?

Our audience is always looking for something to help guide them along their journey. Discovering what your audience needs are will help position you as the right person for them. By understanding your audience needs, you can create a solution to help them through your services or products. For example, View Studio Co offers custom branding, strategy, website design and brand photography to help our clients build their brands.  

Who is Your Competition?

Lastly, understanding your competitors can help you determine how to stand out from the crowd. It can be very easy to compare ourselves to competitors and feel pressured into doing things similar, based on your competitors’ success. However, we don’t want to get caught up in the comparison game and worry about where our brand needs to be. Instead, we want to focus on what your competitors are doing that is working, what isn’t working, and if there are any common themes we can avoid. Our goal is to stand out from the competitors in your industry. 

In conclusion, by answering these brand strategy questions, you’ll be able to understand who you truly are, what your brand values are, how to communicate your brand efficiently and effectively, attract the right audience for your business, and position yourself and your brand as experts in your field.