by Mertcan AtikFRAMEWORK
Determining the purpose and target during the brand and strategy creation process is essential to ensure successful direction. A brand’s purpose expresses why the business exists and what value it aims to add to society. This should include a mission that is not limited to just financial gains but also delivers an overall impact to consumers, employees, and society. Setting goals provides a better understanding of the brand’s strategic goals and creates a common vision among all stakeholders. This vision serves as a fundamental guide that influences the long-term success of the brand.
Brand positioning and determining brand persona play a vital role in the process of a brand interacting with its target audience and making itself unique. Brand positioning determines the brand’s differentiation from its competitors and helps communicate what unique value it offers to consumers. This shapes how the brand is perceived and remembered in the consumer’s mind. Brand persona defines the demographic, psychographic, and behavioral characteristics of the target audience. This allows the brand to create a more personal connection with the consumer, as the brand can create content and messages that better suit consumer needs and expectations.
01 | GOAL, STRATEGY & TACTIC
Brand management is an activity that must be carried out within certain plans. It contains plans consisting of many goals, strategies, and tactics. When looking at the brands that cannot achieve the desired success under a lens, it can be observed that some of the targets, strategies, or tactics are not clearly defined. The goal is inspiring and unique. “Increasing site traffic” is a goal. As can be seen here, the objectives only indicate the result that the business wants to achieve. It does not say anything in the sense of how to reach this result. Strategy and tactics, on the other hand, are coherent roadmaps for how to achieve these goals. Strategy is a game plan. It is a specific scheme of what efforts will be made to achieve the goal. Tactics, on the other hand, are specific moves carried out to implement the strategies created to achieve this main goal. The digital marketing strategies planned to increase site traffic include many tactics such as blog posts, social media posts, and search engine improvements. Tactics unite under a larger umbrella of strategy. The target is the place to be reached, the strategy is the roadmap, and the tactics are the kits to be used on this road. The critical thing here is to make sure that all these rings complement each other harmoniously.
A successful marketing campaign includes a clear plan. A marketing strategy created around an overarching goal and the tactics that will execute this strategy and achieve the goals will create this plan. For the targets set at the beginning to be realized as desired, the process should be reviewed by receiving continuous feedback. Most businesses today try to market directly on tactics without setting goals and strategies. This is a very wrong method and does not bring success. It’s like building a house without plans. Unless a coherent strategy is established, a lot of money will have to be spent on temporary tactics.
Marketing Strategy Examples:
- Creating a digital brand change
- Developing inbound marketing
- Engaging using an omnichannel campaign
Marketing Tactics Examples:
- Redesigning key brand elements
- Developing UX elements
- Creating a revamped website
- Targeting smart keywords
- Addressing customers with an e-mail campaign
- Using paid search and display ads on social media
- Email existing customers and targeted consumers
- Reaching potential customers with social media channels
Multiple strategy ideas are required for a major business goal. To realize these, it implements tactical plans compatible with the strategy.
02 | BRAND CORE
Vision, mission, and values form the basis of a brand. It is a summary of the plans of the brand. Most of the brands officially announce this summary and create their corporate culture accordingly. There are many reasons for doing this; to create a sense of common purpose and identity, to establish the direction of the institution, to attract funds and investors, or to briefly inform about what the brand is. These issues need to be reviewed intensively in the strategic planning process. In addition, after the completion of these processes, adherence to the principles should be guaranteed. Committee members are required to know the vision, mission, and values very well and to review them regularly under changing conditions.
An organization’s mission, vision, and value statements are more than just a few sentences written on the website. They are definitions that guide an institution and reflect its reason for existence. The mission is why an organization exists. An inspiring statement, the mission is a bold, clear, and memorable statement. It highlights what the company produces. What are we doing? For whom are we doing it? What is the benefit? The vision shows where the organization is going. They are hopes and aspirations for the future. It is an emotional and logical vision of the future that all stakeholders can believe in. What does success mean for the organization? How will the world be a different place? What makes it unique? Value reflects what it represents. In line with these definitions, institutions inform their employees, customers, and potential investors about their basic assets. What are the core values? Is it proud?
03 | POSITIONING
Every brand owner wants his product or service to be in a positive position in the perception of customers. A brand positioning strategy is the desired positioning of the brand in the mind of the customer. The brand’s presence becomes stronger as the positive, valuable, and reliable perception becomes embedded in the mind of the customer. Being different in today’s marketing is not enough to stand out from the competition. For trust and loyalty to occur, certain communications need to be repeated regularly and turned into perceptions. Every brand communication turns into an image in the minds of customers. The sum of these images gives way to reputation. A brand that has gained a reputation reaches the title of the most preferred brand by its customers. This tactic is the most effective method for differentiation. Positioning is different for each brand. The product, service, and sector differences affect the positioning strategy decided. Positioning strategy differs according to different features and advantages of brands.
Today, it is seen that brands apply positioning tactics on service convenience, price advantage, after-sales services, or product quality. With the customer service positioning strategy, brands try to differentiate their service points. Sometimes with fast service and sometimes with strong support units, companies try to have a positive place in the perceptions of their customers. This positioning method is very useful for the price and pricing to be convincing. Customers who think that they receive a good service think that they deserve the price determined by the brand. A brand positioned on service should not have a delivery problem, after-sales communications should be strong, and online response systems through social media should be fast and reliable. The convenience-based positioning strategy is a very suitable strategy for busy customers. Plus advantages such as ease of use, accessibility, and support guarantee are the features that should be highlighted in this type of positioning strategy. Although these conveniences are costly for the brand, they are very effective in gaining a reputation and differentiating from their competitors. The price-based positioning strategy is one of the most widely used tactics today, and the communication of the brand’s products being sold at very affordable prices attracts the attention of a wide audience. However, this also creates the approach that that brand is not of sufficient quality. On the contrary, selling a product at a very expensive price gives rise to the perception of the customer that that brand is prestigious. The quality-based positioning strategy is applied to emphasize product quality, product uniqueness, and limited production. It causes customers with a limited budget to flee, but high-yield product sales eliminate this problem. The differentiation positioning strategy is a strategy that builds on the innovative and distinctive features of brands. This difference can be in any field, but if it is an innovation that customers are not used to, it can be difficult and time-consuming to accept. It is a very effective method for customers who value innovation.
The methods to be followed for brand positioning are as follows:
Brand positioning strategy begins with defining what current brand positioning is. (1) What are the differentiating elements of the brand? What feature makes the brand stand out from other brands? What makes it better or worse than the competitor in price, service, quality, and after-sales service? To find the answers to these questions, it is necessary to research the brand thoroughly, look at the values and missions again, and define the target audience correctly. (2) Qualifications, benefits, personality, authority and source of support, customer reviews, and defining the feeling experienced with the product or service are issues that need to be considered in creating the core of the brand. (3) To make positioning, it is necessary to know which features of other brands come to the fore. This is possible by first recognizing and identifying competitors and then making a strong competitor analysis. (4) Conducting competitor and market research will show which area in the market is suitable for positioning. After that, it is necessary to correctly define the unique value proposition. (5) After the identification, it is necessary to establish the framework of the brand positioning and to prevent going beyond this area. From commercials to social media language, from after-sales communication to delivery, positioning should be applied in all areas. (6) No matter how complex and comprehensive the positioning is, it must be expressed in a single sentence at the end. Today, many successful brands have positions that can be expressed in a single sentence. (7) The accuracy of the positioning strategy should be reviewed by various studies. Whether the positioning is applied to the right point and whether it is in the perception of the target audience should be verified by various studies. (8) It is necessary to ensure that the positioning permeates every department of the brand employees. It should be noted that the strategy will only work if it is implemented at every touchpoint.
04 | BRAND PERSONA
It is necessary to perceive very quickly what the brand is about. Characters defined for brands are there to speed up the perception. Also, a certain character is needed to sustainably fill the space determined by position. Developing a brand personality is a very difficult step. What is more difficult is the perception and acceptance of the developed brand first by the employees and then by the customers. Strategies and values created by brands are abstract concepts. Values that are intangible with the brand character turn into features that describe the brand. How does the brand speak? What are the characteristics of the brand? What is the brand talking about? If the brand were a person, what would it stand for?
Just like the “corporate identity guide” that shows how the brand will look, definitions have also been required that show what it is like. These identifications should be documented just like the identity guide. The brand personality must be in harmony with the other elements of the brand. While brand identity reveals how the brand should appear in every environment, brand personality is a more general definition. Brand personality can also define the brand’s verbal and written communication and style. Buyer personality and brand personality should not be confused with each other. Both are similar definitions, but one defines the personality of the brand, while the other is the categorization of the target audience.
The first step in creating a brand personality is knowing the brand well. It is necessary to research the market, competitors, and target audience accurately. The differences that distinguish the brand from its competitors should be determined correctly. How should the whole story of the brand be told? Which tone and frequency would be the right choice to tell this story? These and similar questions enable the brand to become a tangible character. There are many characteristics applied to brands. Sincerity, family businesses, small businesses or local businesses are well suited to this brand identity. Excitement is a fairly common brand personality. It is very suitable for brands that have new technologies and appeal to their imagination. It is the choice of brands that want to create a perception of competence, trust, and quality. It is the choice of sophisticated, personalized, private brands. Robustness is suitable for brands that want to emphasize strength and durability.
To create the personality of a brand, it is necessary to analyze customer types correctly. Because the brand and the customer form an intertwined structure. The character structure of the customers also creates the character of the brand. The benefit of doing this is that customers see the brand as their friend and trust their friend brand to solve a problem. These are the roles that the brand will play. The nurturer is the role model who always keeps their door open to us for advice. A leader is a character who will show the right way by making complex ideas simple. It is the first model that comes to mind for adventurous, innovative customers. Brands should not act prematurely in determining the right character for themselves. It is one of the most important steps in building a brand.