Brand Strategy vs. Business Strategy - How 2 Can Tango
Operating a business, especially in the online world, requires multiple strategies that view the operations from all angles. There is a lot of competition in the online arena. Ecommerce sales alone are predicted to hit 6.5 trillion by 2024, which doesn’t include social media searches, basic browsing, or streaming video.
If you want to differentiate your business from the rest, you need both a brand strategy that reaches clients and a business strategy that optimizes your processes. You need to take a big picture view of your business as a whole that will blend these two imperative strategies so they can respond to market, customer, and resources changes. When you start your process of searching for digital strategy agencies, here’s a few concepts you’ll want to ensure they have at the forefront of your strategy.
What is the Difference?
There is no reason to get too technical with either of these valuable planning tools. At their core, they offer insight into particular operations of your business. Think of your brand strategy as the outward-facing part of your business. This is where you are crafting a unique experience for your customers to engage with, like your logo, color scheme, taglines, and style. You are trying to match the identity of your business with the need you are fulfilling for your customers.
Your business strategy is more inward-facing. It is how your company will make money and includes financial, marketing, supply chain, and distribution planning. This is focused on how you will hire workers and what job they will perform for your company to ensure solid returns in the future. All of the internal processes that make your company tick are included in business strategy.
How Do They Work Together?
You want your business and brand strategies to be closely linked. They should be so well aligned with one another that they can inform changes in each. This is a relatively more straightforward task for a small to medium-sized company that can quickly inform a small workforce of any changes to respond to the market. Larger companies have more of a challenge with this alignment because they may have hundreds of staff in each department with little to no intercommunication.
Mapping and Planning are essential to having your strategies work well from and off of each other. A business plan is necessary to understand where you are going, what you are offering, and how you will make money. A brand strategy that reflects both the long and short-term goals of that business plan communicates how your products and services will help your clients while also ensuring your business is growing.
Confused yet? Think about these essential parts of a business and see them from the perspective of external customers and internal workforce members.
Mission, Vision, and Purpose statements
Potential target market and brand ambassadors
Who you are, why you matter, what you stand for
Growth projection
Look and feel of all products and services
Timeframe of profitability
Customer engagement concerning growth
Messaging
Each of these examples, and there are plenty more, can be taken from the view of either your brand or business strategy and can work in tandem with one another. Take Growth Projection as an example.
Your business strategy may include facts and figures to hit specific financial goals so that you can afford your daily operating costs while also satisfying your investors. Your brand strategy would then use that same information as a measurement tool for customer engagement and shift the digital marketing strategies on different platforms to meet those standards.
Information is Key
Developing a solid brand and business strategy is only good until the first customer is received. From that point on, you will need to adapt to your strategy. You will need to changes and respond to the data you are receiving about your customers, marketing trends, competition, and internal processes.
Having a robust data analytics system as part of your website design and digital platform is an excellent way to ensuring all your strategies are provided with the flexibility to change when needed. That is why hiring a professional digital marketing and brand awareness team can revolutionize your future growth.
If you would like to get valuable insights from experienced professional marketers and designers, we encourage you to schedule a quick discovery call with our team today. We have years of insider knowledge on leveraging your brand identity and story across all platforms to grow your audience and increase your potential revenue. Schedule a consultation today!
