How to Align Your Brand Identity with Your Business Plan

Don’t lose focus, find out how to align your brand identity and business plan so that you hit set business goals and maximize customer retention.

Image by Jori Samonen from Pixabay 

Branding covers all elements that set your business apart from your competitors; not just the logos and colors, but the causes that matter to you, the things you support, and the benefits you are offering consumers.

You need to have a solid brand identity as a business because it establishes who you are and a good brand strategy that will help in expressing this information to consumers. The following tips will go a long way in helping you align your brand identity with your business plan.

1. You Want Your Brand To Align With Your Business Plan

This is a significant step. When you have a business, you need to have a plan. Your business plan should be well laid out. If you don’t have one, it’s time to create one. Without a defined business plan, you don’t have a defined goal. You need a road map to get your business to your desired destination.

The business plan that you formulate will effectively decide what you want your branding identity to be. There are various questions that you need to be asking yourself to develop the basis for your brand-building strategy.

• What is the clear purpose of your brand? 
• What exactly does your company do?
• What are your company’s brand values?

At this point, you want to look at what your potential is. Can you achieve your end goals? What promises are you making to your customers? How can you deliver on those promises?

These are very important questions that you have to consider whenever building a brand.

2. Be Honest About Your Capabilities and Clear On Your Goals

Once you have all of the answers to the pertinent questions above, you will want to look further at them. You want to think long and hard about whether or not you can follow through with them. Are they the right goals for your business long-term? Or are they shorter-term goals that you can accomplish right now?

If they are further out goals, what’s your plan to achieve them?

The primary point of this step is to more clearly understand what you have to do right now. You need to have a roadmap of things that you need to be doing to get to the final destination. You’ll need a road map with smaller and measurable goals to get there. This is what your brand messaging should be doing for your business. It needs to be the vehicle that you use to get to your company’s end goal.

3. Know Your Customers

You need to figure out who your target customer is. Once you’ve established what your business is, you need to clearly define your customer.

You want to ensure that you are doing this precisely. It’s always worth surveying your potential market. Not only do you need to figure out what they need, but you need to know what they want and how to effectively give them what they want. 

4. Know Your Company’s Shortcomings

Every company has its shortcomings. You need to be honest with your assessment. You need to look at your company and understand where you can deliver and where you might fall short. You won’t have the chance to build a reputable brand if you don’t acknowledge and work to correct your shortcomings.

There should be an image in your head of what you want your brand to be. However, to effectively push your brand where you want it, you need to know where your brand is lacking and take steps toward fixing them.

5. Understand The Competition

You need to know your market inside and out. You want to take a good look at the market and see what other companies are doing. What do their companies look like? What are their goals? Ensure that they have the same goals as your brand and then study them.

You can start to understand what their strengths are and where their weaknesses lie. This is going to give you a good edge over the competition. You will have the chance to figure out where the gaps are in the market. While you don’t have to make your brand better than the competition, you do want to see where you can provide a different experience for the target market. It could be making your brand cheaper. It could be making your brand more premium. You simply want to differentiate your brand in some way.

6. Create Your Brand Narrative

At this point, you should have a very good idea of what you want your brand image to be. It’s time to craft that image. You want to do so by telling a story about your brand.

You want the story to start with a brand promise. This is the promise you want to keep to your customer. You want to add all of the facts about your company and how you anticipate using them to deliver on your brand promise. Ensure that your narrative is carried through with your office graphics.

You need your story to be both compelling and unique.

7. Avoid The Traps

One of the biggest traps that a lot of brands end up making is trying to do too much. They try to be everything to everyone. There is no chance of succeeding if you haven’t clearly defined who you are as a brand and stick to it. You won’t get everyone to be your customer. You need to niche down and build a brand for a specific target audience. Know your target audience and build the brand around them. 

8. Stay Consistent

When you have a brand idea and when you start building, you need to be consistent throughout. You want to know the identity of your company and stick to it. Do not change your brand message and don’t use different imagery. Have consistent branding across the board all over your website, social media platforms, and more. This can help you build a solid brand with consistent messaging for more loyal customers and better brand recognition.

Final Thoughts on Brand Identity

By creating a unique and memorable brand, your business will have a voice and personality. It will help your business in attracting customers and stand out from the competition. It can be hard to build a memorable brand as it requires time and patience but it has to be done to achieve your business goals.