How to Solve Business Problems with Brand – Part 2

When businesses are first starting out, outlining a strategy for brand development is normally top of the list of priorities. As time goes on, however, and businesses become more mature, some will focus on brand less. In the first part of our blog series on how to solve business problems with brand, we showed how powerful brand can be in helping to solve the common problems that businesses face.

In part two, we’re discussing some more unlikely ways that brand can help with business problems, such as in the new product development process.  Have a browse through and get in touch if you’d like to learn more about how BGN can help your business if any sound familiar. 

My industry is dying/facing challenges and I want to challenge the status quo

Let’s face it, being a business that challenges the status quo is more of an opportunity than a problem. But it’s still difficult to crack nonetheless. You might be in a situation where your industry is showing no signs of change any time soon. Consumers may have embraced a tried and tested business model. Even if your audience isn’t actively asking for a different kind of brand or business however, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try and be one. All industries need to change, everything needs to evolve. The company who is bravest about embracing change will be in the best position to maximise the potential within their sector.

This kind of challenge requires a brave business mentality. It’s important that your brand strategy capitalises on the flaws with the current status quo. You need to highlight why your process, people, model and solution is better than the rest. Your brand look and feel will be important to ensure you grab the attention of your audience. It’s your messaging strategy, however, that’s going to be most important element in differentiating you.

First things first, you’ll need to review the way you’ve talked about yourself up until now. Is it right? Or does it need to change? How are you going to sound going forward? This may include developing a completely new tone of voice. You may need to re-establish your brand essence and ‘why’ statement, deciding how you’re going to communicate right down to individual word choices. Consistency is going to be key for this kind of brand strategy, so you’re going to want to have strict brand guidelines.  Committing your voice to paper and make it easy for anyone in your business to understand and replicate. With revised messaging that challenges the status quo and surprises consumers, and a visual identity to match, you’ll be in prime position to capture market share.

I need to accelerate my business’ growth 

We work with a number of businesses who have recently secured funding. They need to scale quickly to satisfy investors, or reach the next stage of their business’ development. On the flip side to this, there are also many businesses we’ve experienced who are long-established. They’re often under similar pressures, facing stretching targets with short deadlines. In both of these cases the problem is the same, they need results fast.

Obviously there are many factors which are going to come into play in making sure your business hits these targets. Things like market conditions, employee/supplier performance and even seasonality. But we firmly believe that brand will also be a huge contributor in overcoming these challenges. This is especially the case for recently-funded start-ups. Having a clear brand strategy is crucial to keep you on the right road as you need to always keep in mind what you set out to do. Being clear and consistent in your messaging will ensure that newly-introduced consumers will understand who you are and can get on board with you quickly. In turn they will recommend you and act as ambassadors for your brand during your crucial first stage of growth.

It’s a similar case for long-standing businesses. In order to drastically increase their turnover or market share, they need to do something different to what they’ve been doing thus far. That’s the only way they can expect consumers to react. But It’s usually the case that long-standing businesses are larger in size with more people involved. It’s easy for drastic changes in strategy or processes to become diluted. This results in messages not landing as well as you’d hoped. Setting a clear brand strategy at the beginning of your journey and communicating this clearly through employee onboarding is imperative. You will benefit by having a solid partner on board to support you in this. At BGN we have the varied skillsets required to help you through this process. 

My business needs to innovate / develop new products

Not every business we come into contact with needs a new brand strategy. Often we’ll meet businesses that have a robust brand that the entire company already stands behind. These businesses still face challenges, however. Often we’ll come across businesses who know they’ve not yet reached their full potential. This is where you can build upon your strong brand strategy to lead innovation. This could be new product developmentor diversification of your business, or perhaps just getting involved in new things which secures your brand positioning even further.

Sometimes it’s not always what makes the most sense or drives the most revenue. It could be something that fits with your essence and the ‘why’ of your business. This could be getting involved with a charity, introducing a new corporate social responsibility strategy or creating new products that take your brand in a new direction, like a range of organic products for example.

By understanding your brand and your customers, and most importantly, what those customers want from a brand, you can start to work on building out your business strategy further.

Interested IN LEARNING MORE?

As we’ve shown, it’s not always common business problems like awareness or employee moral that can be helped with brand. Brand can also help to tackle some other less expected challenges. It’s crucial you have a partner on board that can support you through working through the issue. If you’d like to learn more about our process or talk to us about one of our free brand audits, get in touch with us here.