Starting a business is incredibly exciting; you’ve got an idea, a product, a service, and all you want to do is jump in and share it with the world. While it’s absolutely fantastic (and essential) to have that excitement and drive for your business, it’s important that you don’t get clouded by these emotions and forget to put your business hat on. Without a clear focus and strategy on how to move the brand forward, where to market it, and how to position the business to keep in front of the market, you could very well end up wasting time and money on branding and marketing exercises that produce little to no results. You need a brand strategy in place to know how you’re going to look, how you’re going to pitch to your market and overall gain traction.

3 Reasons Why You Need A Brand Strategy BEFORE You Brand

1. To know exactly where to focus your marketing budget and what brand touch points will produce the best results for your business.

2. To know which style and colour palette will work best for your brand - You may already have your colour palette picked, but have you actually researched how many other businesses (and more importantly, businesses in your field) have that same colour palette? You don’t want to look like everyone else or you’ll get lost in the crowd.

3. To ensure consistency and accuracy - From hiring staff to outsourcing admin work, to creating and printing new promotional material, it is important that no matter who is representing or creating elements of your brand, that they are all telling the same story, speaking the same message. This is done using your strategy, showing each person who works with your brand how to execute and carry through your signature elements.

Take a moment, put the breaks on and think about how you want your business to be perceived. Implementing a brand strategy before you start can be the defining factor between failure and success.