Lesson Progress:

Module 7 - Sharing your story

6. Chapter 7 Wrap-up

Key take-aways

  • Building a brand is key to most businesses whether or not they’re consumer facing, and reflects what you stand for. Defining your mission, vision and values early on will help guide you as you develop your brand. Alongside an understanding of your consumers, these will help you to establish your brand positioning, tone of voice and personality.

Time to stop and think: what five words capture the essence your brand? What’s in the core of your brand, What are your values? What kind of reputation do you want to build and who you are trying to reach with your content? How can you build diversity into your plan from the beginning? What kind of communication styles aren’t aligned with the brand image you want to create? What DON’T you want to be described as? What is your target market and how will you differentiate yourself from the competition? What are your customers’ pain points and priorities? What problem are you solving for them with your product and service?

  • Having a strong marketing strategy matters as customers need to know about your product/service in order to buy it. There are lots of ways of getting your message out there and key to doing this effectively is; knowing your customer, which channels they respond to (word of mouth, social media, billboards, etc) as well as types of messages they engage with.
  • Marketing and sales are inherently linked, your marketing strategy should be developed in conjunction with your sales plans so that the former is part of the funnel bringing you active customers.

Time to stop and think: what do you want to accomplish with each marketing activity?What do you want the potential customer to do (e.g.: sign up for a newsletter, post/tell about your brand in their network, place an order, increase their average spend…)?What is the call to action?

  • Measuring and reporting your impact as a business can be a brilliant way of engaging with your target audience. The messaging should be simple for people to understand and be a true reflection of the benefits/impacts of your business.

Now, let’s get active!

  1. Define your mission statement, vision and values. You can start your mission statement with “We exist to….”.
  2. Fill in the Unilever brand key framework.
    Go through and define the nine steps of the framework.

Additional Resources

These articles will help you get clear on your vision, mission and values:

Give Your Brand a Soul: Why Vision, Mission and Values Matter
https://www.goalcast.com/2017/04/18/give-brand-why-soul-vision-mission-values-matter/

If you need help in creating a brand identity and getting your brand voice right, read these articles:

Find the Right Brand Voice With These 5 Brainstorming Exercises https://contently.com/2018/09/18/brand-voice-brainstorming-exercises/

Creating a Brand Identity: 20 Questions to Consider
https://www.lean-labs.com/blog/creating-a-brand-identity-20-questions-to-consider

Learn more about brand positioning from these great reads:

How to Create Strong Brand Positioning in Your Market
http://cultbranding.com/ceo/create-strong-brand-positioning-strategy/

4 Popular Examples of Brand Positioning Strategy Types
https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/brand-positioning-strategy

Let these resources help you nail your marketing strategy, with or without a big budget:

No Strategy, No Customers: How to Build a Profitable Marketing Strategy
https://foundr.com/marketing-strategy/

The Marketing Mix 4P’s and 7P’s Explained
https://www.marketingmix.co.uk

The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Your Startup Online Without a Big Budget https://kickofflabs.com/blog/guide-to-startup-marketing-without-a-big-budget/

20 Uncommon Marketing Strategies That’ll Kickstart Your Startup
https://neilpatel.com/blog/startup-marketing-strategies/

It pays off to dive in to the world of marketing guru and bestselling author Seth Godin https://www.sethgodin.com