Brand Strategy vs Marketing Strategy – understanding how they compliment each other
What is Brand Strategy vs Marketing strategy, and how do they work together?
Brand and marketing, despite being closely aligned, play distinct roles in the playbook of company success. Neither is more important than the other and they work in sync.
Put very simply, brand sets your long-term direction. Whilst marketing is the shorter-term tactics it will take to get there.
Let’s unpack what each is.
Content overview
What is Brand Strategy?
A brand strategy is a long-term plan detailing specific goals and objectives for achieving a distinctive and competitive position in the market. It involves defining your brand’s unique value proposition (UVP or key differentiator), target audience, and key messaging. Furthermore, it provides the opportunity to align your visual elements with your overall business objectives.
Key elements of a brand strategy:
- Brand Substance: Who you are
Defining the core principles that guide your brand. This covers your mission, vision, and core principles that guide your entity - Brand positioning: Where you fit in
This is where we determine where your brand stands in the marketplace - Target audience: Who you serve
Identifying and understanding your ideal customers. - Brand Messaging: What you are saying
Identifying and understanding your ideal customers. - Brand Experience: What it’s like to work with you
Ensuring consistency in customer interactions.
What is Marketing Strategy?
Marketing strategy is the comprehensive plan that outlines your organisation’s approach to promoting its products or services to achieve specific business objectives.
Here’s the overlap of Brand Strategy vs Marketing Strategy. Marketing strategy also identifies target audiences, defines your key differentiators and looks for the gaps in the market that you could fill. So this information is common forms the foundation for both.
But Marketing Strategy takes the long-term direction and makes it tactical. It gets specific about segmentation of your products, services and audience. It not only looks into the channels and platforms, but plans how they will be used effectively. Your marketing strategy gets specific about your goals and the campaigns and promotions to achieve them, within a specific timeframe and budget. And it works with your sales strategies to optimise conversions.
Key elements of a marketing strategy
- Marketing Analysis*
Understanding the market, competitors, and trends. - Target Market*
Identifying specific segments for your products or services. - Marketing Channels
Identifying and choosing the correct platforms to reach your audience. - Promotion
Creating campaigns to generate awareness and interest and align to your goals. - Sales Strategy
Working with the sales team to support them on how you’ll convert leads into customers. - Metrics and Analytics
Tracking the key metrics that show the success and impact of marketing initiatives.
(* in-common with brand)
Essentially, brand strategy is the roadmap for building a strong brand, whereas marketing strategy is the tactical plan for promoting and selling. Together, they create a cohesive and effective business strategy.
Which comes first? Brand strategy or marketing strategy?
Branding is at the core of your marketing strategy, so branding must come first. Whether a small business, startup, or large company, it is essential to clearly define who you are as a brand, before you begin to devise your specific marketing methods, tools, strategies, and tactics.
Okay so who creates a Brand Strategy vs Marketing Strategy? Same people?
Well, brand designers like us would do a brand strategy. You want to find a brand strategy partner who knows brand inside-out, and not just from a visual perspective, but from the theory behind it. Without a framework, it’s just throwing ideas out until something sticks.
With your marketing strategy, you’d want someone who has trained in full marketing – not just digital marketing. Full marketing encompasses every aspect of your business including your business strategy.
