“Not a shortcut but a passage to strategic clarity with right intent.”
Templates and tools, not just two random words but terms that represent structure and system. A template is nothing but a structure that makes things in sync and sets a tone and framework for procedures. On the other hand, tools are systems that help you make good use of them to get done with work that is repetitive and can make you lethargic if done manually. The one single benefit that you reap from both is that it saves you time, effort, and resources. This leads to increased efficiency and productivity.
According to 2021 CB Insights, 35% of young startups fail due to no market need, and 19% get outcompeted. You know why this happens? Not because the business lacked motivation or was not determined enough. This occurs because they were working in the wrong direction, wasting a lot of time, energy, and resources in doing things that can be done through the implementation of the right tools and using templates. This resulted in a lack of productivity and internal disruption. Trust me when I tell you that templates & tools are a great amplifier of a positive shift when employed with the correct brand strategy.
A brand strategy is the reflection of how you will approach and move forward in your branding journey. It defines who you are, why you matter, and how to carve space in a noisy market. But remember, clarity won’t come from staring at a blank Google document. It comes from structure. In this blog we have curated a list of tools & templates as free resources that you can incorporate into your branding regime to help build an effective brand strategy.
Let’s discuss them one by one.
The Brand Strategy Canvas
This can be your first stop in your endeavors of brand strategy pursuit. The term may sound creative and ambiguous to many, but in reality, it is nothing but a one-page brand strategy tool assisting marketers and strategists, along with founders and product leads, to devise a tangible construct relevant to their brand positioning statement, brand persona, and essence. The companies should try to tie their values and key messaging with their brand. The best part here is that the brand strategy canvas summarizes the entire brand story in one single page. It can be read and shared with all the internal departments and team members.
Now this is a tool; where’s the template? So you can easily download a brand strategy canvas template online and use it in your workforce and with your teams.
SWOT Analysis
I know, I know this is very old school, but hey, it still does work and offers key insights. The SWOT analysis, as we all know, is a simple tool that you can do with almost anything. When working on your brand strategy, SWOT analysis empowers you to audit before you act. My favorite part is you don’t even need a proper template for it. You can start it almost immediately anywhere from a piece of paper to a whiteboard.
You know the drill. Take a piece of paper, draw a horizontal line, and cut it from the middle by drawing a vertical line. Now, you have four sections, each representing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Now I expect you to have a keen knowledge of your brand. Write everything down.
The crucial part here is that once you jot down everything. You’ll be amazed to connect the dots and manage to identify opportunities and threats as well. This can be highly beneficial for your brand strategy development. Of course, if you need it, you can download the free SWOT template from HubSpot. Clean layout, editable, and easy to run with your team.
Customer Persona Template
What do you know about your target audience? What do you know about your potential customers? If your answer is dispersed. You are losing customers left and right; you don’t even know how big of a loss that really is. Without defined personas, you’re broadcasting into the void. With them, you become dangerously relevant. According to a survey conducted by Salesforce in 2023, 66% of customers expect companies to understand their unique needs and preferences.
That’s more than half of the customers irrespective of the market, industry, and product. This one single statistic should be an eye-opener for you. Again, you can go online and download a customer persona template from dozens of websites, whichever suits your brand the best. The effect or insight that a customer persona template brings in is that it allows you to tailor the customers accordingly based on their needs, buying behavior, pain points, purchasing triggers, goals, and motivations that go far deeper than the surface-level information of basic demographics.
One-page brand strategy summary
This is a common brand strategy template that you can use. It is for young startups and especially for small teams starting anew and are filled with solid motivation and too much information. This template is easily available online for you to download. It encompasses everything with a single page reference that speaks volumes about how the teams should move forward. It ensures that people are not getting deviated from their goals. The summary tool keeps reminding people about the true essence of the work and target. This one-pager should live in your onboarding docs, agency briefs, and investor updates. At a minimum, it should cover your brand’s purpose, vision, mission, target audiences, positioning statement, core messages, tone of voice, and a few key visual cues.
The best part about this summary is that it cuts down piles of documents explaining everything in a dispersed manner. It is one of the main reasons this tool should always be in your branding checklist for sure. Such piles of documents largely induce confusion with too much information and so must be replaced with a simple one-page brand strategy summary. If you don’t want to move ahead with a template, you can use tools like Google Docs, Notion, and Figma to draft one.
Brand voice chart
Again, this may sound like something critical, but it’s not. A brand voice chart refers to a chart compiling the entire information of a business or organization’s brand voice. Induce strategic planning process in your efforts. The chart is used as a quick reference point for anyone trying to create content for the business, product, or branding. The chart is essential for the upliftment of the brand strategy. It lists around three to five adjectives representing the quality the brand voice must embody. The chart serves as a small guide for the content creation team. The chart is also prescriptive in informing the do’s and don’ts and thus becoming an actionable tool. The process is simple: you create your own chart and share it with anyone who is responsible for content creation.
Professor’s key takeaways
We discussed five important brand strategy templates and tools that can not only make your life easier when it comes to discussing branding but also bring key insights to the table for structuring the brand strategy. All these tools and templates are readily available online, and, in fact, you can create one for yourself as per your brand strategy needs. One of my pro tips would be to participate in a brand strategy workshop. There you not only engage with strategic exercises, but you also get involved in the whole process of branding and decision-making. The last key takeaway from my ed would be to use these five templates and make the most out of it.
