As a business grows, it becomes big in multiple areas. When companies aim for growth and profit, they often lose sight of brand strategy and other operations. People mistake the essentiality of brand strategy in the long run.
This is where things start to blur. This is where the crack opens up. This is where calm surrenders to confusion at the feet of chaos. For any business owner reading this, let me give you simple advice: brand strategy is not something you can use as per your convenience and then throw it down like a leper.
A good brand strategy sticks with your business. It defines it, cultivates it, and, if not anything, runs parallel with it to ascertain your growth. Today, we will decipher the gravity of the situation. In today’s session we will decode the significance of brand strategy for a business’s growth.
Brand strategy consultants and brand strategy companies don’t treat your business like a campaign—they treat it like a long game. Because that’s exactly what growth demands.
Brand strategy is supposed to be a constant partner of your business growth journey. Let's begin to break it down.
Cause clarity
Let us imagine a hypothetical scenario. There are two coffee shops in the local market opposite each other. Both have the same sofas, the same menu, and relatively the same price. In just nine months, only one of them survived, and the other coffee shop shut down.
Why do you think it happened?
The answer is simple: lack of business strategy.
When one coffee shop hired an interior designer and just marketed itself as a good coffee shop. The other cafe owner decided to bring in a brand strategy consultant. Yes, not a social media manager, not some fancy decoration, not a new chef or support staff, but a brand strategy specialist.
Now, when this brand strategy expert came, he asked some hard-hitting questions of the owner. Not to scare him off but to understand the brand. In just three months, the brand strategy professional revolutionized the whole coffee shop with a logo and a tagline that says, “The best coffee of this lane.”
This not only induces humor but also attracts customers. Now, they want to try it.
Here, the thing to grasp from this coffee shop example is that you need to bring in clarity. If you sound generic, you remain in the herd just like everyone else. But when you revamp yourself based on clarity that cuts deep into the mindset of your target audience, you are no longer a business; you are a brand.
That’s the result of effective brand strategy solutions.
Provides a roadmap
With time and expansion, a business needs a roadmap, a blueprint, and a plan of action that they not only can rely on but also execute from time to time in the form of actionable measures that breed driven outputs. A strategy plays the role of a quintessential support and pillar to a business in its journey of growth and prosperity.
I don’t even have to name them, but we all know quite a few shops, businesses, and ventures that shut down in the first year of their business. We always often think about them and usually get to the bottom thinking
Oh, they must have been incurring losses.
It’s hard to do business these days.
Not everyone has the skin for the game.
But in reality, what they never had was a fully devised roadmap. When founders have a well-cultivated business roadmap—often co-developed with brand strategy companies or brand strategy agencies—they know what to do, when to do it, and how to do branding and business operations.
Not to forget, with a roadmap comes consistency, because now the founders are aware of the actionable measures and plan to strive on it. Consistent efforts reap benefits in the market and thus lead to growth and expansion.
Simplifies sales
A perfectly crafted brand strategy takes your product to a different level and penetrates the market on a deeper level. When this happens, it shortens the sales cycle because a good brand strategy already answers all the queries and doubts that a potential customer might have. With clarity, the strategy allows you to put everything on the table.
With a good and effective brand strategy, you are not looking at your first cold call to your customers. You are not pushed to bore them; catch them at the wrong hour of the day and make them listen to your jibber-jabber with absolutely no interest.
With a structured approach—often developed with a brand strategy consultant or a seasoned brand strategy company—you surpass this; you skip on this. Ultimately you shorten the sales cycle. Also remember that this saves you from a lot of wasted time, energy, and resources.
You will often observe me repeat this statement: “Marketing approaches, but branding invites.”
With a solid brand strategy consulting foundation, you are no longer chasing the customer but attracting them. They are served the right information, the right brand voice, messaging, and recognition value. This eliminates any doubts they have about your product. You come clean and sharp in the market. This results in smarter and simplified sales.
Aligns the team
What do a shoe, a slipper, and a sandal have in common?
Good, you guessed it right. They all are footwear.
But did anyone sell you a slipper saying it's a shoe, or, more importantly, did you buy a sandal confusing it with a slipper?
I certainly hope not.
The reason I began this section with this absurd example is because this is exactly what is happening in many businesses internally. One employee says it's a slipper, the other one presents it as a shoe, and I know someone from the team will also try to sell it as a cover for your feet.
This resembles incongruity, misalignment, and teams stuck in the quagmire of their own versions of the product. What happens next is not something I have to follow; you can imagine that very well.
Internal confusion breeds external confusion. External confusion fuels customers in chaos, and customers in chaos leads to them bouncing off, leaving to never return, and sales are stalled. With an effective brand strategy—guided by brand strategy professionals—you bring each and everyone on the same page.
No more self-defined versions that break in the sales pitch. Always remember the formula: start with clarity and push with consistency.
Professor’s points
So, class, what did we learn today? Brand strategy is essential for business growth because it brings in clarity, offers a roadmap, simplifies sales, and, yes, of course, it aligns the team. Brand strategy cannot be left behind like an overstaying guest. In fact, at times, it proves to be the head of the family.
Do not take brand strategy for granted. You’ll end up paying dollars for saving pennies. In fact, I would suggest you participate in a brand strategy workshop to understand how everything works to make your brand shine.
