My company is currently at half a million dollars in revenue, and I was forced to start writing our SOPs and, heck, decided to make them public record, not sure if it's a good idea yet :-).
Today’s topic is understanding the process for developing a brand strategy for our clients. If we don’t plan, we’re planning to fail. It’s so crucial to take it personally and take ownership of your client. A successful client reflects their success on you; without client success, we will all be out of business in no time.
First and foremost, we have to define the objectives of the client, but this is not a passive listening to the wishes of the client, cos oftentimes the client is thinking too small or they’ve got imposter syndrome and don’t believe in themselves enough to have ambitious goals, or maybe their goals the opposite, perhaps their ambitious is unrealistic or heading in the wrong direction, for example a dead industry… but finally we will have to define our goal using the SMART method: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely (ex: a man on the moon by end of the decade).
So what is the process, Naja?
Here it is
A) Industry research: collecting information about the sector, this could be asking chatgpt, watching youtube videos, conducting google searches…etc. Of course, as a marketing agency, we are not concerned about the prices of raw materials used in our client’s business; we’re more concerned about the 4Ps: why people purchase the product, how it is priced in the market, marketplace /service area, and finally how has it been promoted, what are our competitors doing, and what is hot in the industry on social media, what are the trends, what is working right now. The research must be summarized with chatgpt or your LLM of choice, then taken to Gamma.app to generate a presentation of the key and relevant findings that will be an important part of the strategy document we will produce in a later stage. This research should help you ask the right questions for the next step, which is “Client interview”.
Deliverable: Brand Research
B) Client interview: Usually, this interview can take place during the onboarding call, or can have its own strategy session, or can even be sent to the client via email, and the client replies to it. But we absolutely need to have that exchange to get that alignment with the client.
Deliverable: Client Interview Summary
C) Brand Proposition & Strategy: This is where we deliver the precious “Brand Strategy”, where we propose what this brand should stand for, the story, and attributes to make it visible (know), likable, and trusted.
Deliverable: Brand Strategy
Before we hit the ground running and put ink on paper, we need to step back to understand what a brand is.
What is a brand?
A brand has an exterior layer, a fascade that should be optimized to win the battle of first impressions, and an internal layer, which is a much deeper “why” that fuels everything, the purpose. You may have heard that “a brand is a promise”, or “it’s what people say about you when you’re not in the room”, or “how you make people feel”, and honestly, all of them are true but the most productive definition in my mind is the simplest and it is three words: know, like, & trust.
The exterior layer: It includes the “name,” one of the first tough decisions to make. This is the signature. Names, like any other words, can have inherited meanings or make people feel a certain way, so we have to carefully select (or create) a word or set of words that we will be known by. The most crucial criterion for this is to be memorable. To be memorable, the name must elicit a certain emotion and/or visual cue.
For example, my friend Ibrahim named his window-cleaning company “Ducking Clean.” How clever that name is! First, you picture a Duck; second, the double meaning is Helarius. It's a name you want to remember because of how much fun it is.
Can I sidetrack here a bit and suggest an ad script for Ducking Clean, hopefully one day Eeeb will read it and implement it. The video opens with “the customer” asking, “Eeeb, is it clean?” The video then shows Ibrahim bringing his face close to a window or solar panel and inspecting its cleanliness, and he says, “It’s Ducking Clean” with a corney smile on his face.
The second attribute of the brand's external layer is its colors & fonts, which are the second most important because they’re highly visible and evoke specific emotions.
Third, the imagery, design, video quality, and video editing style complete the brand package and are now ready for the spotlight. It’s important to remember that the brand is a living asset; over time, it can be affected positively or negatively. For example, if we choose a font that becomes outdated in 5 years and fail to evolve the brand, we will be perceived as old and traditional, even though we may want to be perceived as cool and modern.
The interior layer: it’s often a deeper layer that requires deep conversations with the client to uncover their why, and how it translates into attributes to be known for, liked for, and trusted for (we might call it core values or brand pillars).
We can engineer exterior or interior attributes to increase our chances of making a strong first impression and retaining the audience. For example, we can inject a specific visual style (photo filters, editing style, color palette, grooming, and attire) into our brand, or address viral topics in our content to make it memorable and shareable. That exposure is the “know” part of the triad, also called top-funnel. Similarly, as we plan the visibility portion, we can engineer likability and trust attributes to win those battles.
Don’t let anyone fool you: building a brand is a highly intentional, strategic, and difficult challenge.
Brand Valuation, and how to measure it?
To take this exercise to the next level, you may also want to assign a score to the brand that measures its market value. This score will show up in the monthly performance review, and it's constantly updated to reflect the growth, decline, or stagnation of the brand value.
Here is my proposed equation:
brand value = know + like / trust (ratio) x need.
Let's explain each element of this equation:
Know = Audience Size (number of followers/subscribers across all platforms, including email and contact lists)
Like = Engagement (assuming you don’t make people angry, those who comment positively are usually a signal they like you).
Trust = Give us their business card (email + phone number) and want to hear from us.
Need = Total Addressable Market x 3%. This is the estimated number of potential leads or the total addressable market that have a need at any given time. AI tools like proplexity or chatgpt research modules could help synthesise geographic, demographic, and psychographic data to calculate the total addressable market, then multiply the number by 3%, and you’ll have an approximate number of people who are in the market to purchase what we have to offer.
With this formula, we arrive at a brand value metric that measures our success with the client (our North Star).
(Special thanks to Dr. Conrad Shayo from CSUSB, who recommended the book “How to Measure Anything?”).
