How’s your Brand Fitness?

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about my personal success at a recent triathlon, and how much of that performance was down to a structured training program and planned out race strategy.

The overall objective was to be race fit and give my best performance yet within 12 weeks.

The plan consisted of daily targeted workouts split into the three areas of triathlon (swim, bike, run) and where the workload progressed in two week sprints.

This got me thinking as to how I can adapt this methodology of training to help others in business, specifically startups and businesses looking to scale up.

I’ve put together a quick “Brand Fitness” plan which includes some of my thoughts on combining my experience of brand and also my involvement in endurance sports.

For now I will be focussing on 3 Key Phases which are BASE, BUILD & SPECIALITY.

Each of the phases have their own objectives so it’s key to move from BASE through to BUILD and then SPECIALITY in that order.

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BASE PHASE – Making a solid foundation for your brand

Create a Brand Roadmap

Make sure you have a well thought out Brand Roadmap. The Brand Roadmap is key to visualising the future and outlines the vision and objectives of the company over the next 30 days, 3 months, 12 months.

Identify your customers / What’s your Niche?

Who are they? Can you define them?

By understanding your customer base you are able to successfully sell your product or service to them through emotive, targeted campaigns.

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BUILD PHASE – Make your brand a strong healthy machine

Create your identity

It needs to be appropriate, memorable and must be simple enough so that it can communicate this through online and offline products. When you are thinking about your identity or product name also consider how your brand will be indexed on say Alexa or other voice-controlled AI assistants.

Tell your Brand Story

This is one if not the most important parts of your brand. A brand story is an engaging narrative that encompasses the facts and feelings that are created by your brand, it creates an emotional and authentic connection for your customers.

SPECIALITY PHASE – Get the perfect result

Content content content

Engage and be Creative – Get behind the camera, create a podcast, host a webinar, engage on social media or be creative with your writing. Use the best medium for you and be consistent with delivering regular top notch content that inspires and entertains your customers. This is my top recommendation for getting your customers engaged with your brand……we all spend most of our time online or looking at our phones, so target your customers with this content on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube.

• Involve customers in a deeper, sustained relationship, Inspire People
• Keep the conversation going
• Build a Community

Personal Branding

Work on your personal brand. This doesn’t mean creating “branding” for yourself, because you already have an online presence and it’s more about your public persona.

Your personal brand gives trust, builds connections, builds credibility, provides confidence and shows authenticity. How can this be done? Through writing articles, engaging on platforms like Linkedin, creating a Youtube channel, launching a Podcast or guest speaking at an Event.

There is a ton of content I will be sharing over the next few weeks but it would be great to hear how others are working on their brands.

If you have any thoughts, suggestions or questions, then please get in touch.

Richard Burch | Branding, Strategy, eCommerce

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