How To Create a Brand Communication Strategy
Having an effective brand communication strategy is essential for businesses and organisations. However, creating one can be challenging, time-consuming and difficult to start. So, what are the key steps in creating an effective brand communication strategy?
Building a successful brand communication strategy involves:
Understanding your target audience.
Planning out your customer journey.
Researching your competitors.
Defining your brand’s unique selling proposition (USP).
Crafting targeted messaging.
Determining your success metrics.
Read on for a more detailed explanation of these steps and our top brand communication strategy examples…
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How to Create an Effective Brand Communication Strategy in 6 Steps
Here’s how you can build an effective brand communication strategy in 6 simple steps:
1. Understand Your Target Audience.
The first step of any brand communication strategy should always be to define your target market. This should include conducting market research to work out your ideal customer’s:
Demographics
Preferred channels
Interests
Motivations
Pain points and frustrations
Buying habits
This will help you craft targeted content and messaging that speaks directly to your target audience and motivates them to make a purchase.
2. Create Customer Journeys
After you’ve identified your target audience, the next step is to create a customer journey for your ideal customer. This customer journey should map out how a potential customer will go from their initial awareness of your brand, product or service, to considering their options, to making a purchase and finally to brand loyalty. Try to think about what messaging, marketing channels and types of content would be most effective at each stage of the buying process:
At the customer awareness stage, people are beginning to realise they have a problem that needs solving. Consider creating blog posts that target common questions that your target audience has.
At the consideration stage, people are starting to consider the different solutions to solving their problem. Try creating more in-depth content, such as case studies or product comparisons that highlight the value your product or service offers.
At the decision stage, the customer is finalising their decision and just needs a final push to make a purchase. Offering a free trial or live demo can be a great way to secure a conversion.
At the loyalty stage, the customer will make additional purchases and share their love of your brand with others. A loyalty program can be a useful tool to encourage repeat purchases.
By planning your customer journey, you can ensure that you're creating relevant content that targets your audience at all stages of the buying process.
3. Research Your Competitors
Conducting competitor research is extremely useful when creating an effective brand communication strategy. This can give you an insight into who your competitors are targeting, the channels they’re using and how effective their messaging is. Competitor research can help you differentiate your strategy from your competitors and give you inspiration for your own brand communications.
4. Determine Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
Your brand communication strategy should align with your brand’s values and everything you create should convey your brand's unique selling proposition (USP). This needs to set you apart from your competitors. Your USP could be exceptional customer service or the fact that you offer a free trial. Having a clear understanding of your USP is essential for creating consistent and effective messaging.
5. Craft Your Messaging
The next step should be to create effective core messages that resonate with your target audience and align with your brand’s values and USP. Consistent messaging is key to creating an effective and integrated brand communication strategy. Your messaging should include the key benefits of your product or service and clear call-to-actions that encourage users to take the next step.
6. Define Your Success Metrics
It’s essential that you define what success looks like for your brand communication strategy and the metrics that you’ll use to measure the outcomes of your campaign. For example, if the aim of your brand communication campaign is to improve how consumers view your brand, you might monitor the following metrics:
Social media follows, likes or shares
Comment quality
Sentiment of any media coverage
Brand mentions
Customer reviews
Our Top Brand Communication Strategy Examples
Here are two of the most effective brand communication strategies of all time for you to use as inspiration when developing your own strategy.
Apple’s ‘Shot on iPhone’ Campaign
This long-running campaign focused on promoting the new iPhone’s features, such as the camera quality and battery life, through user-generated and in-house content. The messaging targeted millennials who were passionate about photography and sharing their experiences on social media.
Apple’s ‘Shot on iPhone’ brand communication strategy involved five main elements:
A social media contest to encourage user-generated content tagged with #shotoniphone and #contest.
Partnerships with popular photographers and influencers on Instagram to create engaging visual content shot entirely on iPhones.
Print ads in major newspapers and magazines that featured high-quality images captured by iPhones and minimal copy.
A TV commercial which featured a montage of stunning shots taken by normal iPhone users.
In-store displays which featured the winning shots from the social media contest.
This campaign was so effective at increasing customer engagement and driving sales because of the consistent and highly targeted messaging. It reinforced the idea that Apple is at the forefront of technology. However, the campaign also highlighted that anyone can capture high-quality photos with the latest iPhone, showing how accessible and user-friendly Apple’s technology is.
Airbnb’s ‘Made Possible by Hosts’ Campaign
This campaign focused on one of Airbnb’s USPs - their partner hosts. According to Marketing Weekly, the campaign aimed ‘to educate guests about the benefits of being hosted and to inspire more people to become hosts’. It was designed to show the joy of staying in an Airbnb and show hosting as something more than a financial transaction.
Airbnb asked a handful of photographers to book an Airbnb with their friends or family and submit photos and videos chronicling their experience. This user-generated content was incredibly moving and inspired the target audience to reminisce about their own meaningful trips.
Strengthen Your Brand Communication with Altitude PR
If you’re struggling with creating your brand communication strategy, Altitude can help. Our expert team can help you develop a clear and effective brand communication strategy with consistent and unified messaging that helps your organisation grow.
We have worked with some of the UK’s most successful brands to take the stress out of strategic planning. With a fresh pair of eyes, we’ll look at your current strategy and identify areas of improvement, so you can quickly start seeing results.
Book your free brand communication strategy consultation to get started. Or view our full range of services to see how we can help your business.
Brand Communication Strategy FAQs
What is Brand Communication?
Brand communication is how a brand shares its unique value proposition and key messages with its target audience. It encompasses all touchpoints, including blogs, social media, digital advertising, print ads, and email campaigns, and ensures that messaging is consistent across all channels.
What Is a Brand Communication Strategy?
A brand communication strategy is a clear plan that all companies and organisations should have in place. It needs to be regularly reviewed and updated to ensure that it remains relevant. An effective brand communication strategy should align with the company's wider goals and include information on the brand’s target audience, key messaging, and marketing channels.
What are The Advantages of a Brand Communication Strategy?
There are many benefits to having a clear brand communication strategy. Here are five key advantages:
Consistent messaging. Having a brand communication strategy in place means it’s easier to ensure all your messaging is consistent and aligns with your brand’s wide goals and values.
Improved brand awareness and reach. A communication strategy will help your brand target the most effective channels allowing you to reach more of your target audience.
Enhanced brand differentiation. By highlighting your brand, product or service’s unique selling proposition (USP), an effective brand communication strategy makes it easier for you to stand out from your competitors.
Increased customer engagement. Consistent and targeted messaging can help your brand connect with potential and existing customers in a more meaningful way.
More sales. Having an effective brand communication strategy allows you to target the right people with the right messaging using the right channels, ultimately leading to an increase in sales and return on investment (ROI).
