Brand Strategy

Clarity — First and Always.

What makes your brand (or product, or service) unlike any other? Who are your target audiences? What do you want them to know, feel, and do? And how will we get them to know, feel, and do it? Strategy gets to the heart of these questions and maps a clear path forward, so you can deliver a clear, consistent, and compelling brand experience that serves your business goals.

Strategy, simply put:

Research

 

Research will mean different things for different clients, but at a minimum, we start every new client engagement with some form of brand immersion and discovery, so we can understand your business and the challenge at hand from your team’s perspective—and determine which outside perspectives might be missing. (Do we need to talk to customers? Clients? Salespeople or frontline associates? We can do that.) From laser-focused project briefings to on-site brand vision workshops—we plan and facilitate discovery sessions tailored to the outcome you’re trying to achieve, and from there determine what additional primary and secondary research will help us achieve our goals.

Message

 
While plenty of people use the terms messaging and copywriting interchangeably, they’re two distinct steps in the marketing process. Messaging is about determining what your brand (and only your brand) has to say. Copywriting is choosing the right words to say it. If you’re not confident about your key messages, we’ll help you craft them. From there, we can help you develop your brand voice and find the perfect words to bring those messages to life at every stage of the customer journey.

Method

 

Once we know where we’re going, we’ll build you a plan to get there. Whether that’s a multi-faceted marketing plan, a comms plans, a content calendar, or a combo platter with all of the above, every tactic we recommend will be tied to a strategy designed to drive your business forward. 

Services Offered

  • Brand Vision Workshops
  • SWOT Analysis
  • Market Analysis and Research
  • In-Depth Interviews (IDIs)
  • Customer Journey Mapping
  • Personas and VOCs
  • Brand Messaging 
  • Brand Voice & Tone
  • Comms Planning 
  • Marketing Strategy
  • Content Strategy 
  • Brand Naming

 

Brand Naming Experts

Your brand name is the verbal trigger that conjures up your brand in customers’ minds. The associations and reactions it sparks when seen or heard for the first time will start to define your brand, for better or worse.

 

Brand Naming
Frequently Asked Questions

At Phase 3, we facilitate workshops and discussions, perform market research and analysis, and develop customer journey maps, personas, and audience profiles to ensure the brand strategy is aligned with your target audiences and the state of the market. We use a collaborative workshop and briefing model to ensure that anyone with veto power has a seat at the table as we work to understand the challenges underpinning (what will become) the strategy. When we present brand strategy, we use a “big idea” framework to show how the strategy connects back to key business objectives. The big idea is a clear and succinct articulation of the brand strategy that you can stand up next to each business executive and see how the two connect. It’s an easy non-jargony way to make sure brand strategy and business goals are aligned. 

At Phase 3 we work with B2B clients across a variety of industries, including manufacturing, technology, commercial real estate (CRE), professional services, financial services, construction and engineering, energy, and wholesale and distribution, so we understand one strategy does not fit all.

We do our research to understand each client’s markets and target audiences and craft a strategy and brand and message that speaks to their needs, in their language. 

Our in-house capabilities include qualitative research to gather information and insight into target audiences, facilitating in-depth-interviews, online discussions, and focus groups. To evaluate the competitive set, we analyze online presence, key messaging, customer reviews, and employee feedback, identifying strengths, weaknesses, and missed opportunities our clients can leverage. We present our research findings to clients in the form of an insights report that outlines the implications of the research and recommended actions. 

A brand strategy serves as the foundation for how a brand communicates and positions itself in the market. It defines the brand’s values, mission, target audience, and competitive advantage, guiding all marketing efforts and customer interactions to ensure consistency and effectiveness.

At the end of the brand strategy phase, we present a Brand DNA Map, which includes the “Big Idea” (a clear and succinct articulation of your brand strategy), your brand personality, positioning, and purpose, and your brand narrative. Often we will include audience profiles or personas, customer journey maps, and key messages by audience.   

Timelines vary quite a bit depending on the scope of the rebrand. Are we renaming your company? Will the name be trademarked? Are we conducting stakeholder interviews? Are we building a new website? Are there sub-brands and brand architecture to be addressed? How many stakeholders and decision-makers are involved? 

We’ve rebranded companies in less than six months—and have worked on phased rebrands that have taken upwards of a year. What we can guarantee is that every client will receive a detailed roadmap and rebranding checklist based on the scope of their rebrand, and a single point of contact to shepherd them through the process from start to finish.  

As with any marketing initiative, we measure the success of a rebrand based on how well it achieves its objectives. Companies rebrand for different reasons (mergers and acquisitions, leadership changes, repositioning, shift in business strategy) and have different goals in mind (brand perception, morale, engagement, sales growth, customer retention).

We work with clients to establish KPIs prior to the rebrand and can support them (directly or indirectly, depending on what is being tracked) in measuring success long term.

Your brand strategy should only be reassessed when there is a significant shift in your business goals or offerings or in market trends or customer behavior.

Marketing strategy, on the other hand, should be evaluated (at least) annually, to ensure it’s aligned with your business goals.  

Every strategy engagement starts with a full brand immersion. Our brand vision workshop is designed, in part, to help us uncover—or better articulate—your culture and values.

We can also conduct stakeholder interviews with employees across departments to identify contradictory perceptions of culture that might hamper the implementation of your strategy.  You want your internal stakeholders to be confident brand ambassadors—so it’s important that the brand identity resonates with them and feels true. If the external brand identity is aspirational in certain aspects, that’s okay, provided you inform employees of the steps you’re taking to fulfill those aspirations. We can help you craft messaging to bring internal stakeholders into alignment with an updated brand identity. 

What clients consistently tell us they appreciate about Phase 3 is the quality of our thinking and our ability to connect dots in interesting ways and generate actual insights (not just repackaged data points). They also appreciate the way we can bring the brand strategy to life—not stopping at ideation but carrying it through, thoughtfully and thoroughly, in execution.

Absolutely. Here are links to some exciting strategies we’ve developed for B2B companies in recent years: ProMach & ABM

Another benefit to Phase 3 offering “ideation to execution” is that we’ve been through the implementation process with clients and know exactly what questions will come up and what boxes will need to be checked. We can also script townhall events and speeches to help leadership drive the message and stakeholder engagement. 

Once your brand strategy is rolled out, we can continue to support your team with PR, media relations, creative, design, website, and print support on a retainer or project basis. We’re here to make life easier for marketers and we’re proud of the many long-term client relationships we have. 

As with any marketing initiative, we measure the success of a rebrand based on how well it achieves its objectives. Companies rebrand for different reasons (mergers and acquisitions, leadership changes, repositioning, shift in business strategy) and have different goals in mind (brand perception, morale, engagement, sales growth, customer retention).

We work with clients to establish KPIs prior to the rebrand and can support in measuring success long term. Common metrics might include brand awareness or perception, engagement, customer retention, or sales.