How to prepare ahead of a brand strategy workshop
You’ve identified that you need help to define your brand, or your marketing approach.
What do you need to do before booking in a strategy workshop?
Disclaimer - all of the things below, a strategist can help with. However, you would need to factor that into the costs and timelines if they’re helping you with the business strategy side.
1. Identify your business goals for the next year, 5 years, and long-term objectives.
To be able to create a brand that resonates with your business, is relevant to what you’re wanting to achieve, and will help you get results - you need to actually define what success looks like for your business first.
What do you want to achieve in the next year? What is your 12 month plan?
Do you have any new products, services, or campaigns happening in the next year?
Are you wanting to grow, gain consistency, or establish yourself in the market?
Do you have baseline metrics of where you are now, and KPIs of what you need to achieve to ‘hit your targets’?
What is your five year vision for your business?
This is something that a brand strategist can help you define, but it’s helpful to start thinking about it early. Where do you want your business to be in the next few years?
What change do you want to see happen?
Do you have any aspirations or brands that you look up to?
Finally, what is the long-term objective for your business?
This is a good one for the small businesses or freelancers out there.
Are you wanting to build a brand and business that you can sell eventually?
Or, do you want to build a business that keeps going and growing with you, until you want to finish?
Do you want to grow into a bigger business, eventually one that you can leave and retire?
It may seem like a long way off - but if you’re investing in a brand strategy, it’s good to know which direction you eventually want to be going in.
2. Engage any internal teams so that they know what’s happening
The key to a successful brand strategy is engagement internally - and that means keeping everyone in the loop.
Brand and marketing workshops do well when we have a good representation of your organisation in the room. I don’t mean 50 people - but 4 or 5 key people from across different departments so that they bring something different to the mix.
I like to ask these questions for them to think about ahead of the workshop:
What does this business stand for?
On a really good day, what is great about your business that you should really shout about?
What other brands or companies out there do you take inspiration from?
3. Think about building a group of stakeholders for checking in with throughout the process
These should be internal and external.
Internal: A brand squad - ideally the same people in the above workshop who give a good representation from across the organisation and can help with testing the strategy
External: A group of people who represent your key audiences for us to interview, test initial ideas and get feedback from.
4. Identify your budget and timeline
This is a key one ahead of hiring a strategist - identify what your budget is, and if there is a deadline for the delivery of the strategy.
A strategy can’t be created in a couple of weeks - not properly anyway! It needs research, workshopping, initial ideas, testing, engagement internally before refining and launching.
It needs availability internally.
Clear minds and clear diaries? You’re ready to crack on.
If you’re looking for a brand strategy for a business that’s working towards positive change - get in touch! I offer a free no obligation discovery chat to see if we’re the right fit.
