A step-by-step process to define a brand strategy - a useful tool for individuals, businesses and organisations

Knowing your brand at a foundational level like we worked through in Worksheet 1 is invaluable, so that you can articulate the market challenge, target audience and your brand’s proposed solution. Think of it as marketing 101 for the brand challenge ahead.

Now comes brand strategy – getting to the core of what gives your brand its heart. It’s a chance to articulate your brand’s own spin on the market problem, and the unique way that you offer a solution.

We can do that through finding your brand’s:

• Purpose: this describes why you do this work. Done well, it motivates and inspires action.

• Mission: this defines how you will deliver on your purpose; the specific levers or approach you will use.  

• Vision: describes the ultimate desired endpoint when the problem has been solved - where purpose and mission collide.

Brand Purpose

Start with some questions:

1. What situation or challenge is present, and what group of people are impacted?

2. How does your brand help to solve this challenge?

Let’s use a flying doctor service as an example.* They may answer something like this:

“In Australia, it can be difficult for rural and remote people to access medical care due to their location. The flying doctor service provides essential medical services to people in these areas.”

* N.B. Not affiliated with any flying doctor service! It simply makes a useful brand challenge that nearly everyone can understand.

Let’s think back to the first three questions in our pre-game warmup:

• “What pressing challenge or problem exists in the world?”

• “For whom is it a challenge or problem?”; and

• “How can the brand solve this challenge?”

Having the answers to these questions will be useful in creating your brand purpose.

The challenge is to keep your answer short and sharp; not one word too long. Omit any information at this stage about how you’ll solve the problem, or what niche you are going to pursue; there will be a better time to get to that down the track.

What we’re really looking for is a quick picture of what the challenge is, who it impacts, and how you can help.

Brand Mission

Start with this:

What specific actions or paths has your brand chosen as a method for solving the challenge?

Ideally, your answer should specify around 2-3 specific pathways that your brand is focusing on to deliver a solution to the challenge.

Again, the flying doctor service answer may read something like this:

“The flying doctor service provides acute medical care via aircraft and telehealth to people who live in remote areas, who otherwise do not have access to this care when they need it most.”

This may seem really obvious; how else would a flying doctor service choose to provide medical care to people in remote areas?

But remember, they have multiple levers available to them: they could choose to double down on telehealth, or education by way of teaching people how to administer their own medical care. They could invest in a fleet of high-speed ambulances, or jetpacks (technology is pending on that one). Absurd, yes! But you get the drift. A business or brand has many levers available to solve any one problem and your brand mission tells your audience the specific actions that you have chosen to focus on.

Brand Vision

The final piece in this trilogy! Answer:

What does the world look like when this challenge has been addressed, and what are people free to do?

What’s the ‘perfect world’ you’re trying to create? The flying doctor service could answer this question like this:

“People in rural and remote areas of Australia can be worry-free, knowing they and their families can access healthcare when they need it most.”

For some brands, they may be out of a job if their vision is realised, and that’s ok! Imagine if the Cancer Council finally cured cancer and they no longer needed to raise funds for research, or to educate people on how to avoid or manage cancer? Happy days. I’m sure their board and CEO would feel good about moving on to other challenges.

For others, such as the flying doctor service, their vision will probably never be realised. Australia is geographically such a large place, that the reality is people will always likely require such a service to manage acute medical conditions. And jetpacks probably won’t come to fruition anytime soon. That’s ok too.

Let’s pull it all together

Now, what do we do with the answers to these questions? Here’s where some wordsmithing is required. See if you can get a few people in on the challenge and workshop the answers together. And remember — economy of words over descriptive explanations will always be more powerful.

To work out your brand purpose, finesse the answers to the questions from earlier into an elegant phrase.

• What situation or challenge is present, and what group of people are impacted?

• How does your brand help to solve this challenge?

The template below offers a good starting point.

Likewise for your Brand Mission:

• What specific actions or paths has your brand chosen as a method for solving the challenge?

And finally, to work out your brand vision, finesse the answer to:

• What does the world look like when this challenge has been addressed, and what are people free to do?

What comes next?

Voila! Hopefully you’ve emerged on the other side of this with some meaningful explanation of what makes up the heartbeat of your brand.

The process of thinking deeply about and discussing these answers will create an opportunity for alignment throughout your team (even if team = only you!). You’ll have answers ready when you need to explain what you do, how you do it, and why, leading to greater clarity and understanding within your audience.

You will also have a unique profile of your brand’s strategy – the exact blueprint for how you are going to solve a problem. This has the potential to differentiate the business from others who do work in the same space, and positions you perfectly to start building your brand identity. More for that in another post!

Did you enjoy this post? Download the free worksheet to work out your brand purpose, mission and vision.

Designing a visual brand identity presents many design decisions, such as:

• How will you approach the logo design?

• Should it have both a typemark and graphic mark?

• What typeface should you choose? Will this be used in the logo?

• What type of colour palette will you employ?

• What imagery style is best?

• Does the brand need iconography? If so, does this need to be simple or complex design?

• What type of imagery should we use?

There are two ways you can approach this:

1. ‘Gut feelings’ and intuition (window dressing); or

2. Decisions made from a collaborative marketing and brand strategy.

I’m totally here for #2!

As a designer, being able to ask some simple but incisive questions of the client allows you to weave strategy into design decision-making. You’ll have more confidence when presenting ideas, as it turns what otherwise may be seen as personal creative preferences into data-driven decisions that land with more conviction.

You’ll find much greater alignment between everyone across the client and agency teams, design decisions will be made faster with more conviction, and there will be less guessing and more ‘yes-ing’ to creative proposals.

Find a step-by-step resource below where you’ll learn a simple, four-step process that asks all the right questions to get exactly the background you need for design and brand projects that really deliver.

The CASP Model

I’m going to declare here that the CASP model is not rocket science.

I probably learned something like it in my marketing studies. But 15 years on, my recall is as good as a goldfish, and this is the model and process I’ve come to organically land on in the years that I’ve been practicing as a brand designer.

The answers to these questions provide the most reliable background for any business or brand challenge and get reliable insights – fast.

Challenge

What pressing challenge or problem exists in the world?

Start with the:

• Name of your organisation

• Industry/Area of focus

• What is the problem that exists that needs to be solved?

Problems and challenges exist on a spectrum. Some clients may be saving the world, whilst some are solving what we may consider much less pressing problems. It doesn’t matter - all are equally important when approaching brand strategy.

If you’re dealing with a perfume brand, for example, the problem may go something like:

Perfume can instil a strong sense of identity and confidence in its wearer, yet 65% of people report not wearing any’.

If they’re working to end capital punishment, this may look like:

‘Capital Punishment is a total breach of human rights and an affront to human dignity, yet is still retained in 55 countries around the world’.

Audience

For whom is it a challenge or problem?

This will vary for every business and organisation, but here’s a few below to guide your thinking:

• Age or Stage in Lifecycle (for example Retirees, Young Families, Graduates)

• Education level

• Geographical location - are they urban, suburban or rural?

• Worker type: blue or white collar, self-employed, business owner

• Income: low, medium or high

• Political: what way are they likely to vote?

• Buying habits: luxury, value or in-between?

• Values: what do they value i.e. big ideas, conforming, convenience

Before any marketing, communications or design decisions can be made, you need to be clear about who you are talking to. Which segment of the population is facing this problem? Work to define these groups as clearly as possible (there is likely more than one), and see if there are any characteristics or demographics that they share. Defining these groups and characteristics allows for informed consideration when making visual decisions later on.

For an industry gender diversity initiative, this may be articulated as:

“Females, fund management industry, 25-45 years, tertiary educated, ambitious”

For a local beauty studio, this may be more like:

“Female, 30-60 years, medium to high disposable income, may have specific concern about appearance”

Solution

How can your brand solve this challenge?

1. What are you presenting as a solution?

2. What ‘good’ will this provide to the world at large?

The solution focuses on two questions that fit together: the highest level solution the brand is providing, and the ‘good’ this provides the world at large.

For [1], try to summarise into a few words what the solution is; it could be a physical product, or program or service. For [2], go big picture: what ‘good’ does it provide?

For the gender diversity initiative:

“[A]The organisation creates programs specifically to [B] nurture female talent, and educate/shift industry perceptions”

For a career consultant for mid-career professionals:

“I provide [A] career coaching programs so that [B] people can change careers with confidence”

Product

Are there different methods you are going to use to solve the problem?

• What are the specific verticals, or product/services that are being offered?

Here’s where we can get granular. List the various pathways that the brand is choosing as part of their solution to the challenge. Aim for no more than six: if there are more, they may need to be grouped or categorised to avoid dilution. (Give it a shot, but this is not a dealbreaker).

For the gender diversity initiative:

“Programs, Mentoring Initiatives, Seminars, Networking Events, Competitions”

For a career consultant for mid-career professionals:

“1:1 coaching sessions, group coaching sessions, coaching downloadables”

What’s next?

These answers should lead to a clearly articulated summary of your brand’s:

1. Market challenge

2. Target market/audience

3. Overarching solution; and

4. Products/services

You’re now prepped and ready to find out what your Brand Purpose, Mission and Vision could be — click here for the next step in building your brand for big things.

Building Trust and Credibility

Branding can be used as a direct line to establishing awareness, trust and credibility within the NFP sector. By building a strong identity, brands are better able to influence their audience, raise funds and mobilise support.

A summary of your track record (results) is a fast way to demonstrate your impact, and provide reasons as to why your audience should trust you to help solve the larger problem at hand. Established organisations can do this by gathering examples of their achievements, and outline measurable ways that they have made an impact to their cause.

New organisations can also do this by focusing on the previous achievements of their people. What have your team members achieved before they joined the organisation? Lead by introducing each person and listing the unique skills and achievements that led them to joining your team.

Never undersell passion; when communicated clearly, it can also be a powerful tool in building trust and credibility.

Above: The McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer can clearly articulate the impact they are making across the world.

Take action

(1) Make a list of ten initiatives (or more!) that your organisation has driven or participated in over the last few years. Rank them in order of the impact that they achieved for your cause. Step into the shoes of someone who is allocating grants — what achievements would be most compelling for them to read that would further the work that they do? If it’s a regional or government grant, what will assure them that their funding is being well-directed? If it’s a philanthropist, what causes are important to them — and can you identify any personal values from the things they have funded in the past? Try tapping into these when you narrow down your list of achievements, and position each with this in mind.

(2) Make another list of smaller actions that, whilst may not have created broad impact, you are really proud of. These actions may not be overly measurable in any other way than they have had a profound impact on a person or group in an interesting, compelling or otherwise unforgettable way. These make great ‘nuggets’ of information or anecdotes that can bring colour to your communications and contribute to making your organisation memorable. When you share the stories of the impact created by your organisation's work, you can connect emotionally with your audience, and they’ll understand the positive change you bring to the world.

Craft a simple, repeatable storytelling framework

Storytelling lies at the heart of effective branding for not-for-profits. By crafting a compelling narrative, you have more power to engage and inspire your audience.

The first building block is articulating a clear and meaningful set of mission, vision and values — further establishing your organisation as a trusted authority that can attract the right donors, volunteers, and supporters who align with your cause.

Take Action

1. Gather all of your key stakeholders in a room to workshop your brand purpose, mission, vision and values. Between 4-6 participants is ideal — invite more than eight people at your peril! You want to create an environment where people can share and contribute equally in a psychologically safe environment.

2. Create a communications ‘Boilerplate’ that articulate the exercise above. You can use this to lock down a messaging hierarchy that extends from from your topline (or simplest — a tagline is a great example) right down to 3-4 ‘pillars’ — descriptions of the way that you impact the world. Also useful to include are summaries that 25 word, 50 word and 100 word variations about your organisation.

Consistency in Messaging and Visuals

Consistency is key when it comes to branding for every organisation — be they for profit-generating or not. It pays to check-in and make sure that your messaging (see above) and visual elements are aligned across all communication channels.

Start by creating a visually consistent system for logos, colors, fonts, and imagery. Locking these things down help to create a recognisable and cohesive visual identity, not to mention keeping your brand and graphics neat, tidy and easy to use.

Reinforce this by building a set of templates for you and your team to use. You don’t need fancy software — whilst Adobe Creative Suite is the professional gold standard, Canva or even Microsoft PowerPoint also provide user-friendly alternatives. Always go with what will be the easiest for your team to work and collaborate with; there’s no point making things more difficult by introducing unknown or complicated software to your workflow.

A good template system has a variety of options ranging from text only, image only and multiple hybrids across pitch decks, proposal documents and social media graphics. The more options you can provide your team, the more they will feel empowered to make choices that best fit what they are trying to communicate. If you make their choices too narrow or boring, they may just go off-piste to meet their needs, which is rarely good for brand consistency!

Take Action

1. Firstly, invest as much as you are able to in high-quality branding from a professional graphic designer. A polished visual identity will speak volumes for your credibility and ability to cut through in a noisy world. Avoid bad logo design, as often, this is the first and only thing people will have to go off! If your budget is really tight, opt for a simple typographical logo that does no harm. Employ a consistent colour palette and font choices and pull it together in a brand style guide for teammates to use and stay on-track.

2. A brand style guide (or ‘brand bible’) is a document that pulls together everything for anyone who works closely with your brand, and demonstrates how to apply key messaging, organisational values, logo usage, brand colors, typography, imagery style and templating systems. It’s generally a long-form document with granular direction on how to apply the brand which people can save as a ready-reckoner at any time they need to apply the brand.

Engaging with Stakeholders

Effective branding goes beyond visual and external communication; it also encompasses actively engaging with stakeholders as often as you can. By finding regular opportunities for dialogue and collaboration with donors, volunteers, and beneficiaries you keep the conversation about your cause alive, and closer to top-of-mind that you’d otherwise be.

Look for strategic partnerships and collaborations can significantly amplify the impact of your NFP. Identify like-minded organisations and explore opportunities for joint initiatives, which may create reduction in the duplication of effort and expand your audience. By aligning your organisations, pooling resources and involving each other in social media efforts, you can leverage each other's strengths and expand your reach, ultimately making a more significant difference to the cause and community you serve. Many causes have multiple NFPs that work to make an impact, and it can be tempting to be competitive, especially when vying for grants and other funding. The great Truman quote comes to mind: ‘It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.’

Revisit your purpose, mission and vision and you’ll find that every organisation offers the world something slightly different, but also, you’ll remind yourself that the problem you are solving cares not for who solves it, but how and when.

Take Action

1. (Create regular opportunities to communicate with your audience, be it through social media, email marketing or even events. Give them a reason to follow you or be receptive to your emails by regularly publishing high-quality thought leadership or articles that they will find to be of value. Communications channels are crowded spaces, and it pays to put some time, thought and effort into your content strategy.

2. Where possible, involve stakeholders in any strategic work you do as an organisation. Invite them to participate in workshops, focus groups, surveys or simply jump on the phone for a quick chat to gain qualitative data and an unique, invaluable perspective that you can reinvest back into your strategy, making it more incisive.

Measuring Brand Impact

Measuring the impact of your branding efforts is first of all crucial for continuous improvement. Additionally, it’s great data that can help you demonstrate a return on donor’s funding.

Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your organisational goals. This will depend on the stage of the lifecycle your organisation is in. For startups, brand awareness will be most important as you spread the word. For younger organisations, engagement may then be a primary goal as you engage people with your cause. Sophisticated organisations will likely track donations, both new and retained. Make sure the metrics make sense for your organisation — there’s no point shooting for ambitious donation targets if no-one knows about you.

Brand metrics such as brand awareness, engagement levels, donor retention rates, and volunteer participation can all be used to build valuable data for donors and funding. Make a plan to regularly analyse these to gain insights into the effectiveness of your branding strategies and empower you to make data-driven decisions.

Take Action

Measurement doesn’t need to be fancy or complicated — many NFPs just won’t have the budget or justification to divert precious funds to sophisticated data collection. Monitoring web analytics is easy and free with tools like Google Analytics, Squarespace Analytics or any tools that your website platform may already have. Ditto for email marketing which shows open and click throughs rates, as well as detailed information about which buttons and links performed better.

If you’re on social media, make note of analytics that can tell you which content or posts perform better than others, and try to recognise any themes or patterns that you can leverage to drive your communications strategy.

In summary

For NFPs, branding is a powerful tool that can drive impact and get you a step closer to fulfilling on your mission. By developing a strong brand identity, crafting compelling narratives, and engaging with stakeholders you can build trust, attract support, and make a lasting difference.

Remember, the strength of your brand lies in the authenticity of your message and the connections you foster. Unleash the power of branding, and let it propel your NFP toward a future filled with meaningful change.

Branding and communications for not-for-profit enterprises

I love to work with NFPs! I offer discounted rates, and also take on pro-bono projects where there is capacity and an alignment in values.

Get in touch today for a chat.

What is Color Psychology?

Color psychology is the study of how different hues can influence human behavior, emotions, and perceptions. You can go deep on this one! Many have studied the impact that colour has on people, and it’s fascinating. Whilst, I take a much more instinctive approach to creating colour palettes for my clients (I’ve long forgotten formal instruction on colour theory) I do find it interesting to read about as I happily find that my instincts are usually accurate.

Here are some colours and their widely understood meanings:

Using your brand's personality to define a palette

Before diving into color selection, it's useful to define your brand's personality. Like humans, each brand has a personality (whether you’ve formally defined this or not) based on how you see and conduct yourself, but this is a topic for another time!

Your brand personality plays a vital role in determining the most suitable color scheme for your visual identity. The colors you choose should align with the traits and values you want to convey to your audience.

Here’s some output from a brand personality exercise from the strategy phase with my wonderful client Future IM/Pact:

In this exercise each team member came up with an animal that they felt best represented the brand. The value of this exercise is never so much which animal, but rather the reasons behind the choice, and how different perspectives can lead to a stronger and more aligned brand, built by the entire team.

From the initial conversation about animals, we were able to articulate adjectives that described the brand — welcoming, trusted, optimistic, focused, dynamic and bold. This was then top of mind when it came to create a colour palette.

All of the feels

When promoting your brand, do you want your audience to feel a bold and dynamic energy or a more calming and soothing connection? By aligning your brand's personality traits with the appropriate colors, you can more effectively communicate your values and accurately position your brand with your target audience.

For example, leadership consultants might opt for a palette that exudes their personality, while medical organisations or experts might lean towards colors that evoke trust and a sense of calm.

By interpreting the emotions and associations evoked by different colors, you can strategically select a scheme that reflects your brand's personality and has a better opportunity to resonate with your target audience.

The power of primaries

Primary colors—red, blue, and yellow— traditionally hold significant meaning and can be a strong foundation for your any brand color palette. It is understood in Western cultures that red conveys passion and excitement, blue trust and professionalism, and yellow represents optimism and warmth.

Interestingly, orange (a secondary colour created from yellow + red) has traditionally been associated with low-cost brands, so if you’re wishing to position your brand as premium, best to steer clear of this one.

Creating harmonious color schemes

Harmony in color selection is crucial to maintain visual appeal and coherence. The adage ‘red and green should never be seen’ is, unfortunately, correct. Use them exclusively at your peril, unless you specialise in Christmas goods or services.

Here’s where it gets interesting: explore complementary colors that sit opposite each other on the color wheel, such as blue and orange or purple and yellow, to create vibrant and eye-catching combinations. Analogous colors, which are adjacent to each other on the color wheel, offer a more subtle and harmonious palette.

Colour palettes for today’s brands need to work hard. I recommend identifying six to eight - yes, eight! You will likely use between two and four as your primary palette, but it’s useful to extend this if you are going to be using tools such as PowerPoint or Word.

Here’s a useful way to break down a palette:

Definiting a colour palette is possibly one of the most fun parts of the branding process, and it plays a pivotal role in capturing attention, conveying messages, and establishing a strong brand identity. By mastering the art of color selection, you can create a powerful and memorable brand presence that resonates with your audience, aligns with your personality and values, and can play a lead role in a brand suite that has the power to move people’s hearts and minds.