Brand Strategy Consulting

Connect your brand to your business goals.

Unanswered questions, untested assumptions

Are your marketing efforts based on untested assumptions about who your customers are and what they need? Do members of your leadership team describe your purpose and business goals with the same language? Do your employees know your brand’s core values, and do they believe in them?

Most of us assume that the answers to these will be ‘yes,’ and we leave the questions unasked and unanswered. How did you answer? Working with a brand strategy firm to develop your brand strategy will let you answer ‘yes’ with certainty.

What is brand strategy?

Your brand is the internal and external perception of your organization (not just your logo). This perception lives in the minds of your customers, employees, and others who encounter your brand out in the world. Your brand strategy is your plan to influence and shape that perception, developed through a collaborative and research-based method.

*You may see references to brand awareness strategy or brand development strategy. To Chalkbox, those are the same as, or part of, brand strategy.

Let’s strategize together

We are intellectually curious, empathetic listeners, and passionate collaborators, dedicated to helping good people do good work. Our brand strategy service is adaptable and comprehensive. It encompasses the following components.

Clarity

You know your business better than anyone, but you still may lack clarity or agreement within your organization around your goals, your purpose, your audience, and your competitors. We work with you and your team to test assumptions and bring these items into focus. The insights gained here fuel the audience, competitor, and market research we use to form a plan for meaningful brand building.

Definition

Having gained clarity, we work with you to distill your brand’s core values and purpose into concise statements. Your purpose is the why and how behind your business—the reason your business exists, and how you deliver on that. Your core values are the heartbeat of your company, the unique attributes that will make you stand out amongst your competitors. These serve as a directional beacon, guiding your brand towards its aspirational future state.

Humanization

Your values and your purpose give form to your brand’s personality. We help encapsulate your brand's character in words and visuals, ensuring its authentic resonance with your audience. This gives you something tangible to measure marketing and design efforts against. Does that ad demonstrate your brand personality? Does it speak like your brand would speak if it were a person? Is it dressed appropriately (does it look right) for your audience?

Brand Building

Bringing together Clarity, Definition, and Humanization with our brand strategy framework, we develop a strategic plan to build your brand. This is the answer to the question ‘What next?’ Your plan will serve as a source of truth. It will act as a roadmap and launchpad for key brand-building activities like creating/refining your brand identity, effectively communicating your culture and values, ensuring your stakeholders are in alignment, and launching effective marketing campaigns.

Want to know more? Let’s talk.

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Brand Strategy FAQ

Here are the questions we get asked most often about brand strategy. What questions do you have?

Brand strategy is a long-term plan formulated by a brand strategist and a business to shape a distinctive identity, differentiate from competitors, and establish a strong, consistent image in the mind of consumers. It is a means to ensure that brand building efforts are in line with short- and long-term business goals.

Brand strategy provides clarity, definition, and humanization. Without clarity, you might make incorrect assumptions about the needs of your audience. Without definition might present an inconsistent image to your audience, leading to confusion and a weaker market position. Without humanization, you may make business decisions that are out of alignment with your brand.

Without strategy, you might miss or misuse opportunities to resonate with target customers and differentiate from competitors. This will absolutely impact growth and profitability.

The first step of a brand strategy engagement is to "know theyself." We will gather your stakeholders and leadership to talk through your current and future business goals, determine what core values are guiding your business, lay out assumptions regarding your competitors and target audience, and conduct a brand audit. With clarity and consensus achieved, this information serves as a springboard for the rest of the strategy process.