Brand Architecture

 

Brand is important to a corporation. It normally start with knowing your market, which mean written marketing plan. When you’d have it, you uncover parts of it. It can be challenging to blend sales and marketing plan with business plan because they focus on different things separating them from one another. But they complete each other by bringing all the pieces of your business together.

Business plan discuss overall objectives, resources required to achieve them, and strategies for it. Sales and marketing plan take your business to the next level. It focuses on channels, tactics and strategies for marketing and making sales. These show things – characters, strength, and weaknesses – that matter to the corporation. It simplifies progress for brand architecture’s process because you have identified characters.

Use these to picture your business. It is an objective perspectives – using data from market research – that help visualize the company operating for delivering value for customers. Focus on created value surrounding a business model before its plan and execution. Try to see your business’ added-value perceived by your customers.

Then choose characters that matters to them. Three to ten characters are useful for describing your company. For example, a restaurant that identifies added-value that provide a customer friendly environment for people can list these characters: friendly, flexible, social, organized, service-oriented, respectful etc. These signify the added-value.

But so would other things – what colors, symbols or objects say all these? What characters, colors and symbols signify those things? Acknowledge what the service/product allow people to do, or what they do while using it. Using the example with restaurant, it can be socializing and watching television or movie. Acknowledging the difference between those who want to talk and those who want to watch television.

The restaurant owner might choose to have a television that somehow tell a story. It can be a football game, news or other occurring societal events. They do this because the television is in lowest volume, so it doesn’t interrupt those whom are socializing at the restaurant. People do other things with the products. Some brands are meant to inspire people others make them relax.

The golden question is, with your business structure, what do your product/service let people do apart from using it? It is the added value. Focus on something that product – in additional to its standard function – is doing for customers/clients.

In conclusion, the best way to find a brand is to look at other things (apart from intended function) your products does for your customers. You can list all of them and decide the most valuable one to your audience/customers.