Sticking to the Blueprint

Why building a brand strategy–and sticking to it–is vital in today’s market

During one of our weekly meetings recently, a Paradigm team member mentioned that they had seen (and loved) the new F1 movie. They had started following stats, watching the Netflix series–all of it.

After seeing the movie myself, I could see why. It brought the world of F1 to life, building upon the brand story that they had already begun to tell years ago. No matter which touch point you are connecting with, F1 is the same throughout from movie, to social media, to the races themselves, and it again reminded me of the importance of sticking to the brand strategy, or as we like to call it here at Paradigm–the Blueprint.

Establishing the Strategy

When clients come to us with a project, they often come with a laundry list of needs ranging from a name, to a logo, to a website, to packaging design. You name it, and we’ve probably heard it. What we rarely hear them say, however, is that they need a brand strategy–a blueprint if you will.

Because while each of those components are important in helping a brand succeed in the marketplace, they can only take your business so far if left to stand alone. Yet when everything works together based off the key values that you established in your blueprint, that’s when you start to see a difference. Like an F1 team working together (i.e. the pit crew, the engineers, the drivers, etc.), each channel and tactic has an important role to play in helping the team win, but none of it would be possible without the strategy. When a member of the team starts to stray from the plan even a little, their chances of winning start to slip away.

The same can be said for each brand that we work with, which is why we often urge clients to let us start by developing their own version of a strategy, or a blueprint. We work with your team to see what makes your brand stand out in the marketplace: your values, your messaging, your brand’s personality–all of it. Because although it’s important to maintain consistent design across all channels, it’s the messaging–the story that you tell–and how you tell it that matters most.

Strategy into Action

This brand strategy then serves as the blueprint for your business so that when race day comes, all of the parts work together to tell the same story across all channels. In a world where you have less than 10 seconds to capture a consumer’s attention, each time someone interacts with your brand, it has to tell the right story, and quickly. If a user’s experience is not consistent across each touchpoint, you risk losing valuable “seconds” in the race as they determine if you are legitimate or not.

Just like a pit crew only has a few seconds to change a tire and needs to know exactly what to do, each part of your marketing plan has a specific job to perform. Once we’ve established a brand strategy, we come alongside you to determine which crew members, or channels, are needed to help your brand ultimately stand out and succeed. Along the way, we’ll check performance throughout the campaign at various pit stops, adjusting our tactics and referring back to the established brand strategy.

Helping Team Orion Succeed

Take Orion Financial, for instance. We worked with their team to develop a detailed blueprint that would re-establish their brand identity to ultimately help them engage their member base and keep growing.

With the right strategy in place, we updated their logo, redesigned the website, designed billboards, created videos and more. Because according to Salesforce, it takes 6-8 marketing touches to generate a viable lead. So while each of the above touchpoints would help Orion succeed on their own, their chances increase drastically when they work together based off of the Blueprint.

Reaching the Finish Line

Without the right strategy in place to direct your brand, the different marketing tactics might actually work against one another when it comes time to putting the plan into action, much like if the members of a F1 team weren’t following the strategy.

Yet when each channel and tactic tells the same story–what makes your brand unique–that’s when it all comes together to help your business win on race day. And at Paradigm, our dedicated team would love to help you do just that.