Every successful brand has a strategy

At the high level, yes – you can design a comprehensive brand strategy for any type of brand, in any market, anywhere in the world. However, certain fundamental elements of your brand strategy may be more relevant to your brand than others, depending on whether you’re B2B, or B2C, your market and your distribution channels. The Brand Strategy Toolkit addresses all of the fundamentals and provides guidance for you to create your implementation plan. However, the ultimate success of your product or service in the marketplace is dependent upon your own input and your execution over time.

The total runtime of the screencast instructions is just under five hours. However, you will need additional time to address and complete each element of your strategy. Developing a comprehensive brand strategy is one of the most challenging tasks in the marketing field. It’s also one of the most valuable and most rewarding. If you were to complete each module straight through, doing a thorough job, you should budget three to five work days. A skilled brand strategist might only need one to two days to develop the strategy. However, most marketers/teams should spread out the work over the course of two to eight weeks. You will need some time to work through certain elements and generate creative ideas.

You are building your brand strategy, which is the final deliverable. You will complete that by filling out your strategy report for each module – answering questions, making decisions, recording ideas, estimating numbers, writing copy and determining your implementation needs. The toolkit delivers the process, instructions, examples, your report template and Excel calculators.

From a previous FAQ, the toolkit provides the framework and guidance to design a comprehensive brand strategy for any type of brand, in any market, anywhere in the world. However, depending on your brand type, market, resources available and competition, you may find that you only need certain elements of the brand strategy to make a meaningful impact. For example, if you’re a small casual restaurant that relies on the walkup lunch crowd, and you only have one location, you probably only need to focus on your name, brand messaging and the elements of your brand experience. In that example, you might only use 15% of the elements in the toolkit. However, if you’re in a large market, or sell multiple products, or provide professional services, or sell direct to your customer, you will most likely use most of the elements in the toolkit.

The toolkit modules 1-6 are designed to work together. If you need a brand name, then you’ll need module 7 as well, and we recommend to complete the modules in sequence, starting with module 1 and selecting your brand name last. That ensures that you have a strong understanding of what your name should represent. We provide access to individual modules for people who don’t have the budget to purchase full access and wish to complete each over time, or for those who only need a specific module or wish to try out a module before accessing the entire toolkit.

Absolutely. The toolkit will give you the framework and guidance for designing a brand strategy. However, it’s most useful to apply to a brand you’re building – whether a real or a hypothetical brand. This isn’t academic theory, it’s real-world strategic marketing guidance, so you will gain a greater benefit by applying it rather than just reading about it.