How to create an effective brand communication strategy
Written by James Deverick | 22nd September 2023
Your brand isn’t necessarily what you say it is—it’s what your customers say it is.
A brand communication strategy aligns your brand identity, values, and mission with your internal and external communications. This enables you to deliver consistent, on-brand messaging to the right customer via their preferred channel.
The result? Improved customer trust, engagement, revenue, and loyalty.
Before we dive into some tips on how to create an effective brand communication strategy, let’s look at brand identity a bit closer.
A brand communication strategy aligns your brand identity, values, and mission with your internal and external communications. This enables you to deliver consistent, on-brand messaging to the right customer via their preferred channel.
The result? Improved customer trust, engagement, revenue, and loyalty.
Before we dive into some tips on how to create an effective brand communication strategy, let’s look at brand identity a bit closer.
Getting to know your brand
What is your brand identity?
Regardless of whether you’re an SME or a global enterprise, you’ve probably got a list of core brand values, missions, and visuals that make up your brand identity. But, if you fail to communicate them to your customers effectively, you risk your message becoming lost in translation.
A brand communication strategy enables your target audience to get to know your brand on a deeper, more emotional level. It helps you identify the best channels to target and the best content to create in order to meet business goals.
Regardless of whether you’re an SME or a global enterprise, you’ve probably got a list of core brand values, missions, and visuals that make up your brand identity. But, if you fail to communicate them to your customers effectively, you risk your message becoming lost in translation.
A brand communication strategy enables your target audience to get to know your brand on a deeper, more emotional level. It helps you identify the best channels to target and the best content to create in order to meet business goals.
Creating an effective brand communication strategy
So, how do you create a brand communication strategy that works?
Identifying your target audience
The more you know about your target audience, the more accurately you can align your brand communication to their needs, preferences, and interests.
Identify the demographics, buying habits, motivations, and preferred communication channels of your target audience. Use this data to develop buyer personas for each customer type. This will help you create tailored content that genuinely resonates with your target audience.
Identify the demographics, buying habits, motivations, and preferred communication channels of your target audience. Use this data to develop buyer personas for each customer type. This will help you create tailored content that genuinely resonates with your target audience.
Setting communication goals
What are you hoping to achieve by improving your brand communication? What exactly does “effective communication” look like to you?
Setting specific goals will guide your brand communication strategy in the right direction. You’ll be able to identify and deliver core messages, measure the effectiveness of your initiatives, and make targeted improvements.
Your communication goals might be to:
Setting specific goals will guide your brand communication strategy in the right direction. You’ll be able to identify and deliver core messages, measure the effectiveness of your initiatives, and make targeted improvements.
Your communication goals might be to:
- Improve customer trust and loyalty.
- Increase customer engagement.
- Foster better brand-employee relationships.
- Diversify communications to maximize brand reach.
- Drive conversions.
Developing a consistent brand voice
What is your brand’s personality? Are you edgy and bold? Authoritative and professional? Motivational and inspiring?
Your brand’s personality needs to be communicated authentically across channels, which is why developing a unique brand voice is vital. Your brand’s voice is the tone and language you use to communicate with customers and develop an emotional connection.
For example, your brand voice might be polished and informative if business professionals were your target audience. But if you’re targeting students, you might adopt a more conversational and humorous tone.
The key here is consistency. Clearly define your brand voice to your sales, marketing, and customer service teams to make sure that your tone and language remain consistent across channels. In doing so, you create an authentic, resonating brand personality.
Your brand’s personality needs to be communicated authentically across channels, which is why developing a unique brand voice is vital. Your brand’s voice is the tone and language you use to communicate with customers and develop an emotional connection.
For example, your brand voice might be polished and informative if business professionals were your target audience. But if you’re targeting students, you might adopt a more conversational and humorous tone.
The key here is consistency. Clearly define your brand voice to your sales, marketing, and customer service teams to make sure that your tone and language remain consistent across channels. In doing so, you create an authentic, resonating brand personality.
Choosing apt communication channels
The best place to communicate with your target audience is via the channel that they’re already using. So, conduct some research to get an accurate idea of the channels your customers frequently engage with.
Age is a pretty significant influencer. Generally speaking, Gen Z and Millenials prefer to interact with brands via digital channels such as social media, videos, online ads, etc. On the other hand, Gen X and Boomers prefer traditional channels like TV, radio, and print ads.
Gen Z customers are particularly influenced by digital channels. 71% prefer to discover new brands and products via social media.
Age is a pretty significant influencer. Generally speaking, Gen Z and Millenials prefer to interact with brands via digital channels such as social media, videos, online ads, etc. On the other hand, Gen X and Boomers prefer traditional channels like TV, radio, and print ads.
Gen Z customers are particularly influenced by digital channels. 71% prefer to discover new brands and products via social media.
Implementing communication
So, now you know which channels to communicate on. But how do you put that into action?
- Drive customer engagement with social media and videos. Create eye-catching visual content that generates likes, comments, and shares. Use different types of video content to resonate with each customer persona and communicate your brand message effectively.
- Develop better customer relationships with valuable, personalized content. Use customer feedback, surveys, and CRM data to gather customer insights that fuel your content creation process. Email marketing strategies are particularly effective at building relationships, so use segmentation to deliver hyper-personalized email content.
- Improve the clarity of your communications by prioritizing clear, accurate, and unambiguous channels. This should apply to all elements of your operations, from internal messaging to inventory management. Order processing software, for example, gives you a real-time view of inventory levels and shipping/delivery statuses. So you can confidently communicate accurate, up-to-date inventory and order information with customers.
Coordinating internal and external communication
If employees are confused by—or don’t agree with—your brand’s message, they’re not going to be able to deliver on your brand’s promise. This can have seriously negative reputational consequences, both internally and externally.
But, by aligning your employees with your brand message, you can improve employee-customer conversations.
Why not create customized explainer videos to communicate your brand message to both your employees and your customers? Brand storytelling is a powerful marketing strategy that, when combined with compelling visuals, can not only inform and engage your audience but really connect them to your brand message.
Other tips for coordinating your internal and external communications include sharing company news with employees, using an internal communications app, and building a strong culture of community.
Remember, your brand’s message needs to be communicated from the inside out.
But, by aligning your employees with your brand message, you can improve employee-customer conversations.
Why not create customized explainer videos to communicate your brand message to both your employees and your customers? Brand storytelling is a powerful marketing strategy that, when combined with compelling visuals, can not only inform and engage your audience but really connect them to your brand message.
Other tips for coordinating your internal and external communications include sharing company news with employees, using an internal communications app, and building a strong culture of community.
Remember, your brand’s message needs to be communicated from the inside out.
Evolving your strategies
Once you’ve implemented your brand communication strategy, you need to continually measure its success.
If your goal was to increase customer engagement, you’d measure the number of likes, comments, and shares generated by your campaign. If your goal was to improve customer trust, you’d use social listening tools to monitor the sentiment of online conversations surrounding your brand.
Use the data gathered from your analysis to improve your strategy in alignment with your goals.
Another way to evolve brand communication strategies is by streamlining any core operational processes that might be hindering effective communication.
Take manual billing, for example—it lengthens the billing process and increases the risk of calculation errors. These types of errors can have a greater effect on your business, such as cash-flow issues that affect your communications budget or a knock-on effect on your order process and a poor customer experience.
But by using an accounting billing software, on the other hand, you can automate tasks such as data input and error checking, improving accuracy, avoiding issues, and encouraging positive brand-customer communications.
Ultimately, the key to having a continuously improving strategy is to take a holistic approach to your business and understand how one poor system can affect another.
If your goal was to increase customer engagement, you’d measure the number of likes, comments, and shares generated by your campaign. If your goal was to improve customer trust, you’d use social listening tools to monitor the sentiment of online conversations surrounding your brand.
Use the data gathered from your analysis to improve your strategy in alignment with your goals.
Another way to evolve brand communication strategies is by streamlining any core operational processes that might be hindering effective communication.
Take manual billing, for example—it lengthens the billing process and increases the risk of calculation errors. These types of errors can have a greater effect on your business, such as cash-flow issues that affect your communications budget or a knock-on effect on your order process and a poor customer experience.
But by using an accounting billing software, on the other hand, you can automate tasks such as data input and error checking, improving accuracy, avoiding issues, and encouraging positive brand-customer communications.
Ultimately, the key to having a continuously improving strategy is to take a holistic approach to your business and understand how one poor system can affect another.
Key takeaway
A brand communication strategy requires you to really get to know your customers on a deeper level. By knowing what their preferences, behaviors, and favorite communication channels are, you can create powerful content that not only reaches them but resonates with them.
