A startup business faces many difficult challenges getting off the ground. For many early stage CEO’s assessing their priorities, product development and the seed money to grow are their primary concerns. Few if any are thinking much about the critical importance of brand building.
For startup CEOs, brand building needs to be as important to early business success as product development and raising money. You can have the most innovative, groundbreaking product ever conceived, but if you can’t create a strong foundation for communicating that value to investors and the marketplace, chances are the business venture won’t go far.
You don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression.
Everyone has heard that statement before. But for startup brands the statement holds even more significance. Whatever startup brands are doing, chances are they’re doing it for the first time. The first presentation to an investor, customer or important employee must be simple, clear and compelling — there are no second chances.
Developing a strong brand is critical to the early success of startups and emerging companies.
A workshop designed to build an advantage.
Over the course of this one-day workshop you’ll build a strategic foundation for success in your early stage business through focus in four critical areas:
1. To Whom You Market
You can only create successful products or solutions when you know who the most fervent buyers will be. It’s critical to understand as much as you can about the core target customer segment to whom the brand is intended to appeal.
2. Why They Buy
Grabbing the largest share of those customers’ wallets requires a complete understanding on what drives the target customer to products/brands in your space. Defining the context that will give the brand unquestioned relevance to the target customer against their illuminating needs, motivations, attitudes, and preferences is essential for brand building success.
3. What Makes Your Brand Highly Valued And Difficult To Substitute
To drive purchase behavior, the brand needs to represent a compelling and highly emotional benefit to the target customer. This benefit must be relevant, differentiating and believable. How well you position your products/services will determine whether your brand will make it into the hearts and minds of those that matter most to your future and whether your brand will dominate their spending patterns.
4. How Your Brand Competes
Your brand equity, or the health of your brand, is a culmination of every experience customers have with your brand. These associations, attitudes and perceptions determine whether the brand will build a following of loyal advocates who will be the first to try new products and extensions or not.
Creating A Bigger Future For Your Brand
Our Brand Strategy Workshop for Startups and Emerging Companies are designed for one client and include early stage Founders, CEOs, and their teams. They are typically held off-site, at a venue of your choosing. With no distractions, business teams will step away from the urgency of running their business and focus on the important strategic and creative decisions for creating bigger futures for their brand. We also offer an ONLINE approach.
Drawing from decades of brand building expertise, The Blake Project designed The Brand Strategy Workshop for Startups and Emerging Companies specifically to help early stage CEOs: a.) identify new opportunities in the marketplace b.) recalibrate their focus in raising venture capital c.) concentrate on creating bigger futures for their brand in a creative, collaborative and interactive setting.
The Brand Strategy Workshop for Startups and Emerging Companies is particularly useful for Founders and CEOs who are engaged in the early planning stages of:
- seeking new rounds of venture funding
- defining what value they will represent in the world
- naming their new enterprise
- introducing new products
- creating marketing and communication strategies
- planning to enter new markets or serve a new customer segment
- planning to shift brand messaging and communication strategies
At the conclusion of the workshop, The Blake Project will prepare a comprehensive executive summary documenting all strategic decisions and hypothesis that will serve as a pathway toward implementing marketing and communications programs to create a bigger future for your brand.
Workshop Executive Summary
The executive summary will serve as a decision document, the basis for developing actionable creative briefs guiding the brand team’s marketing communications partners, future marketing initiatives and business strategy.
The summary will include detailed descriptions of following workshop content:
- Brand Positioning Criteria
- The Brand Mission and Vision
- The Frame of Reference
- Target Customer Segment Description
- Target Customer Benefit Hierarchy
- Behavioral Drivers / What Target Customers Value Most
- Brand Positioning Framework
- Final Brand Positioning Statement, Brand Essence, Brand Promise
- Desired Target Customer Associations with the Brand
- The Brand Essence
- Strategic Imperatives and Next Steps
The Brand Strategy Workshop for Startups and Emerging Companies has been validated by Founders, Entrepreneurs and CEOs in dozens of business categories for its ability to align and energize the organization and its management team with a strong foundation for business success.
This work will greatly impact the success of your startup brand for years to come.
Please email me for more about how this workshop can benefit your brand.
Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education
