In a competitive business environment, building a Brand Strategy is no longer an option but has become a prerequisite for a business’s success. Businesses with a strong brand can stand out in a competitive market, build trust and connect sustainably with customers. Let’s explore with SEFA Media the 4 important steps to build a Brand Strategy that will take your business to the next level in 2025!
What is Brand Strategy?
Brand Strategy is a long-term plan that helps a business build, develop and maintain a consistent image in the minds of customers. This is how an organization creates its mark, maintains trust, enhances the value of its products and services and promotes customer loyalty.
The ultimate goal is to get consumers to recognize and prefer your service/product over your competitors. Brand Strategy revolves around all the elements that drive brand awareness, brand value, and customer loyalty over time.
Why is building a Brand Strategy important?
So what factors make building a Brand Strategy a vital condition for a business?
Create sustainable competitive advantage in the market
In a world where customers have countless choices, without a clear point of difference, businesses can easily fall into a spiral of price competition and be replaced by competitors offering similar products or services. A well-developed development strategy helps to identify unique core values, creating an impression in the minds of customers.
Along with product quality, it is important to have a clear message, deliver a consistent experience, and demonstrate a distinct business philosophy. When built correctly, a brand can simultaneously create recognition and foster loyalty, fostering long-term relationships with customers.
If businesses only focus on improving products and ignore Brand Strategy, they can easily be copied and lose their competitive advantage.
Build trust and emotional connection with customers
One of the key factors that influence purchasing decisions is the level of trust that a business creates in the minds of customers (Mahliza, 2020). When an organization demonstrates consistency and credibility, consumers not only feel secure in their choices but also form long-term relationships.
Branding strategies play a key role in reinforcing this belief through clear messaging, consistent product quality, and an excellent customer experience. A brand should not only convince through tangible value, but also evoke empathy through emotional elements.
In addition, when creating a deep connection, customers do not simply make decisions based on reason (price, quality) but also on the spiritual values that the brand brings. This helps the brand become a part of their lives, promoting strong spread and forming a loyal, sustainable customer base.
Increase brand value
Brand value is one of the most important intangible assets that determines a company’s ability to generate revenue and maintain long-term profits. A business with a strong positioning can charge a higher price for its product or service without having to compete through cost cutting or promotions.
In addition, an effective positioning strategy not only helps to enhance reputation but also strengthens the level of recognition in the market. When value is affirmed, businesses have an advantage in expanding scale, attracting investment and establishing cooperative relationships with potential partners.
In addition, brand value also optimizes marketing costs in the long term. When customers are familiar with and trust the product, the dependence on advertising will be significantly reduced, allowing the brand to maintain its influence with a more reasonable budget. At that time, the spreading process takes place naturally and maintains its position without having to invest too much in promotional campaigns.
4-step process to build a standardized Brand Strategy
Many businesses have difficulty defining their identity in the market, leading to obscurity, lack of appeal and failure to create a long-term competitive advantage. One of the main reasons is the lack of a systematic process for developing a commercial image. If businesses only focus on short-term advertising campaigns without a sustainable strategy, they can easily be overwhelmed by competitors.
Experts at SEFA Media propose the CBBE (Customer-Based Brand Equity) model as an effective solution to enhance brand value in the long term. This is a method that has been successfully applied by many large corporations in the world to strengthen their position in the minds of customers.
The CBBE model measures and develops brands from the consumer’s perspective. Rather than focusing solely on tangible assets, this approach emphasizes how customers perceive, evaluate, and engage with a business. CBBE is built on four levels, from basic to advanced, reflecting the process of creating value in the public’s mind.
(1) Brand Identity – Who are you?: Clearly define your brand so that customers can easily recognize and remember it.
(2) Brand Meaning – What does the brand represent?: Conveys value and identity through two elements: performance – reflecting the quality and functionality of the product/service, and imagery – expressing the style and emotions that the brand brings.
(3) Brand Response – How do customers rate you?: Includes both objective feelings (Judgments) and personal feelings (Feelings) that the brand creates.
(4) Brand Relationships – What is the relationship between the brand and the customer?: Shown through the connection (Resonance) and the level of willingness to choose next time.
Identity
The first step in the CBBE model is Brand Identity, with a core focus on Brand Salience – the level of visibility in the minds of customers and the ability to recall when a need arises. A brand needs to ensure that customers can easily identify it through its distinctive image and immediately associate it with the product or service it offers.
To achieve this, businesses need to focus on building consistency across all platforms, from logos, colors, fonts to messages conveyed. Maintaining a regular presence on media channels is an important factor, helping to avoid being overshadowed in a fiercely competitive market.
In addition, effective marketing campaigns also contribute to raising awareness at each stage of the customer journey. When images appear at the right time, combined with valuable content, it not only helps to make an impression but also builds trust and promotes purchasing decisions.
A good example of a strong Brand Identity is Coca-Cola. Thanks to its bright red logo, signature font, and consistent messaging, the brand is deeply ingrained in the minds of consumers. Marketing campaigns that appeal to emotions not only increase engagement but also stimulate consumer behavior. For example, the association of the refreshing feeling of opening a can of Coca-Cola, if this image suddenly changes, will certainly significantly affect consumer perception and decisions.
Brand Meaning
Once established a place in the minds of your customers, the next step is to build Brand Meaning through the products, services, and values that your brand represents. This stage includes two important aspects: Brand Performance and Brand Imagery.
Brand Performance reflects how customers evaluate a brand based on its quality, durability, features, and ability to meet expectations. A quality brand does not stop at providing good products but also delivers outstanding experiences, thereby creating a sustainable competitive advantage. In addition, Brand Imagery focuses on shaping the image in the eyes of consumers through emotions, lifestyle, and spiritual values. This is a way to build deeper connections, not only based on rationality but also touching on the emotional aspect and personal identity.
The meaning of a brand is not something that happens by chance, but is built through an inspiring and convincing Brand Story. A compelling Brand Story not only highlights its own identity but also helps to leave a deep impression in the minds of customers. When the story and image are closely combined, the brand not only possesses a unique identity but also creates lasting loyalty from consumers.
Brand perception (Response)
After customers have experienced a product or service, they begin to form Brand Judgments. This stage includes evaluations of quality, reliability, personal satisfaction, and differentiation from competitors. If a brand maintains its core values and consistently meets expectations, customers will develop trust and loyalty.
In addition, Brand Feelings (the emotions that a brand evokes) play an important role in building deep relationships with consumers. Successful brands often stimulate positive emotions such as trust, pride, joy or inspiration, thereby creating a stronger bond.
Brand Relationships
The highest level of CBBE is Brand Relationships, specifically with the key Brand Resonance, where customers and brands have a bond. At this level, customers demonstrate lasting loyalty by making repeat purchases, referring others, and actively participating in activities such as events, loyalty programs, or even creating promotional content voluntarily. This is the stage where the brand has a community of advocates who are willing to protect and spread the value at scale.
SEFA Media – Top strategic partner for brands
With over 8 years of in-depth experience in consulting, building and developing Marketing strategies, SEFA Media is a reliable partner to help businesses realize their positioning and increase their value in the market effectively. Our team of experts will accompany you from market research, product development, image positioning to implementing breakthrough Marketing campaigns.
If you want your business to reach new heights in 2025, SEFA Media is the No.1 choice to make that goal a reality. We are committed to accompanying you throughout, ensuring that your business maintains sustainable value, contributes to expanding scale and improving your position in the market.
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