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Launching Your Brand Strategy

Getting ready for launch requires taking a look at where your brand is versus where it needs to be.

Have a new brand strategy but looking for the right way to launch it? Here at Addison Whitney, we approach this as a transition. We’re looking to move your brand from point A, where you are at the start, to point B, where you want to be at the end.

Building from the discovery and analysis work previously discussed in Part 1 of our three-part brand strategy series: Developing Your Brand Strategy, we’re able to determine the best approach to a successful rollout and ongoing implementation of your brand strategy.

Starting with a transition workshop, we gather information from your core stakeholder team to inform a transition plan. In this workshop, we discuss a series of topics, all of which inform the best tactics to execute against the transition plan. Scroll through the following for an in-depth exploration of the workshop topics:

With these questions and respective answers in mind, we also consider if any specific geographies require a modified or different transition plan.

After collaborating with your team to create a strategic approach to the transition plan, it is time to get tactical. Prior to launching your new brand strategy, we ensure the following three assets are in place:

  • External

    collateral

  • Internal

    collateral

  • Success

    metrics

When launching a new brand strategy, there is a world of different tactics to choose from. If you want to make a big splash, often a brand video or new brand advertising is important, depending on your target audience. New customer-facing materials, such as sales presentations, will need to be available for immediate follow-up. In addition, your website should serve as a place where customers can read more about the change and what it means to them.

Additionally, your transition plan will outline the direction for updating existing materials and the most efficient timeline to make this happen. For instance, updating hard goods, tradeshow booths or building signage can require more time and resources than online collateral.

And don’t forget about the internal rollout. You’ll want to make sure that your employees are behind the new direction and understand how you got there so it is easy for them to explain the new brand strategy to others. This can include a “town hall” style meeting or sales meetings, but you’ll also want to have materials and guidance in place, perhaps on your internal servers, for employees to leverage the latest brand tools and language. Furthermore, your HR teams should be up to date with recruiting and onboarding materials that reflect the new brand strategy.

Finally, before launching your new brand strategy, you should have some basic benchmark metrics at the ready so you can measure the success of implementation over time.

If you worked with Addison Whitney on brand research in the discovery and development of your brand strategy, you already have these benchmarks in place. But if you haven’t tested basic brand metrics vs. the competition with your target audience, you should at least conduct a quick quantitative study as a baseline. Include questions about the goals you have for your brand, such as awareness, perceptions and alignment with specific attributes you want to stand for throughout your brand’s lifespan.

A word of caution: It can be tempting to jump in and start implementing tactics immediately to get your brand strategy launched. But your company will benefit more from a thoughtful approach to strategy implementation, both initially and in an ongoing manner.

Chances are you probably don’t have a full-time brand strategy rollout manager on your payroll. Here is where Addison Whitney comes in. Let us guide the development of your transition plan to ensure you have a solid approach for your strategy launch.

And even after a successful brand strategy launch, there’s still more brand strategy work to be done. Our key to ongoing success? Tracking impact. Learn more about our approach in Part 3 of our three-part brand strategy series: Evaluating Your Brand Strategy.

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