As the witching hour approaches and the ghouls begin to stir, businesses find themselves navigating rising customer demands, uncertain economic outlooks, and fierce competitor activity. It’s tempting to make knee-jerk decisions that lead your brand down a dark, haunted path. Over time, these hasty choices can cause your business to drift away from its original strategy, leaving it forgotten—only dusted off once a year.
As we creep closer to the end of the year, ensuring your strategy is robust and every decision aligns with your objectives is more critical than ever. While you may be laser-focused on the Golden Quarter, it’s important you don’t drop the ball and forget why having a strategy is so important. You might be thinking “my business is fine, we have a strategy in place already,” but does it truly align with your business goals? Are you actually missing an integral part of your strategy that ensures it works to solve the problems you’re facing?
Let’s shed some light on the top five pitfalls that could send your brand to the underworld!
Too many Halloween puns, yet?
1.You’re missing key elements of brand strategy
A solid brand strategy rests on three key pillars: business, brand, and marketing. Your business strategy should outline clear commercial objectives, while your brand strategy defines growth and positioning. Finally, your marketing strategy focuses on the channels and tactics needed to reach your goals.
Neglecting any of these components can lead you into perilous territory. A business strategy without a solid brand or marketing strategy leaves you directionless. You might have a destination in mind, but without clarity on how marketing fits into the picture, you won’t know which channels or messaging will get you there.
Remember, brands aren’t just logos; they’re dynamic entities that require continuous nurturing to thrive. Without a well-rounded strategy, you risk losing your way in the maze of the marketplace.
At Logic+Magic, we specialise in crafting cohesive brand strategies that encompass all essential elements. Our team will collaborate with you to clearly define your commercial objectives, develop your brand positioning, and create a targeted marketing strategy that aligns with your business goals. By conducting thorough research and leveraging our industry insights, we ensure that each aspect of your strategy is interconnected, fostering a strong foundation for growth.
2. Building a strategy on internal knowledge alone
While your team’s insights are valuable, relying solely on internal knowledge can lead you astray. Without external research and market insights, you risk building a strategy that doesn’t reflect the current landscape. This can create a strategy that’s out of touch, based purely on internal politics and opinion.
Bring in external expertise to supplement your team’s knowledge. Utilise a strategy expert who can provide an objective viewpoint and data-driven analysis. This will help you stay aligned with market trends and consumer behaviour, with fresh eyes that are able to seek new opportunities for growth.
Similarly, you won’t just want an external perspective, which is why at Logic+Magic collaboration is at the heart of everything we do. We invite your team, across all departments, for a collaborative workshop(s) to hear their unique perspectives, understand their role, get their input and buy-in. We work collaboratively throughout, ensuring your strategy is grounded in the unique knowledge and expertise within your organisation, fostering a sense of ownership and alignment across all teams.
3. Letting dangerous myths guide your approach
Many businesses fall victim to common misconceptions that can haunt their growth and success. These myths can lead your brand into a fog of confusion, leaving you vulnerable to competitors who are listening to their audience and adapting to the changing landscape.
A chilling misconception is that you can rely solely on pre-existing data or go without it entirely. It might be that the data doesn’t exist, is outdated or was retrieved for a specific purpose that is no longer relevant. Some businesses rely solely on gut feelings or internal opinions, thinking they know their customers well enough, while others rely on dangerous anecdotes from years ago that they take as gospel truth. This approach can lead to grave mistakes, as decisions made without data-driven insights can send you down a dark and treacherous path.
Some believe that crafting a strategy is where the hard work ends, but that’s really just the beginning. Without a clear plan for implementation, even the most brilliant strategy can die out and become a haunted ghost dictating your every move. It’s essential to create actionable steps that align with your strategic goals to bring your vision to life. The devil is in the detail and it’s imperative you have the right process in place for implementation.
4. Doing the same thing as last year
Reusing last year’s plan can lead to stagnation. The market evolves, customer preferences shift, and new competitors emerge. Sticking to the same tactics without evaluating their effectiveness can turn your once-thriving brand into a forgotten relic. A strategy should have a 3-year roadmap. We get that when time is tight to get things signed off, you may need to just continue doing what you’re doing – but you can’t keep that up long term. Your customers will expect more. Doing the same thing over and over will get you the same results – not growth.
Conduct an annual review of your strategy and results. Analyse what worked, what didn’t, and how the market landscape has changed. Be bold enough to pivot your strategy based on fresh insights, new technologies, and evolving consumer needs. It’s best to do this alongside a brand strategy agency so you can ensure you end up with a strategy that evolves with your business needs and the ever-changing market.
5. Confusing a marketing strategy with an annual plan
Many brands mistake their annual marketing plans for a comprehensive brand strategy. An annual plan focuses on short-term tactics and immediate goals, whereas a brand strategy outlines long-term vision, goals, and positioning in the market. Relying solely on an annual plan will leave your business directionless and unable to adapt to the broader market and changing customer behaviours. Without a strong strategy to guide your annual objectives, your initiatives can become fragmented and disjointed, leading to wasted resources and efforts.
We can help develop a clear brand strategy that encompasses long-term objectives and detailed action plans to achieve them. Our approach combines both elements, ensuring that your immediate actions are always aligned with your long-term vision. By developing a robust strategy that informs your annual plans, you can ensure cohesion across all levels of your organisation.
Our strategy process
Strategy may seem frightening at first, but it can be made simple. At Logic+Magic, simple is our superpower; we want to make the process as smooth as possible for businesses. We break it down into the following:
· We gain an understanding of your business
· We gain clarity on the market and environment you operate in
· We diagnose the problem
· Build the objectives and strategy to address the problem and grow
· Develop a roadmap to achieve those goals
At Logic+Magic, we believe a solid strategy is your enchanted roadmap from where you are now, to where you want to be. Our process unites your business objectives with customer-facing strategies, ensuring you’re doing the right things for both your company and your customers. Here’s how we do it:
Immersion workshop: We start with an immersive workshop with internal stakeholders to understand your business, identify key challenges and problems to solve, and define your vision.
Research & discovery: Our team conducts a thorough research phase, auditing your brand and understanding your audience’s needs, desires and behaviours. We also look at the wider market and see how your business challenges overlap.
Strategy development: We combine new and existing information to create a strategy that outlines objectives for the next 1-3 years. Through proposition development, we emphasise the uniqueness of your offering to find the most effective way to resonate with your audience.
Roadmap: Ensure you have the right timings, moments, channels and messaging to captivate your audience.
Get in touch!
Are you ready to banish your brand strategy fears? At Logic+Magic, we’re passionate about helping brands and businesses grow. Don’t let your strategy collapse—get in touch to kickstart the creation of your strategy and roadmap.
Strategy & Channel Director
