What is a Brand Roadmap and do you need one?

So what is a Brand Roadmap and do you need one?

So, imagine that you’ve just spent the past four hours on a brand workshop with me and the team on Zoom. You’ve had a blast, we’ve had some laughs but more importantly, you’ve had insights about your business that have been nothing short of revolutionary.

So what next?

Our workshop is designed to look at the different facets of your business: Your culture, your ideal customers, where they are and why they should choose you, along with a whole bunch of other strategically designed questions and conversation starters In order that we build a comprehensive brand strategy for you. Then you can share your story effectively. So all of this good stuff that we build out from the workshop needs to go somewhere, right?

Behold the humble Brand Roadmap.

It's essential to us that any client we work with is happy with their roadmap before we move onto the design stage. We never start designing until everyone is happy. Why would we? We believe that everyone should be on the same page as things progress. It's the roadmap that drives the creative process; and we always refer back to it to keep things on track.

A Brand Roadmap is essentially your guiding light. You could argue its just a summary of the workshop, and in some ways it is, only more aligned to be in parallel with your business objectives. It’s also a lot easier to digest. Cue odd analogy; the workshop is like creating a list of ingredients, where the roadmap is the cake that we made with them. :)

Mmm... cake!  😄

To be worthy of it’s name, a brand roadmap needs to contains the following as a minimum:

Purpose: Why do you exist? It’s the “why” behind your brand. It really all comes down to describing the goals and values that motivate you and your business. Brand purpose is more emotional than focusing on commercial aspects. It’s the reason you do what you do.

Vision: The big picture of what you want to achieve. Brand vision refers to the objectives behind a brand It reflects and supports the business strategy, differentiates you from your competitors, helps you to resonate with your ideal customers and in turn, should also inspire your employees, business partners and help to create ideas for marketing campaigns.

Mission: Your brand mission is the overall goal. It’s the line on the horizon that you are focused on; Make the world plastic free, help build communities, make mental health less stigmatised, find a cure for cancer. Whats your mission?

Values: The principles that guide your business behaviour and actions. Your brand values are the beliefs that you, as a company, stand for and what you stand against. They serve as the compass that guides your brand story, actions and decisions.

As far as the question of whether you need a brand roadmap, ask yourself, are you lacking the insights that will move your business forward with clarity? Are you struggling with resonating with your target audience? Do you even know who they are? Are your competitors smashing it leaving you feeling flat? Do you feel confused about your brand overall? Is your social media falling flat? Are you wanting to make headway into new markets or feel the need to scale your business? Are you and your employees in any conflict about where your business is going?

If your are answering yes to any of the above, then you might benefit from looking at your brand from a more strategic point of view. If thats the case, feel free to reach out to me where we can have a free 30 minute consultation and talk about where your branding is right now, where you want to take your business and how we might work together. I’ll also give you a free brand workbook that you can use in your own time, which will help in starting the process of your brand strategy. Book here.

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