Why Brand Strategy Works
We often hear from business owners and destination marketing managers that they feel overwhelmed by different, and often conflicting, advice and constantly changing trends.
This makes it hard for to know how to effectively market their brand and often results in them trying anything and everything, and hoping something will stick.
However, a far less overwhelming way of doing things is to develop a brand strategy, an overarching plan and framework that guides all marketing decision-making.
What actually is a brand strategy?
Defining your brand strategy sets the foundation for how you show up as a brand, who you are talking to and how you communicate with them.
There’s likely a terrific list of positive things you can say about your organisation, product or service. A brand strategy stakes out a competitive position based on what you have or do that is the most compelling to your target consumer.
It clarifies how you describe yourself by giving a hierarchy to all those positive things based on their market value, and specifies the primary benefit a guest or customer receives from you.
The brand strategy also guides the personality with which you communicate to the market about your brand. This is so important with any creative development (logo design, choice of imagery for example) as our creatives (and you!) will benefit from a clear picture of what your brand is all about.
Australian Air Safaris: brand strategy in action
One of our favourite long term clients is Australian Air Safaris. They're based in Melbourne and fly guests to all the stunning corners of Australia.
When we developed their brand strategy, it was easy to see that they could talk about their luxurious small planes, a wide variety of incredible destinations, interesting itineraries or exclusive VIP experiences.
These are all great insights, but they're not unique, strategically important values.
We surveyed previous customers, held a workshop with staff and did a deep dive into their competitors. As we studied them closer, it was apparent that their strongest attributes were that their luxury aircraft were an enabler, allowing every guest to have a window seat (not all air tours offer this, surprisingly!). Along with that, their destinations and guest itineraries have a very high expectation attached to the experience.
‘Extraordinary’ is the standard they use internally when they plan guest itineraries.
The Australian Air Safaris positioning (the desired consumer perception) focused on this, which then inspired their tagline: ‘Your Window to Extraordinary’.
Often, insiders to a tour company or destination have a really solid idea of their brand's strengths, but struggle to truly refine and define it in a way that ensures everyone else also understands their brand.
Having a clearly defined brand strategy keeps everyone aligned, internally and externally. Practically, it means less flailing around in the pit of 1000 ideas, but instead, leading with the conviction needed to roll out your marketing plans.
Isn't a brand strategy only relevant for larger organisations?
This is a common myth (along with many others in the world of marketing!). A brand strategy will help regardless of the size of your business or region.
You could be a one-person operation or a team of 50. Having this guiding framework will save you time and assist with decisions along the way.
In an ideal world, every tourism business would have a brand strategy. The good news is that you can create a brand strategy at any point in time; it doesn’t have to be done before you launch.
In fact, if you’ve undergone a lot of change or growth, this can be a great time to pause and re-orient your brand strategy. Last year, we continued our long term partnership with Simon and Kerry from Coonawarra Experiences on the Limestone Coast by helping them reset and revise their core brand strengths as they looked ahead to international market growth.
Our brand strategy work for them helped identify their ideal customer, where the business shined relative to similar local options, and how best to describe themselves.
Have you ever been stumped when Tourism Australia asks you for a 70-word description of your business? Simon and Kerry are super clear on that now!
When we attended ATE (Australian Tourism Exchange) earlier this year, it represented where we were at in our business and it showed that we had grown. It felt like we fit in, that we weren't the little bumbling start up that we were back when we started. We had matured.
Kerry and Simon Meares, Coonawarra Experiences
A brand strategy helps you attract the right people
Being clear on who you are talking to means that you save time, energy and budget in the long run.
When we are creating your brand strategy, we will talk to you about defining your ideal customer. We’ll essentially be asking you to define your ultimate target audience, and then building that out for you.
You could expect to see clear and concise wording around your key audience such as “our guests value time spent in nature, as they have busy lives at home. They prioritise switching off and are looking for experiences that allow them to be fully present with their family”.
By defining your audience, you’re able to attract the right people. Once it’s clear who you are attracting, then you can start focusing on how to attract them.
Based on the above example, we might suggest that your brand messaging includes phrases such as “where weekends feel longer” or “less signal, but better connection”.
Or maybe we could set the framework for a marketing campaign about “the good ol’ days are just a short drive away”, bringing nostalgia to millennials who want their kids to experience what a 90’s childhood looked like.
So, rather throwing money out into the wind hoping to attract "everyone", you know who to focus your budget on. What marketing channels you’ll find that audience on (eg. Instagram vs Facebook vs TikTok vs traditional media), and how they like to be spoken to.
Great brands don't attract everyone. If you water down your marketing into a lazy and tired "we have something for everyone" message, you'll be lost in a sea of sameness and end up attracting ... no one!
A brand strategy supports consistent marketing that builds long term trust
A clear brand identity ensures you maintain consistency across every guest touchpoint, from your marketing to the in-person experience.
Having a brand strategy helps the development of a consistent visual identity for your brand. This encompasses all those elements you’re already familiar with such as logo, tagline, photography style, tone of voice.
Consistency across your brand’s website, social channels, ads, merch, even the way your team greets and services guests is important to building brand trust.
Imagine you see a luxury lodge online: beautifully styled photography, elegant messaging, promises of a restful, high-end stay. But when you arrive, the staff member is in a singlet and thongs, hands you your bed sheets, and tells you to make your own bed. The disconnect would feel jarring and trust would be lost before the stay has even begun.
One tool we often include in our brand guide is a simple one-pager of “We are / We are not” statements: a quick-reference guide that helps internal staff and external partners embody the brand’s personality, values, and tone.
For example:
| We are: | We are NOT: |
|---|---|
| Approachable, friendly and kind | Casual, too trendy or overly familiar |
| Passionate about nature | Sales-y or corporate-feeling |
| Welcoming to all ages and people | An exclusive, high-brow experience |
When your brand looks, sounds and feels consistent, everywhere from your Instagram feed to your in-person experience creates trust. But consistency doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because you’ve taken the time to define who you are, what you stand for, and how you want to show up in the world.
That’s what a brand strategy does. It gives you the clarity to market with confidence, it’s the foundation that holds everything else together.
So if you’re tired of guessing what to say in your marketing, unsure how to brief designers or writers, or just want your team to be on the same page, it’s probably time to hit pause and build a brand strategy you can grow with.
And if you need a strategically-minded marketing partner to help you do just that, we'd love to chat.