Fuel powerful growth with a brand development strategy.
What is brand development? A fully developed brand forms the foundation of your business. Our brand development strategies refine and document the intangible qualities that make up your brand. Your company’s purpose, mission, vision, values, culture, positioning, voice, and visual identity will all align and become the most valuable assets to your company. Without a strong brand foundation, you’ll fail to make meaningful connections with the people you are trying to serve.
At Waypost, we offer several in-depth brand development services that we can execute individually or together.
Brand Purpose Development
Building a great brand relies on two principles:
- Know your brand purpose.
- Infuse that brand purpose into every aspect of your business.
Effective and successful brand development always begins with purpose. Your brand’s purpose is why you get up every day and provide the good or service your company offers.
Brand purpose development with Waypost begins with finding your company’s “why.”
Why does your company exist? What services do you provide? What differentiates you from your competitors? Why do your clients/customers trust you? Why do they choose you? Do you have a healthy company culture? Does what you do matter?
A brand purpose exercise is an extensive, candid process to determine your company’s strengths, weaknesses, and aspirations. We then highlight misaligned values and define areas of growth potential. We use the good things about your business to inform our strategy for realigning every part of your brand toward a common purpose.
Some questions during the brand purpose development process can be challenging to answer and often elicit strong feelings. But this transparency will ultimately lead to a more substantial brand purpose and growth-driven results.
Once your “why” is determined, we craft a unique brand purpose statement. We then help you articulate that statement by establishing a brand voice and documenting your company mission, vision, and values. We take the resulting documentation into all of your future marketing, sales, and support strategies.
Brand Purpose Exercises
We believe that brand purpose goes beyond just identifying the 'why' of your business. It involves a comprehensive process of articulation, infusion, and amplification to create a brand that resonates with your audience, engages your team, and drives growth. One of the methodologies we leverage to achieve this is Kantar's Brand Purpose exercise, broken into three phases:
Waypost Blog
Build a Better Brand: Meaningful Brand Marketing
of shoppers stay loyal to brands that share their values
Shape Your Ideal Culture with a Brand-Driven Culture Code
A company's culture defines behavior, collaboration, and performance. However, without intention, cultures can become misaligned and dysfunctional over time.
We guide organizations through a process to define their ideal culture and behaviors via a Culture Code.
Our 4-phase approach, based on our own cultural evolution, includes:
- Values Discovery: Uncover core values through executive interviews and employee focus groups.
- Current State Analysis: Assess real experiences versus ideal culture, identifying gaps and challenges.
- Defining Ideal Behaviors: Outline values-driven actions and set expectations.
- Implementation Plan: Strategically integrate the Code, educate through workshops, and lead by example.
An inspiring Culture Code heals dysfunction, attracts values-aligned talent, and unites teams under a shared purpose.
greater profitability than competitors
Waypost Blog
The Role of Leadership-Driven Infusion
After our initial meeting, I knew right away that this was the team I wanted to work with in launching our business.
The blend of professional service and warm personal touch made the entire experience incredibly rewarding. I'm super grateful to have worked with them in creating our brand, our voice and our vision as a company. Hands down, my collaboration with Waypost has been an exceptional experience.
—Brad Toews, Owner & Founder of Foothills Solar Plus
Brand Positioning Development
In an increasingly competitive marketplace, a distinct brand positioning statement is essential to stand out, attract ideal customers, and grow your business.
Our strategic branding process helps you define and communicate your unique value and positioning through:
Discovery & Research
- Competitor Positioning Analysis: We thoroughly analyze how your competitors are positioning themselves online through their messaging, content strategy, SEO, and overall digital presence.
- Buyer Persona Development: We work closely with you to define your ideal target customers, their needs and motivations.
- Brand Tone Development: We define the desired tone, personality and feelings you want target customers to experience when interacting with your brand across touchpoints.
- Brand Audit: We examine your existing brand identity, essence, personality and ideals, as well as reviewing current collateral/assets for alignment.
Brand Strategy Development
- Value Proposition: We pinpoint your differentiated benefits and most compelling offerings for customers.
- Positioning Workshops: We facilitate sessions with leadership to align on target customers, values and differentiation.
- Messaging Framework: We identify your brand pillars focused on your competitive advantage and audience desires.
Brand Positioning Articulation
- Positioning Statement: We synthesize research into a succinct statement conveying your distinct brand promise.
- Tone and Personality: We define your unique brand voice that fits your positioning.
- Logo & Identity: We design visual assets that reinforce your positioning.
- Guidelines: We provide guidelines to align messaging across channels.
Brand Identity Development
Create a clear, cohesive visual identity.
Establishing a clear, immediate understanding of your brand requires a strategic visual identity. To visually brand your company, Waypost develops a comprehensive set of brand guidelines. These guidelines are ready to be used in all of your brand strategies in order to maintain visual consistency and cohesive tone.
A brand identity package developed by Waypost includes the following steps:
1. Research & Define:
When initiating the brand development process, we recommend starting with Brand Purpose and Brand Positioning. These exercises include in depth research that will help shape your identity, including understanding your audience’s pain points and defining what differentiates you from competitors. We’ll help you develop a unique value proposition, craft a clear purpose statement that reflects your vision, and develop a distinct brand personality with consistent tone of voice for a well-rounded identity.
2. Visual Identity Creation:
When you partner with Waypost for brand identity development, we generate a comprehensive Brand Style Guide that informs your company and any future partners on how to properly use your brand assets. Your Brand Style Guide will be completely customized to your unique business needs but could include:
Logo:
While not the sole component, your logo plays a pivotal role in branding. It's the single most recognizable aspect of your brand. Your logo will be seen on your website, business cards, ads, collateral, and more.
Color Palette:
Crafting a balanced color palette enhances your identity, offering versatility for unique designs while adhering to your brand's essence. It’s important to remember that different colors carry different emotional symbolism.
Typography:
We’ll help you select brand fonts that complement each other while accurately reflecting the tone of your business. It’s good to be creative with typography, but you should also be cautious – trendy fonts might not suit your business.
3. Deliverables:
Crafting a captivating visual identity is pivotal for effective brand communication. Start with a distinctive logo that embodies your brand's essence. Elevate your identity with a balanced color palette and typography that reflects who you are. After you’ve established these three initial components, remember that cohesive design across touchpoints boosts brand recognition.
- Logo development and usage guidelines
- Brand tone and voice guidelines for content generation
- Color palette
- Typography guidelines
- Graphic elements such as icons, patterns, taglines, etc.
- Stationery suite (including business cards, letterheads, envelopes, etc.)
- Marketing collateral (including brochures, posters, flyers, etc.)
- Website assets (custom web graphics, HubSpot modules and themes, etc.)
- Social media assets (including profile pictures, cover images, post templates, etc.)
- Email templates
- Advertising templates
- Branded apparel and merchandise
The trust Waypost has earned from us is by understanding who we are, what we do, and where we want to go. Their expertise has gotten us there, and continues to support our efforts at every turn. Waypost Marketing is one of the best investments our company has instilled in our 48 years of existence.
Branding Feature
PM Vitals
PM Vitals came to Waypost with a logo but no brand identity. See how we helped them define and refine their look.
Let's build your brand.
If you’re ready to experience powerful growth fueled by a purpose-driven brand, reach out to us today.
Our team of strategists and creative experts are ready to help you find your “why” and build an impactful visual identity for your company. Give us a call at (864) 288-6162 or contact us online to learn more about how our Brand Development services can help you grow your business.