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Your first step to a Marketing Strategy Roadmap: The Brand Blueprint

Julie Ewald branding, content strategy, marketing strategy

As an entrepreneur that had, at some point, defined your product or service, you now feel ready to start showing it off to the world.  You want to start churning out content, attracting traffic that will turn into leads and convert to customers before they even know what hit them. If only B2B marketing would be that simple…

Content for marketing purposes should have well-defined goals in line with your business objectives and core values. So, before even creating content, you need to develop brand positioning. This way, you will know what and how you want to communicate to your audience besides flat commercial messages.

A successful Marketing Strategy Roadmap starts with a strong brand foundation, as in your core values and brand voice. In short, this is what we call a Brand Blueprint that will become the framework for all your future marketing initiatives.

The role of the Brand Blueprint in your Marketing Strategy Roadmap

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A comprehensive Brand Blueprint outlines what makes you different from your competitors. It’s the answer to the why. Why should companies do business with you instead of buying from another provider that offers a similar product or service?

Note that in order to know what differentiates you from the competition, you need in-depth insights on your competitors and market. What your competitors do and how they do it can help you identify gaps in the market where you can consolidate your position.  

Going deeper into this concept, defining your Band Blueprint includes three essential elements:

  • What makes you unique
  • What you stand for and you believe in
  • Who your target audience is

When you know these three elements, you’re ready to make a clear and defined mission statement and decide how you want to grow your brand in the long run. That’s dang important in the COVID-19 era when as consumers are gravitating to brands they know and trust, and they are leaning in more heavily on purchasing from brands based on their beliefs and values. And given that purchase decisions based on values have been increasing for years, this will likely continue long after the pandemic subsides.

That being said, how do you build a solid B2B marketing strategy? You simply apply the Brand Blueprint to each step of your Marketing Strategy Roadmap. Not only will this approach make content creation easier, but it will also enable consistency across all your marketing materials.

So, every time you’ll ideate a new campaign, you’ll do it on a solid foundation that is key to achieving your goals. This way, you make sure that everything you say and do reflect your core values, highlights what you stand for as a brand, and is created to meet your audience’s expectations.

Creating content in line with your Brand Blueprint

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Your content marketing strategy should be a synergistic part of your Marketing Strategy Roadmap, and the glue that keeps all the pieces together is the Blueprint.  

The Brand Blueprint is the point of departure for a content strategy that is brand-focused and customer-centered at the same time. Because you need to know your brand well to be able to communicate its core characteristics to prospects and existing clients.

Furthermore, it allows you to remain consistent in your messaging, whether you’re creating content for your blog, webinar, PPC campaigns, or other content offers.  With a Brand Blueprint in place, all the pieces of content that promote your brand, product, event, or services will have the same tone, style, language, and imagery.

With time, your target audience may even learn to recognize your content from the multitude of existing information online, which eventually leads to increased brand awareness, more engagement, loyalty, and customer retention.

Other benefits of having a Brand Blueprint

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Besides the fact that a Marketing Strategy Roadmap will go nowhere fast without a solid Brand Blueprint—which is kind of a big deal—there are additional benefits to having one.

Here are some of them:

  • Good branding means potential and existing customers understand your purpose for doing business. When people know your values, they can identify themselves with your brand and join you in a community around common goals. It’s easier to sell a brand that stands for something, especially when you and your employees believe in what you promote.
  • Good branding builds customers’ recognition and loyalty. Customers are more prone to remember a brand’s name based upon their positive or negative interaction with it. First impressions are important, especially considering that 52% of customers do business again with a brand that they’ve had a superior experience with and 70% choose to do business with brands delivering great service, according to Nextiva.
  • Good branding increases referrals. When you give a customer a good experience with your brand through interaction and service, it’ll build customer loyalty. And, at some point, they may refer your business to other clients. Nice isn’t it? Social proof is still one of the most powerful marketing tools a brand can use to position itself as a top choice on the market.
  • Good branding establishes credibility. Beyond just knowing and liking a company, the customer will purchase from a brand that they trust.  A Blueprint will ensure that each piece of content is created with the goal in mind to establish credibility within your industry and deliver tailor-made messages for your target market.

All in all, the Brand Blueprint is an essential foundation for any healthy business, one that knows why it exists and what can generate consistent growth. That’s why it stays at the heart of an effective B2B marketing strategy.  

Now that you know the importance of having a Brand Blueprint, it’s time to start building it. 

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