BRAND DEVELOPMENT

BRAND
DEVELOPMENT
PREPARED BY: NOELEEN N. SIBAYAN
What is Brand Development?
Brand development is the process of
creating and strengthening your professional services brand. As we
help firms develop their brands, we divide the process into three
phases.
 The first phase is getting your brand strategy right and aligned with
your business objectives.
 Second is developing all the tools you will need to communicate the
brand, such as your logo, tagline and website.
 Finally, there is the phase of strengthening your newly developed or
updated brand.
Your Brand Defined
◦ A professional services brand is best understood as your firm’s
reputation and its visibility in the marketplace. The strength of your
brand can be measured as Reputation X Visibility.
◦ There is another important dimension of your brand as well: how
relevant it is to your target client audience.
A 10-Step Brand Development Strategy
1. CONSIDER YOUR OVERALL BUSINESS STRATEGY.
A strong, well differentiated brand will make growing your
firm much easier. But what type of firm do you want? Are you
planning to grow organically? Your overall business strategy is the
context for your brand development strategy, so that’s the place to
start. If you are clear about where you want to take your firm, your
brand will help you get there.
2. IDENTIFY YOUR TARGET CLIENTS.
Who are your target clients? If you say “everybody” you are
making a very big mistake. Our research clearly shows that high
growth, high profit firms are focused on having clearly defined
target clients. The narrower the focus, the faster the growth. The
more diverse the target audience, the more diluted your marketing
efforts will be. So how do you know if you have chosen the right
target client group? That’s where the next step comes in.
3. RESEARCH YOUR TARGET CLIENT GROUP.
Firms that do systematic research on their target client group grow
faster and are more profitable. Further, those that do research more
frequently (at least once per quarter) grow faster still.
Research helps you understand your target client’s perspective
and priorities, anticipate their needs and put your message in language
that resonates with them. It also tells you how they view your firm’s
strengths and your current brand. As such, it dramatically lowers the
marketing risk associated with brand development.
4. DEVELOP YOUR BRAND POSITIONING.
You are now ready to determine your firm’s brand positioning
within the professional services marketplace (also called market
positioning). How is your firm different from others and why should
potential clients within your target audience choose to work with you?
A positioning statement is typically three to five sentences in
length and captures the essence of your brand positioning. It must be
grounded in reality, as you will have to deliver on what you promise. It
must also be a bit aspirational so you have something to strive for.
5. DEVELOP YOUR MESSAGING STRATEGY.
Your next step is a messaging strategy that translates your
brand positioning into messages to your various target audiences.
Your target audiences typically include potential clients, potential
employees, referral sources or other influencers and potential
partnering opportunities, to name a few of the usual suspects.
While your core brand positioning must be the same for all
audiences, each audience will be interested in different aspects of it.
The messages to each audience will emphasize the most relevant
points. Each audience will also have specific concerns that must be
addressed, and each will need different types of evidence to support
your messages. Your messaging strategy should address all of these
needs. This is an important step in making your brand relevant to
your target audiences.
6. DEVELOP YOUR NAME, LOGO AND TAGLINE.
For many firms, a name change is not required. But if you are
a new firm, are undergoing a merger or are burdened with a name
that no longer suits your positioning, a name change may be in
order. Even if you don’t change your firm name, a new logo and
tagline may make sense to better support your brand positioning.
Remember, your name, logo and tagline are not your brand.
They are a part of your brand identity, the ways to communicate or
symbolize your brand. You must live it to make it real.
And don’t make the mistake of showing the new logo around
internally to get a consensus. The name, logo and tagline are not
for you. They are for your marketplace and should be judged on
how well they communicate, not how much the partners like them.
Taglines
 A tagline is about the business itself, and should stand the test of
time (it doesn’t change).
 Taglines represent the tone and feeling you want for your
products or services.
 It is often part of your company graphics ant it stays with you all
the time.
7. DEVELOP YOUR CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY.
We could have called this step “develop your marketing

strategy.” But we didn’t. Instead we call for a content marketing
strategy.
Why? Content marketing is particularly well suited to
professional services firms in the internet age. It does all things
traditional marketing does but it does them more efficiently. It uses
valuable educational content to attract, nurture and qualify
prospects.
7. DEVELOP YOUR CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY.
Content marketing examples include media like

newsletters, podcasts, social media posts, and videos. All
of these forms of content are meant to provide useful and
relevant information that delights users and attracts them
to your brand.
8. DEVELOP YOUR WEBSITE.
Your website is your single most important brand
development tool. It is the place where all your audiences turn to
learn what you do, how you do it and who your clients are.
Prospective clients are not likely to choose your firm solely based on
your website. But they may well rule you out if your site sends the
wrong message.
Further, your website will be home to your valuable content.
That content will become the focus of your search engine
optimization (SEO) efforts so that your prospects, potential
employees, and referral sources will find you and learn about your
firm. Online content is central to any modern brand development
strategy.
These days, professional services websites come in two
varieties. The first is a branding site. Such a site tells your story and
conveys who you are, who you serve, and what you do. In short it
conveys your brand message. The other variety does the above and
also generates and nurtures potential new clients. We call these
High Performance Websites.
9. BUILD YOUR MARKETING TOOLKIT.
The next step in the process is to build out the

remainder of your marketing toolkit. This might include one-
page “sales sheets” that describe core services offerings or key
markets served. In addition, there may be a brief “pitch deck”
that overviews the firm or key offerings and an e-brochure
about the firm. These are rarely printed pieces anymore.
9. BUILD YOUR MARKETING TOOLKIT.
Increasingly this marketing toolkit also includes videos.

Popular video topics include firm overviews, case studies or
“meet the partner” videos. Key services offerings are also very
useful. If prepared appropriately, these tools serve not only a
business development function but also are important for brand
development.
10. IMPLEMENT, TRACK, AND ADJUST.
This final step in the brand development process may be
one of the most important. Obviously a winning brand
development strategy doesn’t do much good if it is never
implemented. You might be surprised at how often that
happens. A solid strategy is developed and started with all the
good intentions the firm can muster. Then reality intervenes.
People get busy with client work and brand development tasks
get put off… then forgotten.
10. IMPLEMENT, TRACK, AND ADJUST.
That’s why tracking is so important. We strongly
recommend tracking both the implementation of the plan as
well as results. Did the strategy get implemented as planned?
What happened with the objective measures, such as search
traffic and web visitors? How many new leads, employee
applications and partnering opportunities were generated? Only
by tracking the entire process can you make sure you are
drawing the right conclusions and making the right adjustments.

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BRAND

We could have called this step “develop your marketing

Content marketing examples include media like

The next step in the process is to build out the

Increasingly this marketing toolkit also includes videos.

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