Demand More From Your Brand Strategy

Brand strategy can’t be done in an echo chamber

A real brand strategy isn’t just a reflection of what’s inside the company. It’s an outside-in perspective – rooted in actual market insights, competitive intelligence and customer realities that a strong B2B marketing agency brings to the table.

But too many agencies and product marketers skip this step. Instead, they make the client do all the work, then act like they’ve delivered something new. It’s a waste of time, a waste of budget, and – worst of all – a wasted opportunity.

A successful brand strategy agency doesn’t just hold up a mirror. It brings a fresh perspective. Ask yourself:

• Is your agency asking hard questions? Or just validating what you already believe?
• Are they challenging assumptions? Or just tidying them up in a PowerPoint?
• Are they bringing outside insights? Or just making you do all the thinking?

If your brand strategy feels safe, obvious or eerily familiar, it’s probably not very good.

Differentiated brand strategy starts with due diligence

A real brand strategy process doesn’t end with asking you what you think. That’s just the beginning. What’s required is real outside-in research that enables your brand to go beyond navel gazing and see the opportunities before you:

• Market Landscape Analysis – What’s actually happening in your industry? What shifts, trends and forces are shaping customer expectations?

• Competitive Positioning Review – Not just “who are your competitors,” but how they’re showing up, what they’re claiming and where they’re vulnerable.

• Audience Insights – What do customers actually care about? What do they say when you’re not in the room?

• Cultural Context – What’s the broader conversation that your brand is stepping into?

Only after doing this homework should a strategist sit down with you – armed with insights, new thinking and perspectives that you’d expect from an integrated marketing agency.

Your brand strategy should feel right – and a little uncomfortable, too

If your brand strategy feels safe, obvious or eerily familiar, it’s probably not very good. 

Great strategy should surface new truths, not just confirm existing ones. It should make you rethink your own positioning and not just reinforce what’s already there. And it should challenge or additively confirm internal bias, not just package it up neatly. 

Brand strategy isn’t an exercise in rearranging what’s already inside the building. It’s not hours of time with executives sitting around writing and rewriting messaging that should have been done for them.  

It’s about bringing something new into the conversation – insights, perspectives and strategic thinking that push beyond the obvious and set your brand up to win. It’s the kind of work you expect from an experienced integrated marketing agency. 

Anything less is a one-way ticket to an echo chamber; noisy, confusing and lacking the clarity to unify your business or connect with buyers. 

And you deserve better. Much, much better.