The Secrets Behind a Successful Brand Strategy

If you’re sat there wondering what actually makes a brand strategy work, relax – we’ve got you. We get asked all the time, ‘Do we really need a brand strategy?’ The answer? Always yes.

Budgets can be tight, especially if you’re just starting out. But a proper brand strategy defines who you are and gives you the clarity to guide every decision.

We’re going to hold your hand when we say this but you don’t decide what your brand is. Your audience does. It’s how they see you, talk about you, and recommend (or don’t recommend) you. The good news is you can influence that story with the right strategy.

So invest early. You can’t build an effective brand without it. The rule is simple: know what you are, own your sh*t, and lean into it. That only happens when you’ve nailed the groundwork:

👉 Lock in your Brand DNA
👉 Really know your audience
👉 Study the competition (without copying them)
👉 Nail your positioning
👉 Then bring it all to life with visuals and assets

That’s the difference. At co&co, we can do this kind of thing in our sleep. Brand strategy is second nature. It’s how we think, create, and build – always no fluff, no bull.

Crafting Your Brand’s DNA

Brand DNA is the soul of your brand – it's what makes you you. Having a brand strategy is so important for your business. It’s the reason people choose you over someone else and the thing that holds everything together when the market shifts.

You can’t fake this. If your values are just boring, generic buzzwords like “innovation” and “integrity”, congratulations, you sound very boring 🙂. Real brand DNA is raw. It’s messy. It’s human.

And it doesn’t matter what business stage you’re at – startup or scaling – every business needs a brand strategy. No exceptions. If you don’t know your brand DNA, we’re not convinced you truly know your own brand. Let’s unpack brand strategy and get straight into the key elements of a winning strategy 👇:

Mission

Start with your why. Why do you exist beyond making money? What’s the problem in the world you’re obsessed with fixing? If you can’t answer that, you’ve got work to do.

Vision

Where are you going in the world? What’s the bigger picture, the future you’re trying to build? What do you want to be famous for? Your vision should be ambitious enough to inspire people, but still grounded in reality so it still means something. Otherwise, it’s just empty words.

A strong vision gives your brand direction. It tells your audience, “We’re not just here today, we’re building something worth sticking around for.”

Values

These are the principles that shape how you act, talk, and treat people. Your values need to guide everything you do, both internally and externally.

Your values should show up everywhere – from how you write an Instagram caption to how you deal with a customer when something goes wrong. You have to live them. If you claim to care about the community but treat customers like numbers, you’re basically a fraud. Same with sustainability. Don’t preach about being eco-friendly if your packaging is swimming in single-use plastic, or if you’re cutting corners behind the scenes. If you don’t back your values up with action, your brand’s dead in the water - a classic reason why most brand strategies fail.

Tone of Voice

Your brand should sound like someone who actually has a pulse. Don’t rely on ChatGPT to carry your tone of voice. Your brand personality should carry your words and your voice needs to feel consistent across every touchpoint – emails, packaging, DMs, job ads – the lot. A distinct tone of voice makes your brand impossible to confuse with anyone else’s.

Questions to Nail Your Tone of Voice

• If your brand was a person, how would they talk?

• What do you not want to sound like? (e.g. corporate waffle, boring jargon, try-hard TikTok slang)

• How do you want people to feel after they read your stuff – inspired, challenged, reassured, entertained?

• If you overheard someone describing your brand at the pub, what words would you want them to use?

• Are you the mate giving tough love, the teacher explaining clearly, or the hype squad hyping people up?

• What’s off-limits for you? (jokes, swear words, emojis, slang)

• What three words sum up your brand’s personality?

• Would your tone change slightly by channel (LinkedIn vs Instagram vs customer support), and how do you keep it consistent?

Take a look at ours, for example: we’re ‘No fluff, No bull. Just mega marketing’ and ‘we make sh*t happen’.

That’s what you get from us, day in, day out. We’re not for everyone and that’s the point. If people get offended easily by swear words or tough love, then we aren’t the guys for them.

You don’t need to be for everyone. It’s a full on myth that your brand should be universally loved. Playing it safe to please everyone just waters you down into nothing. Strong brands are divisive. They repel the wrong people so they can attract the right ones and that’s how you build loyalty that sticks.

Proposition

This is your sharp, no bull promise. Why should anyone pick you over the next guy? What problem do you solve, and how do you do it differently?

Your proposition should be really clear and impossible to confuse with anyone else’s. It’s not just about what you do, but why it matters to your audience.

Consistency Builds Trust and Recognition

People are simple creatures. We like what we know, and we trust what we recognise. That’s why consistency is the main character when it comes to branding. If your brand looks, sounds, or behaves differently every time someone interacts with it, you're essentially asking them to forget you exist ... and they will. If you think of any brand strategy success story, consistency is always at the centre of it.

Consistency across visuals, voice, and content = trust. Trust = dollar.

There’s also the “rule of 7”. On average, it takes seven interactions before someone’s ready to buy. That means you’ve got to show up (the same way) again and again before anyone gives a sh*t. You can’t drop a one-off post on LinkedIn and expect people to throw money at you.

Every blog, every Insta story, every email – they all need to feel like they came from the same brain. That’s where brand guidelines come in. Once you have these, you can start showing up with confidence and keep building communities through social media.

And if that sounds like hard work … tough. You want loyalty and recognition? Earn it. Or let your competitors do it better while you sit there wondering why your pipeline’s dry.

You don’t have to do it alone though. At co&co, we always say never DIY your brand strategy. This sh*t needs proper groundwork, and truth be told, most people don’t know how to do it well. Why not let us do the heavy lifting while you get on with running your business? 😉

Deep Understanding of Your Audience

You can’t build a brand for “everyone”. That’s how you end up with a vanilla brand.

Real strategy starts with real people and no, we don’t mean just demographics. Knowing your audience is more than pretending you know what Gen Z thinks because you scroll on TikTok every now and then.

You need to get into their heads. Psychographics. What they believe, what they fear, what they want to be. What pi*ses them off. What keeps them scrolling at 2am. What they actually need, both emotionally and practically – and how your offer fits into that story.

A good brand strategy maps the whole journey – from “who the f*ck are you?” to “take my money” and eventually “I tell all my mates about you”.

You need to anticipate the doubts. The second thoughts. The “I’ll think about it” moments. And you need to respond to them before they’re voiced. That’s how you move people - by developing a brand strategy that resonates with your audience. That’s how you win.

Positioning Within Your Niche

Here's a wild idea: you don’t need to necessarily be better. But you do need to be different.

Too many brands waste time trying to outgun the competition by copying what they’re doing. It doesn’t work. Take inspiration all you want but copying isn’t going to get you anywhere because nobody likes a knock-off.

Positioning is about knowing the playground and deciding which corner is yours. Do the research. Understand who’s out there. Then don’t be them. Just be you. If you want the big picture, our ultimate guide to brand strategy lays it out

Find the white space in your industry. The bits nobody’s claiming. That could be a service gap, a tone of voice, a visual style, or a belief system. Jump on it, own it, and make it impossible for your audience to ignore you.

You also need to think bigger than your industry. Some of the best positioning moves don’t come from staring sideways at your direct competitors, they come from moving into completely different brand worlds.

At co&co, this is where we get stuck in. Strategy, branding, social – we look for the hooks that make your brand punch through the noise. And then we pull those threads tight until your positioning is bulletproof.

With the right strategy, you’re on your way to building a brand with substance. Something people care about, believe in, and want to be part of.

So if your brand feels a bit off, avoid the danger of rebranding without research and brand strategy. Start with brand strategy. The rest will follow.

Let’s work together.