Effective branding shapes an identity that sways audience perception in your favor. 

However, it’s never straightforward, and there is no one approach that works for everyone. 

So, part and parcel of branding is knowing what brand strategy deliverables are crucial for you and which ones can wait. 

In this article, we’ll talk about all the deliverables you need to shape the image that you want for your brand.

TL;DR – Brand Strategy Deliverables List

The list of creative deliverables varies from one brand to another because their goals, context, and stories are unique. 

But here is a list of non-negotiables:

• Brand audit or discovery
• Market and competitor research
• Core branding elements
• Brand identity
• Messaging

Remember that for your branding to click, you need to bridge the gap between you and your audience. How do you do that? With a brand message that resonates with them.

I’m Nora Sudduth, and I can help you design messaging that ensures consistency in your brand deliverables and effectively connects you to your audience. Book a discovery call today.

What Are Brand Deliverables?

Brand deliverables are the tangible and intangible assets that enable you to effectively plan and implement a brand strategy. 

These deliverables vary depending on whether you’re launching a new brand or rebranding, your objectives, and what type of business you run.

Why Are Brand Deliverables Important?

With brand deliverables in place, you’ll be able to form a solid brand identity, as well as more accurately forecast brand performance.

Also, knowing which deliverables to prioritize will help you focus your time and money on what will help you meet your business goals right now.

5 Key Elements of a Brand Strategy

There are five key elements of a brand strategy, all of which work together to form a cohesive brand narrative:

1. Brand core: These elements are integral in shaping who you are: your purpose, mission, vision, and values. They also ensure you stay true to your brand pillars and stay consistent in your messaging.
2. Competitor research: Mapping out the competitive landscape will show you opportunities that similar brands may have missed, pinpoint your market position, and reveal your edge over your rivals.
3. Target audience: Understand your audience’s motivations, fears, interests, and needs – to construct a brand story that they can easily connect with. Remember, you have only 1/10th of a second to make an impression, so make it count!
4. Brand identity: Your internal identity refers to aspects of your brand that people understand but don’t see, like your personality, voice, and positioning.
   Your external identity is composed of the external values that make your brand recognizable to your audience, such as your logo, brand name, and design.
5. Messaging architecture: Your messaging framework helps shape your brand message and guides how it is articulated to your audience.

Competing in a cluttered marketplace? All the more reason for you to refine your message by hiring a brand messaging consultant. That way, you get expert advice and can implement messaging strategies tailored to your business.

Best Way to Define Branding Scope of Work

A branding project is exhaustive work. But you don’t have to take on everything entailed in branding design right now.

So, how can you determine the scope of your branding project?

Here are four things to consider:

1. Define Your Objectives

What is the biggest or most urgent concern that you want to solve with the branding project? Is it improving brand awareness, shifting brand image, or improving brand reception?

To determine these goals, try to get input from different team members.

For example, talk to customer-facing team members, like your sales team, to glean insights from their interactions with clients.

2. Set a Budget

The more comprehensive the project, the bigger your budget needs to be. 

So, try to be realistic when setting expectations by looking at what you can reasonably afford without sacrificing the quality of deliverables.

3. Divide the Project into Phases

Plan the branding project better by dividing it into separate phases, such as:

• Discovery: This is where you first engage with a creative agency and discuss the goals to reach and the direction the project needs to take.
• Planning: Put your minds together (this means including your company executives as well as representatives from various teams) to strategize. 
• Execution: This will require the bulk of your time and resources and should include stages like a hard rebranding launch or implementing a go-to-market messaging strategy.

Doing so will clarify what deliverables or services go into what phase – which will, in turn, allow you to assess whether these services are actually necessary at the moment.

4. Review the Deliverables

Once your deliverables have been handed off to you, don’t stop there. You need to test them to evaluate how effectively they meet your objectives.

Let’s say, for example, that one of your brand deliverables is a strategic SaaS messaging framework. You’ll want to test your message to see how effectively your funnels are converting or evaluate engagement on relevant channels like social media.

Brand Deliverables List

If you’ve ever worked with or approached a branding agency before, you’re surely familiar with branding packages.

These are collections of branding services and deliverables that an agency provides to a company, which may include marketing collaterals, website development, and other design assets.

The danger with packages, though, is that they don’t tailor-fit the branding project to your specific needs and context.

So, how do you figure out which ones benefit your brand?

Here is a list of must-haves regardless of industry, company size, or objectives:

Brand Audit or Discovery 

A brand audit is a thorough assessment of an existing brand and how it performs in light of what it wants to achieve in the market.

This is helpful for gaining accurate findings about your brand, such as brand equity and market share.

If you’re launching a new brand, you don’t need an audit but instead a discovery session. 

This is a meeting where you and your chosen branding agency will brainstorm to make sure you’re aligned on things like:

• Branding objectives
• Budget
• Timeline
• Strategies 

At the end of an audit or discovery session, you will be given a detailed report that outlines findings and strategies for achieving your objectives.

Market and Competitor Research

Effective branding strategies are built on an in-depth understanding of the marketplace and your competition.

A branding agency will conduct this research to understand your market positioning (and whether you need to improve or maintain it), who you’re competing with, what they’re doing better than you, and what opportunities you can take advantage of.

Core Branding Elements

The core elements of your brand make up your internal brand identity. These are your values, mission and vision, purpose, personality, and voice.

Make sure to hand off a cohesive and consistent brand core to your chosen agency, as these are integral to shaping your brand strategy and ensuring that execution stays aligned with what makes you you. 

Brand Identity

This refers to your external identity and involves elements that your chosen creative agency will design for you:

• Brand name
• Logo
• Tagline
• Slogan
• Typography
• Graphics or icons
• Color palette
• Photography

These assets help create a visual identity that people easily recognize and remember. 

Messaging

Messaging is crucial to any branding strategy. It articulates the value of your brand in a way that your audience understands, appreciates, and resonates with.

In other words, it enables your audience to grasp why they should care that your brand exists. 

Unfortunately, many brand messages are flat, generic narratives that people can’t distinguish from the noise, which results in bleak sales and low conversions. 

Does your brand message need work? I can help you design messaging that’s tailor-fit to your audience and conveys your unique brand value. Book a discovery call with me today.

How to Create a Brand Strategy Document

A brand strategy document is a brief that outlines how you plan to shape a favorable perception of your brand among your target audience.

Here’s how to write one:

• Define Your brand purpose: This should guide the branding project by elaborating on why your brand exists. Explore questions such as, “What impact does my brand make in the world?”

• List your brand values: Your core values serve as the compass for your branding design and strategy by governing the following aspects like customer engagement, brand voice, and personality.
• Discuss your action plan: This section is the meat of your brand strategy and comprises brand deliverables like your internal and external brand identity, target audience, competitive landscape, and key messages.
• Assign team roles: Designate roles and responsibilities, as well as equip your team to communicate your brand messaging consistently on various occasions and platforms.

One of the ways to do this is by implementing a messaging matrix that everyone can easily refer to.

• Set a timeline: How long it takes to see results depends on the complexity of the branding project. For example, if you’re rebranding, you may not see the fruits of your labor until six months to a year.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Want to learn more about brand deliverables? Here are some commonly asked questions:

How Can You Ensure Consistency across all Brand Deliverables?

To maintain brand integrity and consistency across all brand deliverables, it’s helpful to first establish your brand pillars and identity.

You should also regularly revisit your branding strategy to ensure that each deliverable is aligned with and contributes to your objectives.

What Are the Challenges in Creating Effective Brand Deliverables?

Some of the biggest challenges in creating effective brand deliverables are:

• Maintaining consistency: Creating a cohesive story with various deliverables can be tricky. But you can remedy this by establishing a solid brand core that governs each deliverable.
• Lack of creativity: Brand deliverables require lots of creativity and out-of-the-box thinking to stand out, which can be hard to come by especially when you’re working with an extremely tight schedule. 

Try to provide a bit of wiggle room when planning deliverables, so you can freely brainstorm and not have too many deadlines snuffing out your creative spark.

• Weak messaging: Writing brand messages isn’t as easy as we wish it would be. It requires finesse, expertise, and experience to craft stories that hit the mark and shape audience perception in your favor. 

You can try to refine your brand message with brand messaging exercises.

What is the Significance of a Brand Strategy Proposal?

A brand strategy proposal outlines how you plan to shape your audience’s perception of your brand, improve your market position, and strengthen your brand identity.

The proposal is essential to assess whether the deliverables and action steps involved are aligned with your desired narrative and image.

Conclusion

Shaping a brand requires various brand deliverables that reinforce the same message and form one cohesive narrative.

To achieve this, you need to establish your brand core and create a messaging framework that governs the way you communicate your brand value.

That’s where my expertise comes in. I can help you design a messaging strategy that showcases your unique story through consistent and cohesive brand deliverables. Connect with me today!