Whenever I work on branding with companies, I see everyone light up about the tactics. It’s fun to play with logo makers, brainstorm names with ChatGPT, or post their first updates on Instagram.

Yes, your product, logo, website, and name are all elements of a strong brand identity. But what’s less flashy (and far more important) is the idea behind those elements: the strategy that guides your choices, shapes your growth, and keeps your brand meaningful in shifting markets. That’s what separates the leaders from everyone else.

In this article, I’ll share the core elements of a brand strategy, along with modern branding methods that help you build, reach, and grow an audience that actually cares.

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Being memorable used to be enough, but consumers want more from the companies they choose. They expect brands not to woo them with flashy marketing but to earn their attention and trust meaningfully.

Your company’s brand strategy is a long-term plan to address that need. It defines how you express your identity and build meaningful connections with your target audience. A detailed plan gives you the roadmap to turning every interaction into an opportunity to earn trust, loyalty, and relevance within a competitive marketplace.

Now, I mentioned I’ve seen brand strategies that dump all their attention on tangible pieces like logos and posts. But your brand is more than parts; it’s a presence. It’s the intangible stuff — the visceral feelings that standout brands conjure.

Brand strategy merges art and science, which can trip up many marketers. To help you through this process, I’ve broken down seven essential brand strategy components to shape your path to lasting brand prominence.

If you want buyers’ trust, you need a strong purpose, especially as trust is harder to come by. Business intelligence firm Morning Consult found that 95% of their tracked consumer brands hold lower trust ratings with Gen Z compared to all U.S. adults by an average of 10 points.

Younger generations carry much more skepticism around brands than their predecessors. Frankly, some are just waiting for you to break your brand promise like some form of consumer Schadenfreude.

In the modern, cynical market, you still should start by defining your brand purpose. Focus on two sides of the purpose question:

• Functional: Success in terms of immediate, commercial reasons
• Intentional: Success as it relates to making money and doing good in the world

You need to make money — that’s a functional part of being a business. But, your company is also an entity in the world that can influence others. An ideal purpose balances these realities.

However, purpose is central to authenticity. I’ve worked in corporate social responsibility departments before, and you can feel when your work means something to your company. Leaders check in regularly, resource it properly, and decide with confident purpose. If you’re missing authenticity and think you can hide that from buyers with clever marketing, you’re fooling yourself. (Ask Pepsi how that went with their Kendall Jenner ad.)

Look at Patagonia, which does brand purpose beautifully:

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Patagonia’s brand strategy extends past profit; it’s about sustainability and responsibility. You feel that on its website, advertising, manufacturing processes, and clothing products. If you’re a customer who shares sustainable values, you’ll latch onto Patagonia.

Key Takeaway

Whatever you choose as your purpose, go all-in. Buyers have little patience for wishy-washy narratives around “doing good” or minimal effort, like semi-annual Facebook posts of your team cleaning a park. Purpose is lived and breathed — show your dedication at every customer touchpoint.

If you need a little inspiration, dig deeply into the brands you admire. See how they frame their mission and vision statements and then display them in their marketing.

Pro Tips

In an interview with Cannabis Drinks Expo, marketer Rachel Boykins said that brands can “get a little too lofty” regarding their roles in consumers’ lives. Boykins, now the head of brand strategy at Pangea Money Transfer, expanded her position in an interview with HubSpot.

Boykins noted big brands like Apple, Amazon, or Disney often arise as examples of good branding, but there’s a challenge with that: “There‘s really only one Apple. That’s not something that all brands should aspire or expect to be,” she said.

Her advice? Get specific. “Not every brand has to hit those heights to be successful. Work with your internal teams to really understand your business’ objectives,” she said. “These are what your budgets and bonuses are made of. And those are obtainable.”

2. Coherent & Consistent Presence

Like any relationship, you build trust over time by showing up and trying. When people know what to expect from you — when you’re consistent — they’ll trust you more.

Your brand strategy must establish how you’ll build this trust with a coherent and consistent presence. Buyers should know who you are, understand what you stand for, and see you regularly.

Where have I seen this flop before? When brands discuss things unrelated to themselves or their industry. Past clients have posted random memes or photos on company Facebook pages because they found them personally funny. But incoherent messaging leaves your audience confused or alienated.

The words and media differ between posts and platforms, but your core messaging should stay steady. Use your brand strategy to define a cohesive message that you can share regularly with your audience. Consistency begets brand recognition, which begets customer loyalty and trust.

Consider Apple, 2024’s most recognizable brand in the world. Its commitment to consistency means every element of Apple’s marketing supports each other in a cohesive narrative.

You’ll find no product photos on Apple’s Instagram account; instead, the iPhone-shot photography tells the brand story.

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Compare that to product photos of the Apple Watch and AirPods on Apple’s website, which both feature the same bold, mysterious, colorful photography.

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Key Takeaway

Consistency matters, but you need something to help you enforce a standard message and look across your brand. That’s why I recommend assembling an internal style guide as part of your brand strategy-building process.

An ideal guide includes details on approved logos, visuals, fonts, voice, and tone — the minor elements that altogether create your “look and feel.” You can hand your guide to any content creator, and their results will keep that right look across touchpoints.

3. Emotional Connection

This Volvo commercial runs nearly four minutes, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it for one second.

I find so many brands shy away from emotion. They hammer on the logical or practical reasons to buy their products (e.g., lower prices, higher ROI, better results). But, positive and negative emotions massively influence buyers’ decisions, and it makes for a potent branding tool when wielded wisely.

Brand consultant Cornelis Jacobs recently shared with HubSpot that “a brand is really a person’s gut feeling about a product or service or organization. It’s really emotional — it’s what someone feels.”

For instance, Harley-Davidson uses emotional branding by creating a community around the brand. It founded HOG — Harley Owners Group — to connect its customers with the brand and with each other.

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Harley-Davidson’s customers get the chance to be part of something bigger than themselves and to join a tight-knit community based on a shared passion for motorcycles. If you want not just a motorcycle but a culture, how could you pass up a brand-new Harley?

Research from psychologists Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary calls this the “belongingness hypothesis.”

“People have a basic psychological need to feel closely connected to others, and that caring, affectionate bonds from close relationships are a major part of human behavior.”

Belonging to something meaningful — finding love, affection, and community — fulfills deeply human needs. If your brand can evoke that connectedness, then you build more than buyers; you build a committed community.

Key Takeaway

Talk to your customers and learn what emotions your brand creates for them. Do you deliver peace of mind? Make them feel like part of the family? Do you make life easier? Use these emotional triggers to strengthen your relationship and foster loyalty.

4. Agility & Responsiveness

In my PR days, I watched clients fumble game-changing opportunities with top-tier media because their rigid processes paralyzed them. Confronted with chances that fell outside the prescribed methods, they suddenly couldn’t decide who should speak to a reporter or what they should say. An endless news cycle demands agility and responsiveness, and that’s true for your brand strategy, too.

Your brand strategy is organic — alive. It’s consistent with its core message, but also adapts to changing external environments. Marketers can stay agile within the constraints of brand standards to stay relevant and be creative in separating their brand from competitors.

Let’s look at how Old Spice stayed both true and agile during their last rebrand. Until recently, Old Spice targeted older demographics. It carried a staid vibe, like a can of Old Spice belonged in the yacht club men’s room. But now? It’s one of the most popular brands for men of all ages.

Old Spice knew it needed to change, as competitors like Axe took larger shares of younger generations. The company teamed up with Wieden+Kennedy to respond to changing markets with a pivot.

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New commercials, website, packaging, and product names helped Old Spice find a foothold with millennials and Gen Zers, who latched onto the more bold tone and absurd humor. The company stayed true to its core products and purpose but shifted where needed to respond — and succeed.

Key Takeaway

What worked before may not work now. Don’t be afraid to make a change if it can lead to better outcomes.

You don’t need to blow up your entire strategy either. Try small moves and see how your audience reacts. Toy with your tone in 2-3 posts, or highlight a lesser-known product feature. Watch your metrics for new customer reach or current customer engagement bumps.

5. Employee Advocacy

A company is an abstract entity; it’s the people who make it real. Buyers interact with your employees, and those interactions speak more to your brand than ten thousand social media posts.

Employees serving as brand advocates are ideal, but you need to provide a culture where people want to do that. It’s earned, not coerced. And unfortunately, companies have gone the wrong direction in building a culture where employees feel inspired to be brand champions.

The 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer found an “unprecedented global decline for employer trust,” as more respondents felt they couldn’t trust their employer to do what’s right — the first year-over-year decline since 2018. If your own people don’t trust your organization, how can you expect customers to trust you?

Maybe you’ve seen this disconnection play out in a recent customer interaction. A brand is playful and bubbly on social media, so you buy their product. It breaks, and you need support. You’re connected to a grumpy, monotone representative who clearly hates their job. How jarring does that interaction feel?

An internal style guide or interaction training sets the rational foundation, the nuts and bolts of how employees should work with customers and the marketplace. But I’ve seen companies neglect the why and fall flat on their faces. In your brand strategy, include how you’ll cultivate internal brand champions and connect them to the brand purpose you already established.

It’s something we spend a ton of time on at HubSpot. Our Culture Code lays out who we are and who we aspire to be — and then invites our thousands of employees to take part in building our award-winning culture. Look through our Culture Code and glean insights for your organization.

Pro Tips

Customers see how you treat employees, including who works at your firm, and if it represents your target audience. To that end, Boykins advocates for more diversity in corporate spaces. She shared that she has often been the only Black person and one of few women in many company meetings.

“Consumers have high hopes and expectations” to see diversity reflected in their favorite brands, said Boykins.

Tackling this challenge requires more than superficial diversity — employees must feel comfortable speaking up across the company. Boykins is blunt about the stakes: “If brands are not concerned about diversity, they should be concerned about cancel culture. You don’t get a lot of chances.”

Key Takeaway

Build a place that reflects your brand’s purpose and the market you serve. Employees won’t advocate without feeling supported at work and given real opportunities to grow.

6. Customer Loyalty

Customer acquisition takes the lion’s share of attention around business growth. And often, it’s only when disaster looms that anybody thinks to look at customer retention — who’s stuck with their brand. Retaining customers can be more cost-effective than acquiring them. Beyond that, a loyal customer base brings credibility, advocacy, and support that paid marketing can’t buy.

Include ways to reward your most loyal customers in your brand strategy. These folks have gone above and beyond, writing about you, sharing you with friends and coworkers, and acting as brand ambassadors. Thoughtfully cultivating loyalty will pay dividends now and tomorrow.

Sometimes, you just need a thank-you note. Other times, double down on your reward:

• Write them a personalized letter
• Send them some special swag
• Ask them to write a review and feature them prominently on your website

When HubSpot reached 15,000 customers, we wanted to say thank you in a big way while staying true to our brand. So, we dropped 15,000 orange ping-pong balls from our fourth-floor balcony and spelled out “thank you” in huge metallic balloons.

It might seem out of the ordinary to some, but the gesture made perfect sense to those who know our brand.

Key Takeaway

Brands thrive on loyalty. Find those stories in your customer base and champion them publicly. Highlighting a positive customer-company relationship sets the tone for what potential buyers can expect if they choose you.

7. Cultural Awareness & Positioning

Good brand strategies include monitoring competitors and seeing how they perform in the marketplace. A competitive analysis helps you understand where to position your brand relative to others and find that unique you-ness to stand out.

But amid a distrustful marketplace and generational shifts in how people relate to one another, I believe you need to look beyond industry competition. I include concepts around relational philosophy in my marketing classes, which ask students to consider the impact of a brand’s marketing on the wider world.

Brands are no longer just products or services — they’re symbols. They’re living signals of an organic culture. And staying relevant to consumers means building a relationship with them, not simply conducting a transaction.

I’ve touched on this idea already, with elements like community building, loyalty, employee advocacy, and strong guiding purposes. Taken together, these strategic pieces influence your positioning within your industry and your involvement with and effects on culture. Understanding what’s happening in modern culture and adapting to it keeps your brand fresh, sharp, and honest while carving out your corner of the world — a true competitive differentiator.

Key Takeaway

Your brand strategy should consider your impact on relationships within our culture and how you want your brand represented. This is less about specific tactics and more about managing an undercurrent of customer care, brand experience, and trend tracking. It’s caring about how you show up in the world and nurturing connection with others.

That’s the quiet yet vital part about growing trust with your buyers — and how we start truly addressing the trust gap emerging with younger generations.

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If you drink Red Bull, you’re part of this active community. And every part of the company’s branding supports this lifestyle.

2. Personal Branding

With branding, many marketers turn to social media. After all, clever company pages are how to reach more people and spread your message, right?

That’s shifting: Social media is losing its luster amid unstable algorithms and a sense that “renting” your audience won’t work anymore. As marketers seek ways to build “owned audiences,” personal branding presents a potentially powerful opportunity.

Focusing brand work on a single person — be it a founder, key employee, or affiliated celebrity — lets you build prominence that can travel cross-platform. For example, YouTuber Emma Chamberlain built a massive following and turned it into a brand of her own: Chamberlain Coffee.

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3. Product Branding

Most marketing teams lean on product branding to execute their brand strategy effectively. You associate a logo, name, color, and design with a product to craft a unique product identity. It breathes life into your products and makes them noteworthy within the marketplace — especially useful in crowded spaces.

I’m writing this article on a perfect example: Apple’s MacBook. Each tier of MacBook — “Air,” “Pro,” and “iMac” — conveys product-specific messaging that reinforces the product’s high quality.

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4. Co-Branding

In co-branding, also known as a brand partnership, different brands combine their traits and characteristics into a fused brand. Co-branding lets companies or individuals benefit from each other’s market strengths, customer bases, and perceived value.

One of the most popular co-branding examples is the Nike and Michael Jordan collaboration. The Air Jordan collection was famously fraught from the outset, with Nike paying the fines levied by the NBA for Jordan wearing the shoe during his rookie season. But, as Nike and MJ’s stars rose together, their co-branded shoes became some of the most sought-after and recognizable footwear worldwide, driving a $7 billion annual brand.

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5. Purpose-Driven Branding

Companies that feel especially called to their purpose often weave that passion into their branding. This purpose-driven branding creates a powerful connection with buyers who care about similar causes. I’d caution you to truly believe in your purpose — not only can buyers sniff out phonies, but they’ll pillory you for it.

As a positive example, shoe company Veja has an entire page dedicated to its sustainability mission and how that plays out across its supply chain. You can see where the company sources cotton and natural rubber for its shoes. Its transparency adds to its brand and makes sustainability stylish.

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6. Brand Extension

Brand extensions are when a company adds one of its popular or established brand names to a new product. The idea is to use existing brand equity to boost the latest product.

Companies hope customers will better receive the new offering because they trust the original brand. If you’ve worked hard to build brand trust, brand extensions can be lucrative. Just be sure you feel good about the new product. It should match your purpose and make sense as a representative of your brand.

A great example is Google Nest, a line of smart home devices like thermostats. Originally founded as Nest Labs, the company built a dedicated following and a reputation for high-quality products. When Google bought Nest for $3.2 billion in 2014, Google wanted to retain Nest’s brand equity while extending its reach using Google’s global brand identity. Google Nest was born.

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