What is a Brand Strategy Workshop?

aBS Workshop is a series of exercises, questions, topics for discussion aimed at not only solving the problems but also uncovering the ones that haven't been noticed or articulated yet. Its purpose is for you to understand your business, your category, your clients and your competitors at a whole different level than most of your competition would ever be able to grasp.

What is the difference between marketing strategy and brand strategy?

Both marketing strategy and brand strategy are very similar. The marketing strategy is all about building distinct relationships with clients at touchpoints most suitable for the attainment of business objectives. The brand strategy is about aligning these marketing efforts. Having a bigger picture in sight, the actions of the company should be filtered through “the brand lens”. Marketing activities shouldn’t contradict one another and should not confuse clients.

How is Brand strategy different from Branding?

Branding is part of the overall Brand Strategy. Branding is a process that handles the Look & Feel of the company and services, the Voice & Tone of the Brand. Brand Messaging system is also considered part of branding. Color palette, logo, brand mark, iconography, photography, typography, images, shapes and sounds are part and parcel of branding as well.

What comes before the Brand Strategy Workshop?

After having a friendly chat about your business, we schedule a date for a two-hour Discovery conversation. This is a paid session where we ask questions that will determine the scope of the Brand Strategy Workshop. If either of us decides that we are not a great fit to move forward, we will refund you the fee for the Discovery session.

How much does a typical Brand Strategy workshop cost?

The price of aBS Workshop depends on the number of constituent elements. The more topics to cover — the higher the price. In our experience the most common Brand Strategy workshops consist of six parts that are usually covered in three days over a three week period. You should expect to invest around 15 000 USD in a three-day workshop for a small business.

How to start brand discovery workshop?

Discovery session comes before Brand strategy workshop. We expect to have not more than three people from your company taking part in the Discovery conversation. We had found that having more people at this stage result in lower efficiency.

How many people should participate in the Brand Strategy workshop?

We expect the business owners, key decision makers, chief of marketing and sales to be part of the process. The more isn’t always the better. But having just a few people might not yield proper results. The amount of people who should get involved is a function of the size of the company. The exact number is determined during the Discovery conversation.

Is the Brand Strategy workshop conducted remotely or on sight?

The best results are always achieved at client’s premises. We have successfully held workshops remotely via Zoom as well. When client’s budget has no room for travel expenses, the online workshop is a viable option.

What if we want to cancel the aBS Workshop midway?

If your team finds itself up to its neck in work we can either postpone or cancel the remaining workshops. We will prorate and issue a partial refund if that’s the case.

Are your aBS Workshops available for overseas companies?

Yes. We’ve held online workshops with a seven hour time zone difference. We love working with people from all over the world. Makes our perspective and insights more valuable for our clients.

When is the best time to have Brand Strategy workshops?

The best time to run any brand strategy workshop is when your team — the key decision makers — are less busy. aBS Workshop is an intensive program with plenty of homework and rigorous exercises. It’s best either to devote a whole week or spread out in between several weeks depending on the scope of the workshop.

Who would not be able to hire awezzom?

The company has to have a marketing budget in place to be able to afford this workshop. At the moment we would not be able to provide our services if the client’s team doesn’t speak either: English, Latvian or Russian.

What’s the minimum fee for aBS Workshop?

The minimum budget for the shortest workshop — MVVP: mission, vision, values and purpose workshop — is 5 000 USD plus taxes and travel expenses where applicable.

Strategic Marketing & Brand Strategy workshop

what will you get?

Brand is about alignment of business goals to employee behaviours to customer expectations. Strategy is about discerning opportunities from distractions. Design is about purposeful iterations. Here’s a snapshot of what you might expect to get from the aBS Brand Strategy Workshop:

The story

We shall discuss the following: how was the company started and why; what was the initial idea; what was the plan; the motivation; the big dream. What was the main reason behind starting this particular business and not something else?

Core MVVP

We will dive into underlying principles that guide your actions manifesting themselves in the services you provide — your company's Mission, Vision, Values and Purpose. We will figure out why your company exists beyond making money, what does a picture of success look like, how are you planning to achieve that and where will you find strenght to stand up for your clients.

Learn more about the Brand Core MVVP workshop here.

The problem

We will engage in understanding the main problem of the client, analyze how good is your current offering as a solution to this problem. We will look for alternative solutions that may be faster, better, cheaper or different. We will dream of a perfect solution that could delight your clients making your services irreplaceable.

Clients

We will walk through your customer base and categorize them, rank them from worst to best, find the "80/20" client, narrow it down to the ideal, core client. We will create client personas. We will look into pricing, feedback, needs, desires, aspirations, objections and typical client journey. We will gather granular data to find commonalities for future marketing efforts.

Brand Positioning

What is your category? Are you competing in a too narrow or, perhaps, too broad industry category, segment or area? What box you ought to occupy in the minds and hearts of your clients? We will help you understand your current position in the marketplace and figure out a better, more sustainable one. We will exploit your competitors weaknesses and leverage your company’s strenghts.

Differentiation

What is it in you that makes you believe you can tackle your client’s problem better than anyone else? How can you prove it? What is your unique value proposition and how is it really different from everyone else? What makes your business, services and company unique? Why should clients pay attention to you?

We will work together through a series of exercises to get to the bottom of these questions. We will safeguard you from common mistakes every business manager makes.

Pricing strategy

Are you underpricing your value? How much of an expertise component do your services carry? Does your competition make more money than your company? We will look into ways how to increase your prices in a way that is both justified and compelling to your clients. We will examine your business model and develop pricing strategies that works better for you and your clients at the same time.

Brand personality

How should you look and sound like? What kind of attitude should you have? What would it feel like to interact with your company? We will work on creating a familiar yet authentic image for your brand.

Brand Naming

It takes most companies months to develop a name that eventually fails in the marketplace. What neuro-rippling effect should your name have when being thought of? We will help you craft names for your company, your brand, your domain and services so that they are in alignment with your Core MVVP and capable of standing the test of time.

We will guide you through the best practices and help you avoid the most common mistakes business leaders make when naming their products, services, brands and companies.

Find out more about the Brand naming framework for small business.

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Brand Messaging

Do you know what to say, where to say it, how to say it, who to say it to and when? We will work on crafting compelling marketing messages for your target audience.

We will come up with a short and catchy tagline that describes your brand, your offer and benefits. We will create remarkable copy that sells.

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Brand Awareness

We will define the point A — where you are today and set the point B — your next destination. We will distinguish the touchpoints where your brand will come in contact with your clients and then we will connect the dots.

What else will you get from awezzom Brand Strategy Workshop?

The results of aBS Workshop are profound and often times unexpected. Numerous workshop participants have stated to have gained clarity, focus and confidence after the experience. And in some cases we were even able to identify ways of making the competition irrelevant.

awezzom is a Marketing + Brand Strategy Design firm that helps small companies differentiate from competition while being able to charge more for their services.

Brand Strategy Workshop