A clearly defined brand is important because consumers make split-second decisions based on brand recognition. Think about the brands that resonate with you. What is it that you like about the brand? What do you trust about them? People will choose a product they’re familiar with and feel they know something about over a product with unclear or inconsistent branding. 

If your business is operating online, this exercise will help you to understand your brand positioning and accordingly select relevant digital channels to build effective recall value in the minds of your target audience. Typically a Ket To Brand model operates in 9 stages and each and every stage compliments each other and finally "Brand Promise" is defined. Please find below the 9 stages in a nutshell: Green Hammer Digital has designed a usable Key To Brand Template you can download from our July newsletter.

1. Root Strengths : Define your Brand strengths . These are the foundation principles which will help to build your brand.

2. Target Customers: Understand your Target Audience not just in terms of age , gender or geographies but also in terms of their attitudes and values ( In online space, this becomes more important to understand where your Audience lies in terms of Interests and this will help your brand to make impact and create value )

3. Competitive Environment: Benchmark the competition where your brand will compete. If you operate online, understand search intent which your competition operates and accordingly benchmark your brand and build niche intent for yourself which should provide relative value in the market you operate.

4. Insights: Insights is extremely important to understand how your Target group is engaging with you and based on analytics build " On the moment " marketing by precisely reaching out to them when they are looking out for you .

5. Major Benefits: What’s the Functional and Emotional benefits your brand provides to your consumers. Online, emotional benefits can be correlated to " Experiential marketing " i.e. the user experience your brand provides right from Lead generation to engagement to post Sales experience which can build loyalty of your Target group and there could be lifetime value associated with your brand.

6. Values: In today’s times, when there is so much brand clutter in the minds of the users it’s extremely important to define personality for your brand which should go in sync with the brand values and your prospects can easily co-relate with that personality and which will lead to higher brand engagement .

7. Reasons to Believe: Transparent Feedback and Survey mechanisms in place will help prospects to evaluate your brand and in return  Your Brand will also enjoy better loyalty and get more value from your customers. Online, "Reviews" collected will genuinely re-enforce to prospects about your brand rating and will create long lasting value and impact both to consumers and to your brand.

8. Key Differentiator: The single most compelling and competitive reasoning for consumers to choose the brand over its competitors. Build USP for your brand and this has to be consistent across all your platforms/channels you engage to create strong appeal with your prospects.

9. Promise: Brand promise is the heart and soul of the brand as it guides all the above actions and defines your Brand Promise.

In conclusion a Key To Brand exercise allows you to create a Brand Journey to take your brand from current levels to future levels.