"Emphasize on establishing your brand's identity prior to investing in advertising expenses"
Date: May 19th, 2025
In the ever-evolving world of startups, a strong brand strategy is no longer an optional extra, but a fundamental necessity. Emily delves into the importance of a solid brand strategy before launching paid ads in this insightful article.
Based in Clerkenwell London, KOTA, a Creative Digital Agency, specialises in Creative Web Design, Web Development, Branding, and Digital Marketing. Their latest offering, the Brand Pulse Audit tool, helps startups see where their brand is thriving and where it needs improvement.
A solid brand strategy provides clarity on what the brand does and why it matters. It ensures consistency across all touchpoints, offers scalable messaging, and instils the confidence to stick with the brand long enough to learn and optimise.
A crucial aspect of a brand strategy is its visual identity. This encompasses typography system, colour palette, layout guidance, photography & illustration style, motion principles, and logo system. A proper visual identity builds trust through consistency, reinforces positioning without saying a word, and creates a recognisable presence across product, marketing, and operations.
Performance marketing, an amplifier of brand strategy, works best when the brand underneath is tight. If the foundations are weak, ad spend is poured into a leaky funnel. Running ads without a brand strategy can lead to mixed messages, irrelevant traffic, creative that doesn't resonate, clicks that don't convert, endless A/B testing, and blaming the brand or audience when results are not as expected.
A strong tone of voice reflects the product's personality and positioning, matches the audience's mindset and emotional state, stays consistent across all touchpoints, and flexes in tone without losing the brand's voice. If a brand's positioning is fuzzy, inconsistent, or changes frequently, paid ads will not fix this and may expose these issues.
People remember brands, not just products. A brand sells a feeling, a solution to a problem, and a way to save time, look smart, feel confident, or solve frustrating issues. The messaging framework, including a core narrative, value pillars, audience-specific messages, and message laddering, provides structure to a startup's communication about its product, across audiences, channels, and contexts.
Before launching performance marketing, startups should lock down their positioning and tone of voice. According to LinkedIn and Edelman, 71% of B2B decision-makers say they're more likely to engage with a brand that has a consistent, recognisable voice. Brand salience, the ability to be noticed and remembered, is one of the most reliable predictors of long-term market growth.
As we move forward, it's clear that a solid brand strategy is not just a nice-to-have, but a crucial element for any startup looking to make a lasting impact. With the Brand Pulse Audit tool, KOTA aims to help startups navigate this critical aspect of their journey.
