Brand Strategy: Vision, Mission and Values

1. Brand Vision

If Purpose is the reason your brand exists, your Vision is the way the world looks when you’ve achieved that Purpose. It is aspirational, it is idealistic, and it speaks to the human difference your brand is committed to making. Articulations of Vision can sometimes sound a bit dream-like, unreal or implausible. But that’s why we build tangible stepping stones between Purpose and Vision – we call that Mission.

2. Brand Mission

Your Mission is what you need to be doing right now, to move you closer to achieving your Vision most effectively, while upholding your brand values (this is really important because where there are decent ways to forge ahead, there will also be nefarious ways to achieve the same goal). It is all about actionable activities. It is about intent, focus and structure. Your Mission will, and should, change periodically as the circumstances of your journey evolve.

At EllisJames, our Mission is broken down into quarterly steps. We find that most useful because it’s a short period of time to maintain specific focus, and we can set achievable targets within that time. But others may find it more useful to have a 12-month Mission or longer.

3. Brand Values and behaviours

Your Values define how you can align and maintain your Culture. They determine how your people should behave collectively in order for them to work most productively together, and with your customers. You can see our values here.

4. Engagement funnel

In terms of your Brand Planet, see it like your tractor beam, drawing those contacts into your Brand Planet’s orbit. The stronger your cultural alignment, the stronger the attracting force.

In the age of Social Selling, I prefer to use the term ‘Engagement funnel’ rather than ‘sales funnel’. Whatever you call it, the funnel defines the stages of progress to identify, connect with, engage and progress potential customers into actual customers; and the activities you need to undertake at each stage to support that progression.

In terms of your Brand Planet, see it like your tractor beam, attracting those contacts into your Brand Planet’s orbit. The stronger your cultural alignment, the stronger the attracting force.

So, there you have it – how to visualise your brand, its composition and what each bit does. Getting to a state of good brand organisation and understanding is crucial for the effectiveness, both in time and success, of your engagement strategy.

Can you articulate your Purpose, Vision and current Mission in this way? If you’d like to discuss more on how to visualise your brand, please do get in touch, and please let me know your thoughts on this approach!

Otherwise, I hope you found this useful. Thanks for reading!