5 pillars to building a strong brand
In this episode, we’re talking about what a strong brand really involves. It’s easy to say you need one – harder to define what that actually means. We’ve broken it down into five key pillars to help you get clear and build a brand that holds up over time.
Branding Before Breakfast Ep 213 5 pillars to building a strong brand
All business owners are aware that they need a strong brand. But what is less clear is what does a strong brand actually mean. Because there’s many parts to it and there’s many different opinions about what is actually important. So we’ve distilled it into five key pillars, and you need to make sure that you’re addressing each of these.
The first one is DNA. Why do you exist? Why do you get out of bed? What is your role? What are your values, and what are those behaviors behind those values that you expect everyone to exhibit in your business? Who are you is the DNA.
The next one is differentiation. This is about your customer. Who is your customer, your most important customer? What problem are they solving? What do they care about? And what is it about you that’s meaningfully different? So when they’re choosing, why are they picking you over somebody else?
The third one is distinctiveness. You know who you are, you know your customer and what they care about. Next is about your identity. How are you going to bring this to life and connect in a way that stands out and is memorable so they’re going to remember you when they need this solution? This is about your visual identity, your verbal identity, your messaging, your language. What do you sound like, what do you look like, what’s your personality?
The fourth one is discoverability. You know who you are. You know why you’re different and who you matter to. You’ve got this distinctive identity, but now you need to implement that across all your touch points and channels in a really professional way, and you need to be in the right places. So this is about your website, might be your packaging, depending on your business, your social media channels – whatever it may be. You need to make sure that brand experience is to the level that it needs to be in line with your business and your market.
And then the last one is dynamics. Super important because a brand is living and breathing, so it’s about systems and people. How are you embedding it inside your business? What tools and training do you have to make sure that people are delivering against your brand across time the way it was intended, because otherwise you’ve invested all this time and money getting this amazing brand, but then it’s not giving you the return on investment because it’s not being implemented effectively.
So it’s good to do check-ins from time to time and see how it’s performing. So that’s it. Five key pillars to building a strong brand. Hopefully this helps.
Written by: Jodie de Vries
Published: June 25, 2025
