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How To Develop a Branding Plan (With Templates and Examples)

January 14, 2022 (Updated: May 4, 2023)

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What Is a Branding Plan?

Is branding important, branding plan vs. business plan, 6 types of branding, how to create a branding plan, 5 sources for branding plan templates and examples.

Branding is a way to set the foundation for a positive business reputation. Learning how to develop and market your brand can help sustain your company and grow your audience so you can do bigger things in the future. On average,  it takes five to seven impressions for people to remember your brand , so creating a branding plan can help make sure you execute certain steps to get as many people to notice your company as possible.

A branding plan is a document that lists the important aspects of your brand identity and how that affects the public perception of your company. It outlines your brand strategy and serves as the foundation and measurement for evaluating all marketing materials to see if they fit with the image you’re trying to make for your company. The branding plan includes not just the visual aspects of the brand like the logo and colors, but information like:

• A clear description of what your brand represents
• Consistent brand messaging for audience communication
• Attainable goals for brand reach and recognition
• Executable marketing strategies to use to reach your brand goals

Yes, creating a brand that’s consistent, unique, and authentic can separate your business from its competitors. It gives customers a way to connect with your organization beyond the surface level, especially if your brand values align with their personal ones. There are three core components to address when developing a branding plan and strategy. They include:

• Purpose:  Why your company exists and what services you provide
• Consistency:  What allows your brand to meet company standards every day
• Emotions:  What connects your brand to its customers and how you can improve that relationship as your brand grows

Branding plans and business plans can work together to create a roadmap and outlook for your company, but they do have some differences. Branding is all about your company’s reputation, so a branding plan is more concerned with how the public perceives your company. It cares about your messages, your aesthetic visuals, and your company values.

These things also factor into the business plan, but that one has more data about what you may consider traditional aspects of company planning, such as financial information, overall company goals, and staffing or location concerns. It’s difficult to have one type of plan without the other. You need the business plan to make sure the things you need to do in your branding plan are workable. You need the branding plan to execute what you’ve set out in the business plan.

Branding isn’t a single strategy or plan that you can follow and automatically get results. It’s a series of deliberate choices you make to portray your company to the world, and it all depends on your unique company. It’s important to learn about different branding you could engage with to see which one fits your purposes best. You may even find that a combination of some of them may work for your unique purpose. Branding you can use includes:

1. Personal Branding

You may use personal branding to market yourself. This is a popular choice for influencers, public speakers, or others who make their living from turning themselves or their skills into a service. Personal branding is then crafting your public persona for your services. Like other types of branding, it can include the visual aspects of choosing fonts, colors, and logos for your website and choosing ones that reflect who you are and what you do.

2. Product Branding

Similar to personal branding, product branding is marketing your product as unique from others in the market. Consider the potato chip aisle in the grocery store. Essentially, everything there is the same: fried snacks. So what influences your choice when shopping? Probably brand loyalty first, if you already have a favorite. But if they’re out of your favorite, how do you pick a substitute? This is where product branding works. Concepts like color psychology and consumer science may be helpful when engaging in product branding.

Related:   Can Science Affect Your Content Marketing Efforts?

3. Service Branding

Unlike product branding, which focuses more on looks and what’s visually appealing to the customer, service branding may put more attention on what a brand can do for the customers. Take air-condition repair companies, for example. They all do the same thing and there are probably many of them in the same area.

So how do people choose? Usually by what extras or benefits they can get. This is where you focus on what makes your company different from others. Do you offer free estimates? Maybe you work off hours for people that can’t be home during the day. Highlight these attributes in your service branding.

4. Retail Branding

This type of branding focuses on the aesthetics of a brick-and-mortar store. The key is the interior design of the building, from the layout, lighting, decor, music, and displays. The idea, especially for businesses with multiple locations, is to make every location look the same so you instantly know where you’re shopping or visiting when you step inside. This is popular for many retailers. For example, the preteen clothing store Limited Too used dim lighting, flowers, bold colors, and lots of glitter in its retail branding.

Image via  Sourcing Journal

5. Geographic Branding

Geographic branding is important if you can tie your business or cause to a geographic location. Pittsburgh brands, for example, use this type of branding to the fullest. All the major sports teams use the colors black and gold, which people associate with the city. The local amusement park,  Kennywood , also uses those colors in its logo. Steel and bridges are also two other popular branding concepts in the area. Geographic branding is important for tourism-type businesses and franchises that start in one location and expand to new ones.

Image via  Kennywood

6. Corporate Branding

Corporate branding is marketing the organization itself as a commodity. This is popular for many business institutions, like marketing agencies or banks. It aims to share the most important information about the organization, such as the mission and values, price point, and exclusivity for those who use or partner with the group.

Use these steps to create and develop your company’s branding plan:

1. Review the Essentials

Knowing some essential information about your company, brand, and customers can help you create the most effective and targeted plan. These areas include:

Why does your business exist? What do you want people to know about your company and brand? How can your brand influence people’s lives or help them solve problems? Understanding why your brand exists and where it fits into the market can give you important information to influence all your marketing decisions.

What are the core values of your company? What adjectives or attributes do you want your audience to associate with it? You can identify these from your mission statement or other company documents, such as the employee handbook.

Target Audience

Who’s buying from or engaging with your company? Why do they come to you over the competition? What can you learn about them that can influence your branding and marketing decisions? Understanding the people that make up your target audience as a collective and as individuals can help you make branding decisions.

2. Create Customer Personas

Customer personas or profiles are  fictitious representations of potential customers , those most likely to buy from your brand. Companies create personas to get a better understanding of the individuals who seek their products and services, on a more specific level than general demographic reports provide. They often target the “ideal” customers for a brand. Information to collect about your general audience to develop personas includes:

• Geographic location
• Household income
• Hobbies and interests
• Charity sympathies
• Reasons for purchasing your product or using your services
• Intentions for using your products or services
• Frequency of purchase or use
• Locations of online activity

3. Do Competitive Analysis

It’s important to learn who you’re going up against in the market to understand how to make your brand different, why people want to come to you, and what you can stress to make them realize it even more. Things to consider when conducting a competitor analysis include:

• Who are your direct competitors?
• What elements do they use in their branding, marketing, and advertising?
• What’s their messaging?
• Are there things your company offers that others don’t?
• What are their biggest areas of success and weakness?
• Who are their customers?
• What are their messages?
• What makes their company unique?

Answering these questions can tell you more about the state of the market and where you can fit. It can also show areas of market need where you could insert your company to better help customers. If you’re looking for help with competitor analysis, consider the tool we’ve created at  CopyPress  just for this purpose.

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4. Develop a Brand Mission Statement

A brand mission statement is a tagline that shares your brand values. It’s typically one sentence or not even a full sentence, but a catchy phrase. You can use the brand mission statement to help frame your branding strategy objectives. This type of mission statement may differ slightly from a company-wide mission statement. The brand statement may be shorter and may focus only on certain aspects of the company values that drive the brand reputation.

It typically summarizes the unique qualities you provide your customers and shares what your business is passionate about. The brand mission statement tells customers what they can trust about your company and what they can expect from it.

5. Establish the Value Proposition

A value proposition focuses on the aspects of what makes your brand unique from the competition. It’s a brief description of the qualities that should make your products or services more appealing than others in the same market. It’s important not just to focus on what makes you different, but how those differences benefit your target audience and how the things you provide can improve people’s lives. For example, Target’s value proposition is in the company’s tagline: expect more, pay less. Customers can expect more products and selections from the store than competitors, but also find affordable prices.

6. Choose Your Tone and Messaging

Brand voice is the way your company communicates with its audience and the public. You can establish a brand voice by your word choices, tone, and messaging. Depending on your audience and the type of industry you’re in, you may use a professional, casual, playful, or helpful brand voice. The one you choose may dictate your messaging, such as advertising copy, or the way your representatives respond to comments on social media.

It’s important to keep your brand voice consistent across all channels and departments. This helps to make your company feel cohesive to customers, even if they’re dealing with many representatives while communicating with your business.  Chick-Fil-A  does this with their messaging. When you order, whether at the drive-thru or the counter, all employees welcome guests, thank them for their service, and respond with phrases like “my pleasure” no matter which location you visit.

7. Design a Visual Identity

Branding isn’t just in your words. It’s visual, too. Elements like typography, photography, colors, logos, or design cues help customers get used to and associate certain tangible objects and feelings with a brand. You use your brand’s visual identity across almost all your online and offline channels. Places that may feature these elements include:

• Digital marketing
• Social media channels
• Press releases
• Storefronts
• Promotional swag
• Advertisements
• Emails and email signatures

Consider a store like Home Depot. You likely associate a square logo, the color orange, and a specific font with the brand. Well-established companies, like Home Depot, often have a brand book that sets specifications on how to keep the company’s visual identity consistent across channels. It may include things like the exact hex code shade for the brand color, specific font names, and the exact dimensions of a logo for use on different platforms.

If you need additional help to create your branding plan document, you may find inspiration from these sources with templates and examples:

• Canva :  A free graphic design and photo editing platform
• Etsy :  An online marketplace for artists and designers
• Examples.com :  An online hub of templates and design ideas
• SampleTemplates.com :  A template repository for documents in a variety of fields
• Template.net :  An online resource for fully customizable template files

A brand plan can help you develop an identity that tells customers exactly what they need to know about your company before they interact with your organization. Having one that you can follow and adjust as your brand grows over time gives you the tools necessary to show your best attributes to the public for years to come.

CopyPress writer

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The most successful and biggest companies today all share a common feature. They have great branding. Great branding allows for customers, loyal and potential, to feel what the brand is all about by just a look of the logo. One look at the Coca-Cola brand reminds its audience of its sweet and refreshing taste. One look at the bitten fruit of Apple brings to memory the sleek and modern design of the iPod, iPhone and other Apple devices . You may also see plan samples .

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How to Create a Winning Brand Strategy for Your Business

A brand strategy is a long-term plan that defines how you communicate your brand’s identity, values, and personality to your target audience. It guides every aspect of your branding, from your logo and website to your social media and marketing campaigns. A brand strategy helps you stand out from the competition, build trust and loyalty with your customers, and achieve your business goals.

But how do you create a brand strategy that works for your business? What are the different types of branding strategies you can choose from? And what are the essential elements of a successful brand strategy? In this blog post, we will answer these questions and more. Let’s get started!

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4 Types of Branding Strategies

Before you create your brand strategy, you need to decide what type of branding strategy you want to follow. There are four main types of branding strategies, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Here are the four types of branding strategies:

Product branding: This is when you focus on creating a strong brand identity for each of your products or services. Think of Apple, Nike, or Coca-Cola. Each of their products has a distinct name, logo, design, and personality that appeals to a specific segment of the market. Product branding allows you to differentiate your products from others and create loyal customers who love your brand.

Corporate branding: This is when you focus on creating a strong brand identity for your entire company or organization. Think of Google, Amazon, or Starbucks. Their brand name is synonymous with their company name, and they use it across all their products and services. Corporate branding allows you to create a consistent and unified image for your business and leverage your reputation and credibility across different markets.

Personal branding: This is when you focus on creating a strong brand identity for yourself as an individual or a professional. Think of Oprah Winfrey, Elon Musk, or Gary Vaynerchuk. They have built their personal brands around their expertise, values, and personality, and they use them to promote their businesses, causes, or careers. Personal branding allows you to establish yourself as an authority and influencer in your field and attract more opportunities and followers.

Employer branding: This is when you focus on creating a strong brand identity for your employees and potential employees. Think of Netflix, Zappos, or Shopify. They have built their employer brands around their culture, values, and benefits, and they use them to attract and retain the best talent in the industry. Employer branding allows you to improve your employee engagement, productivity, and retention, as well as your customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Essentials for a Winning Brand Strategy

Now that you know the different types of branding strategies, you need to know what are the essential elements of a winning brand strategy. A brand strategy is not just about having a catchy name or a cool logo. It’s about creating a clear and compelling story that connects with your audience on an emotional level. Here are the essential elements of a winning brand strategy:

This is the reason why your brand exists beyond making money. It’s the core value that drives everything you do and the impact you want to make in the world. Your brand purpose should answer the question: Why does your brand matter?

This is the long-term goal that you want to achieve with your brand. It’s the ultimate destination that guides your direction and decisions. Your brand vision should answer the question: Where do you want your brand to be in the future?

This is the specific action that you take to fulfill your brand purpose and vision. It’s the concrete objective that defines what you do and how you do it. Your brand mission should answer the question: How do you deliver value to your customers?

These are the principles that shape your brand culture and behavior. They are the beliefs that guide how you interact with your customers, employees, partners, and stakeholders. Your brand values should answer the question: What do you stand for?

Positioning

This is how you differentiate your brand from your competitors in the market. It’s the unique value proposition that makes your brand appealing and relevant to your target audience. Your brand positioning should answer the question: What makes your brand different and better than others?

Personality

This is the human-like traits that characterize your brand voice and tone. It’s the way you express yourself through words, images, colors, fonts, sounds, etc. Your brand personality should answer the question: How do you want people to feel about your brand?

This is the visual representation of your brand personality. It’s the logo, name, slogan, design, style, etc., that make your brand recognizable and memorable. Your brand identity should answer the question: How do you want people to see your brand?

How to Create a Brand Strategy in 8 Steps

Step 01 - define the brand vision and mission.

Articulate the core essence of your brand and the impact you want to make in the world. Think about your brand’s origin story, values, beliefs, and goals. Your brand vision is your long-term aspiration and your brand mission is your short-term action plan to achieve it.

Step 02 - Conduct a Brand Audit and Research Your Target Market

Evaluate the current state of your brand and identify the gaps and opportunities for improvement. You also need to understand your target audience’s demographics, psychographics, behaviors, and pain points. You can use tools such as SWOT analysis, competitor analysis, customer surveys, interviews, focus groups, etc. to gather relevant data and insights.

Step 03 - Identify a Your Unique Value Proposition

Define what makes your brand stand out from the crowd and how you want to position yourself in the minds of your customers. You should highlight the benefits and solutions that your brand offers and how they are different from or better than your competitors. You should also craft a clear and compelling positioning statement that summarizes your brand essence, target market, and competitive advantage.

Step 04 - Develop the Brand Identity and Voice

Create the visual and verbal elements that represent your brand personality and values. You should choose a name, logo, slogan, color palette, typography, imagery, etc. that reflect your brand identity and resonate with your target audience. You should also establish a consistent tone of voice that matches your brand identity and conveys your brand message effectively.

Step 05 - Create a Brand Story and Messaging Framework

Tell a captivating story that connects with your audience on an emotional level and inspires them to take action. You should use storytelling techniques such as setting, characters, conflict, resolution, etc. to craft a narrative that showcases your brand’s purpose, values, and journey. You should also develop a messaging framework that outlines your key messages, supporting points, and call-to-action for different audiences and scenarios.

Step 06 - Establish Brand Guidelines and Standards

Document the rules and best practices for using your brand elements and maintaining your brand consistency and quality. You should create a brand style guide that specifies how to apply your brand identity and voice across different media and channels. You should also create a quality assurance checklist that ensures that your brand meets the expectations and standards of your customers and stakeholders.

Step 07 - Implement the Brand Strategy and Launch Your Brand

Execute your brand plan and introduce your brand to your audience. You should align your internal team and external partners on your brand strategy and goals. You should also create a launch plan that details the timeline, budget, resources, activities, channels, etc. for launching your brand. You should also prepare a launch campaign that generates awareness, interest, desire, and action for your brand among your target market.

Step 08 - Monitor, Measure, and Refine the Brand Strategy

Track the brand performance and feedback and make adjustments to improve your brand over time. You should define the key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics that reflect your brand objectives and outcomes. You should also collect and analyze the data and feedback from various sources such as analytics tools, customer reviews, social media mentions, etc. You should also conduct regular reviews and audits to evaluate your brand results and identify areas for improvement.

Benefits of Having a Good Brand Strategy

Having a good brand strategy can bring many benefits to your business, such as:

• Increased awareness: A good brand strategy can help you create a strong and consistent image for your business that attracts attention and recognition from potential customers.
• Enhanced loyalty: It can help you build trust and emotional connection with your customers that fosters retention and advocacy.
• Improved profitability: Increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, which leads to more referrals, repeat purchases, and revenue.
• Reduced costs: Optimize your marketing efforts and resources by focusing on the most effective channels and messages for your target audience.
• Greater impact: Align your business goals with your social and environmental responsibilities by creating a positive difference in the world.

How to Build Your Brand Strategy with Creately

With Creately, you can create a workspace which serves as a Wiki for your brand strategy.

• Use the brand strategy template to iron out the process of creating your brand.
• Add notes, links and attachments to each section of the brand strategy to add additional information.
• Use colour themes and visual elements to develop the brand personality and establish guidelines for the brand.
• Share your brand strategy workspace with relevant teams to get instant feedback with comments and assign specific tasks when developing the brand strategy with @mentions.
• Export your brand strategy in PNG, JPEG, PDF and SVG formats for presentation purposes.

Wrapping Up

A brand strategy is a long-term plan that defines how you communicate your brand’s identity, values, and personality to your target audience. It guides every aspect of your branding, from your logo and website to your social media and marketing campaigns.

To create a winning brand strategy for your business, you need to define the following elements:

• Purpose: Why does your brand matter?
• Vision: Where do you want your brand to be in the future?
• Mission: How do you deliver value to your customers?
• Values: What do you stand for?
• Positioning: What makes your brand different and better than others?
• Personality: How do you want people to feel about your brand?
• Identity: How do you want people to see your brand?

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Hansani has a background in journalism and marketing communications. She loves reading and writing about tech innovations. She enjoys writing poetry, travelling and photography.

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10 Best Brand Strategy Examples (PDF Framework Template)

In this article, you’ll discover 10 brand strategy examples from some of the best brands in the world.

We’ll then uncover how to develop a brand strategy for your brand or your client’s. First, we’ll break down the brand strategy elements these successful brands leverage, how they use them and why they work. Then you’ll see examples of brand strategies for each of these important strategic elements. By the end of this article you’ll understand the most important aspects of brand strategy and how the top brands in the world use them.

Brand Strategy Like A Boss (10 Best Brand Strategy Examples) 

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What Is Brand Strategy?

There are plenty of definitions of brand strategy out there. I recently spoke with well-renowned branding author and strategist  Marty Neumeier  on The Brand Master Podcast. I asked him what his definition of brand strategy is was and here’s what he had to say.

Brand Strategy is a long-term plan to out-manoeuvre competitors through radical differentiation.

To get into the weeds of brand strategy a little more, here’s my brand strategy definition:

Brand Strategy is the definition of a brand’s approach to who they target, how they differentiate and how they  influence perceptions and decisions

When all is said and done, branding is about shaping the perception of a given business in the market as a more appealing option than its competitors.

Brand Strategy vs Marketing Tactics

Brand strategy is often confused with individual marketing tactics of a brand such as social media marketing, advertising or content marketing. For these tactics to be effective, they must be executed as part of a larger strategy. Mark Ritson , one of the world’s most renowned marketing professors wrote:

Tactics without strategy is dumbing down our discipline. If marketers want to be taken seriously, they must end their preoccupation with tactics and tools and focus on their strategy, devised by thoroughly researching, segmenting and targeting their audience.

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10 Key Elements Of Brand Strategy

Although no two brands are the same, there are a series of key brand strategy elements  that are most commonly used. Across the most successful brands and brand strategists in the world these key components are used consistently as the critical aspects of the overall brand strategies.

Positioning 

Personality

Voice And Tone

Brand Story

Each of these key brand strategy elements can spearhead a brand’s overall strategy or work as part of a team of strategic components. I’m about to break down each one of these essential strategy elements and provide you with the best examples for each.

The following sections will provide you with an understanding of how these elements work and inspiration to create a strategy for your own brand or your client’s.

Let’s start at the top with brand purpose.

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#1. toms shoes – brand purpose.

The purpose of the brand or the brand’s purpose defines why the brand exists. 

Brand Purpose  Definition

Why Brand Exists Beyond Money

Of course, every business exists to make money, though most brands serve a purpose beyond money whether they define that purpose or not. Brand’s that take the time to  define their reason for being (or their “Raison d’être)  tend to be more dialed into the audience they serve.

Though many dismiss brand purpose as a legitimate strategy, the figures don’t lie. In a  “Strength of Purpose Study”  of 8,000 global consumers by New York-based  Zeno Group , the results were clear. Consumers are four to six times more likely to  buy from, trust, champion, and defend  companies with a strong  Purpose .

TOMS shoes  is an excellent example of a purpose-driven brand that has used their purpose as their driving strategy using the following  brand purpose statement .

We believe in a future where all people have the chance to thrive.

The TOMS brand was created when founder  Blake Mycoskie  traveled through Argentina in 2006 and experienced the hardships faced by children without shoes. His experience inspired him to create a brand with giving at its core. For every pair of shoes the company sold, a new pair would be given to a child in need.

This was the purpose the TOMS brand was born from which still drives the business today, with the brand investing  1/3 of all profits into grassroots efforts .

The 2021  Purpose Power Index ranks TOMS as #2 of the 20 most purposeful brands in the world.

Brand purpose is a legitimate brand strategy example. Just like it has at TOMS, it can drive decisions, inspire employees and attract dedicated loyal customers who believe what the brand believes. Brands that want to make emotional connections need look no 

How To Create Your Brand Purpose

When creating your brand purpose, define the reason you would exists if not for money.

#2. Tesla – Brand Vision

The brand vision sets in place the navigational direction for the brand. It plants a flag in the ground as to where the brand wants to go which ultimately influences decisions and actions to guide the brand to its intended destination. 

Brand Vision Definition

Where the brand wants to go and what it aspires to be

A  brand vision  is not a piece of marketing designed to attract customers, but an internal guidepost expressed in the  brand vision statement.

Brands that are acutely in tune with the vision of their future brand can breathe a sense of believability throughout the brand’s personnel that they are part of something bigger than themselves. 

Tesla is a brand with a big vision inspired by  2021 person of the year Elon Musk .

Tesla had become a world-leading brand and the benchmark in the electric car market.

But Tesla’s ambitions go way beyond the automobile industry and into the realm of sustainability.

The revamp of their Tesla’s brand vision statement, which is also used as their mission statement is:

To accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.

Tesla doesn’t use their vision statement as a  “ nice to have ”  or a piece of marketing. They use it to drive decisions and actions as the brand expands into the solar energy category. 

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How To Create Your Brand Vision

When creating your vision statement, define what you want your future brand to look like, and use that vision as a guiding compass to get there.

#3. Patagonia – Brand Mission

While the brand vision outlines the aspirations of the brand for the future, the brand mission defines the brand’s commitments for today.

The goal of the brand mission is to define that commitment.

The brand mission is documented in the brand mission statement, which, like the vision statement is an internal document. The mission provides clarity for the brand leaders and personnel about the consistent commitments it must deliver on to achieve the future vision.

When a brand is clear on its commitments, it shows up in its  actions and forms part of the brand’s reputation .

For example, Patagonia is a well-established lifestyle brand that produces outdoor, camping and climbing apparel brand.

Founded by climber and brand leader  Yvon Chouinard in 1973 , the brand has very strong roots in protecting the environment. 

The  Patagonia brand mission , as outlined in their brand mission statement is to:

Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.

This mission has been the driver behind shaping  Patagonia’s business processes  and marketing to align with their commitment.

Today, many brands have jumped on the  “Sustainability”  bandwagon without much to show for it.

Patagonia however, is an example of how the brand mission can not only form an important part of the brand strategy but can be the driver behind that strategy’s success.

How To Create Your Brand Mission

When defining your brand mission for yours or you client’s brand strategy, make sure you dig deep to find a commitment that will drive decisions.

#4. IKEA – Brand Values

Brand values outline what’s important to the brand in the way they do business.

The goal of brand values are to provide a boundary of behaviour for the brand so it operates according to a certain philosophy of conduct.

Brand values form an integral part of the brand culture which is the manner of how the brand functions internally.

Brands that are happy on the inside, tend to be happy on the outside. This isn’t just an assumption. Both on revenue, and stock-price performance, brands that consistently show up in the  100 Best Companies To Work For List , see higher than average returns. 

Brand values play a critical role  in aligning the brand internally so everyone is pushing in the same direction. There’s a caveat here though. Values for the sake of values are useless.

Brand Values must be actionable and they must shape how the brand engages both internally and externally.

IKEA is an example of  a brand that is clear on their values  and how to use those values as part of their broader brand strategy.

Here’s how they see it:

We have a strong set of values. They are the compass that guides us in everything we do. Our culture is formed when we put these values into action.

They go on to say

We’re constantly trying to find better ways to get things done and to bring out the best in ourselves and others.

Here are the core brand values that drive the  IKEA  brand.

Togetherness

Caring for people and planet

Cost-consciousness

Renew and improve

Different with a meaning

Give and take responsibility

Lead by example

As you can see, IKEA’s values are unique to them. They’re clear and actionable and can be used at to guide decisions, actions, communication and engagements.

How To Develop Your Brand Values

When defining core values for your own brand, start with single words that are important to you in how you do business, then make them unique and actionable.

#5. Apple – Brand Positioning

Brand positioning  is arguably the most important and most difficult brand strategy element to define and develop.

The goal of brand positioning is to specify a unique  point-of-difference (or differentiator) , that sets the brand apart from its competitors.

An effective brand position will earn the brand a distinctive place in the mind of the audience as to why they are a more relevant choice for them. Consumers are bombarded with choices in every category and brands must fight for awareness, attention, and salience.

The winners are remembered and chosen in the buying decisions and the positioning strategy plays a big role in influencing that decision. 

Apple  is one of the best examples in the worlds of a strong positioning strategy.

When you think of Apple, you think of  Simplicity and Innovation. 

There are hundreds of technology brands in the world through none deliver the innovation and the simplistic  brand experience  quite like Apple. This focus on advancement and an exemplary brand experience has allowed Apple to establish the leading position with premium pricing competitors can’t compete with. Here is the Apple brand positioning statement.

For individuals who want the best personal device, Apple is the technology leader that emphasises research, advancement and innovation to give our customers an innovative and seamless experience. We consider the impact our products and processes have on our customers and the planet.

The  brand positioning statement is not designed as a piece of marketing, but an internal document to shape everything about the brand from experience to marketing and everywhere in between.

How To Develop A Brand Position

When defining your brand position, uncover what’s important to your audience and how you’ll give them what they want with an experience unique to your brand.

#6. Harley Davidson – Brand Personality

Brand personality  is one of the most potent but underutilised elements of brand strategy.

The goal of brand personality is to make your brand sound and feel human rather than feeling like a corporate entity.

What a brand says is critical, but the way it says it is becoming an increasingly important aspect of  brand communication . 

As people, whether or not we connect with others is largely due to whether or not our personalities align.

We feel more connected to those who display the same characteristics and traits as we do because our reptilian brain signals the familiarity as safety.

Brands therefore need to show up with relevant human traits to get approval from that reptilian brain.

Harley Davison  is a perfect example of a brand with personality. Throughout the brand experience from the copy on their website to their image style to their marketing and advertisements, Harley’s communication is laced with personality.

Harley’s  target audience  are rebels at heart and they use that rebellious spirit throughout the experience which includes

Rugged Brand Identity

Gritty language

Rough Tone Of Voice

Non-conformist attitude

Disruptive behaviour

Harley loves to go against the grain of everyday society and in doing so, they endear themselves to the inner rebel of their audience.

How To Develop A Brand Personality

When defining a personality for your brand, take the time to first understand your audience and the traits they’re attracted to. Use those traits to connect and resonate and embed them into your communication strategy.

#7. Old Spice – Brand Voice & Tone

Brand voice  and tone is and extension of the brand personality.

The goal of the brand voice and tone is to set the mood and provide a guide for how the brand will sound.

While your brand personality are the broader strokes of how your brand will show up, your brand voice provides the subtle detail of your brands tonality. Your personality and tone work hand-in-hand to  deliver your message in a specific manner to attract your audience.

Old Spice  is an excellent example of how a brand can use a fresh tone and style of communication to connect with new markets. 

Before their  repositioning  at the turn of the century, Old Spice was seen as a boring old man’s brand.

But with a refreshed personality and tone of voice laced with tongue-in-cheek humour, satire and swagger, Old Spice became a household favourite among younger demographics.

Old Spice became the #1 brand in the Men’s Body Wash category within 18 months of adjusting their brand strategy and tone of voice.

How To Develop Your Tone Of Voice

When developing your brands tone of voice, start first with a well-defined personality. Use your personality traits to shape the way you want your brand to sound and the characteristics in the tone.

#8. Brand Story – Airbnb

Brand story or brand storytelling strategy  is the framework of narrative techniques used to engage with the audience in a highly engaging way.

The goal of brand storytelling is to create associations and deliver messages to the audience in a way that feel relevant and engaging.

Traditional marketing techniques that push products and services have an extremely high dismissal rate because consumers are simply bombarded.

Stories on the other hand engage a primitive part of the brain that cut’s through the barrier of analytical thinking.

When we hear a story it draws our attention and opens a story loop that needs to be closed.

In other words, when we hear a story, we instinctively need to know what happens next.

The more relevant the story is to the journey your audience is on, the more clearly they see themselves in the story.

Brands that weave their message into a story about their audience plants a seed in their mind that’s received fondly and remembered easily.

Airbnb  is an example of a brand that has brand storytelling down to an art. Airbnb’s mission is to help us imagine a world where we can

Belong Anywhere.

To forge this mission into a reality, they focused their efforts on building a community and have created a platform for that  community to share their stories .

From hosts to guests, AirBnB have fostered a community of storytellers and loyalists marketing the brand through their own positive experiences. 

How To Create Your Brand Story

When defining a brand storytelling framework for your brand, step into the shoes of your audience and immerse yourself in their journey. Tell the story of the journey your audience is on and weave your brand in as the support to help them get to their destination.

#9. Hermes – Brand Heritage

Brand heritage  is a brand strategy that tends to be reserved for brands with history.

The goal of brand heritage as a strategy is to create associations of tradition and longevity. 

This inherently suggests they are a brand that has stood the test of time for a reason.

Whether the brand is 30 years old or 130 years old, associations to times past can evoke a sense of nostalgia an place the brand in a unique place in the audiences mind. 

One of the best examples of brand heritage is from  Hermes , the French fashion brand. Hermes, founded in 1837 by  Theirry Hermes  is the oldest fashion brand in the world. The brand has a deep sense of history and tradition, partly because the brand still remains in the Hermes family which has now spanned five generations.

Hermes was trading long before  “branding”  became an important aspect of business and they’ve stayed true to their roots. The Hermès’ brand philosophy was well summarised by former CEO  Jean-Louis Dumas  when he said

We don’t have a policy of image, we have a policy of product.

Though very few brands enjoy the competitive advantage of heritage, it’s a potent strategy if available. 

#10. Nike – Tagline / Slogan

The  brand tagline  or slogan is the brands message distilled in its purest, most concise form.

The goal of the tagline or slogan is to plant a memorable meaning in the mind of the audience that can grow into the position it wants to own.

Though the words  “tagline” and “slogan”  and used interchangeably, there is a difference. A slogan spearheads a marketing campaign while a tagline spearheads the brand.

Slogans however can be promoted to a tagline on the back of a highly successful campaign which often happens.

The tagline should help to solidify the position by making the idea simple and easy to remember. 

Nike’s  tagline  “ Just Do It ”   is probably the most successful and memorable tagline of all time. 

The Nike tagline was born as a slogan for a campaign by Wieden + Kennedy in 1987.

The slogan resonated deeply with the athletic community who was Nike’s core audience and it quickly became the adopted tagline.

The tagline has become the spearhead of the brand alongside its iconic swoosh and acts as way of life for the brand and its customers.

How To Create a Tagline

Start first with your brand position and distil that position into a handful of words. An effective tagline has four key characteristics. It should be concise, meaningful. Memorable and catchy.

How To Create A Tagline

Over to you.

An effective brand strategy is made up of a collection of elements all working together as a cohesive system. All successful brands have a clearly defined position which is a non-negotiable when it comes to building a brand. Once that position is defined, you can use and or all of the elements listed above to focus your strategy.

Remember…Brand Strategy is the definition of a brand’s approach to who they target, how they differentiate and how they influence perceptions and decisions Get crystal clear on who your audience is and what they want, and you significantly increase your ability to influence.

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Create Strategic Brands Like A PRO

Free PDF Business Plan Templates and Samples

By Joe Weller | September 9, 2020

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We’ve gathered the most useful collection of business plan PDF templates and samples, including options for organizations of any size and type.

On this page, you’ll find free PDF templates for a simple business plan , small business plan , startup business plan , and more.

Simple Business Plan PDF Templates

These simple business plan PDF templates are ready to use and customizable to fit the needs of any organization.

Simple Business Plan Template PDF

This template contains a traditional business plan layout to help you map out each aspect, from a company overview to sales projections and a marketing strategy. This template includes a table of contents, as well as space for financing details that startups looking for funding may need to provide. 

Download Simple Business Plan Template - PDF

Lean Business Plan Template PDF

This scannable business plan template allows you to easily identify the most important elements of your plan. Use this template to outline key details pertaining to your business and industry, product or service offerings, target customer segments (and channels to reach them), and to identify sources of revenue. There is also space to include key performance metrics and a timeline of activities. 

Download Lean Business Plan Template - PDF

Simple 30-60-90 Day Business Plan Template PDF

This template is designed to help you develop and implement a 90-day business plan by breaking it down into manageable chunks of time. Use the space provided to detail your main goals and deliverables for each timeframe, and then add the steps necessary to achieve your objectives. Assign task ownership and enter deadlines to ensure your plan stays on track every step of the way.

Download Simple 30-60-90 Day Business Plan Template

PDF | Smartsheet

One-Page Business Plan PDF Templates

The following single page business plan templates are designed to help you download your key ideas on paper, and can be used to create a pitch document to gain buy-in from partners, investors, and stakeholders.

One-Page Business Plan Template PDF

Use this one-page template to summarize each aspect of your business concept in a clear and concise manner. Define the who, what, why, and how of your idea, and use the space at the bottom to create a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) for your business. 

Download One-Page Business Plan Template

If you’re looking for a specific type of analysis, check out our collection of SWOT templates .

One-Page Lean Business Plan PDF

This one-page business plan template employs the Lean management concept, and encourages you to focus on the key assumptions of your business idea. A Lean plan is not stagnant, so update it as goals and objectives change — the visual timeline at the bottom is ideal for detailing milestones. 

Download One-Page Lean Business Plan Template - PDF

One-Page 30-60-90 Day Business Plan Template

Use this business plan template to identify main goals and outline the necessary activities to achieve those goals in 30, 60, and 90-day increments. Easily customize this template to fit your needs while you track the status of each task and goal to keep your business plan on target. 

Download One-Page 30-60-90 Day Business Plan Template

For additional single page plans, including an example of a one-page business plan , visit " One-Page Business Plan Templates with a Quick How-To Guide ."

Small Business Plan PDF Templates

These business plan templates are useful for small businesses that want to map out a way to meet organizational objectives, including how to structure, operate, and expand their business.

Simple Small Business Plan Template PDF

A small business can use this template to outline each critical component of a business plan. There is space to provide details about product or service offerings, target audience, customer reach strategy, competitive advantage, and more. Plus, there is space at the bottom of the document to include a SWOT analysis. Once complete, you can use the template as a basis to build out a more elaborate plan. 

Download Simple Small Business Plan Template

Fill-In-the-Blank Small Business Plan Template PDF

This fill-in-the-blank template walks you through each section of a business plan. Build upon the fill-in-the-blank content provided in each section to add information about your company, business idea, market analysis, implementation plan, timeline of milestones, and much more.

Download Fill-In-the-Blank Small Business Plan Template - PDF

One-Page Small Business Plan Template PDF

Use this one-page template to create a scannable business plan that highlights the most essential parts of your organization’s strategy. Provide your business overview and management team details at the top, and then outline the target market, market size, competitive offerings, key objectives and success metrics, financial plan, and more.

Download One-Page Business Plan for Small Business - PDF

Startup Business Plan PDF Templates

Startups can use these business plan templates to check the feasibility of their idea, and articulate their vision to potential investors.

Startup Business Plan Template

Use this business plan template to organize and prepare each essential component of your startup plan. Outline key details relevant to your concept and organization, including your mission and vision statement, product or services offered, pricing structure, marketing strategy, financial plan, and more.

‌Download Startup Business Plan Template

Sample 30-60-90 Day Business Plan for Startup

Startups can use this sample 30-60-90 day plan to establish main goals and deliverables spanning a 90-day period. Customize the sample goals, deliverables, and activities provided on this template according to the needs of your business. Then, assign task owners and set due dates to help ensure your 90-day plan stays on track.

‌Download Sample 30-60-90 Day Business Plan for Startup Template 

For additional resources to create your plan, visit “ Free Startup Business Plan Templates and Examples .”

Nonprofit Business Plan PDF Templates

Use these business plan PDF templates to outline your organization’s mission, your plan to make a positive impact in your community, and the steps you will take to achieve your nonprofit’s goals.

Nonprofit Business Plan Template PDF

Use this customizable PDF template to develop a plan that details your organization’s purpose, objectives, and strategy. This template features a table of contents, with room to include your nonprofit’s mission and vision, key team and board members, program offerings, a market and industry analysis, promotional plan, financial plan, and more. This template also contains a visual timeline to display historic and future milestones.

Download Nonprofit Business Plan Template - PDF

One-Page Business Plan for Nonprofit Organization PDF 

This one-page plan serves as a good starting point for established and startup nonprofit organizations to jot down their fundamental goals and objectives. This template contains all the essential aspects of a business plan in a concise and scannable format, including the organizational overview, purpose, promotional plan, key objectives and success metrics, fundraising goals, and more.

Download One-Page Business Plan for Nonprofit Organization Template - PDF

Fill-In-the-Blank Business Plan PDF Templates

Use these fill-in-the-blank templates as a foundation for creating a comprehensive roadmap that aligns your business strategy with your marketing, sales, and financial goals.

Simple Fill-In-the-Blank Business Plan PDF

The fill-in-the-blank template contains all the vital parts of a business plan, with sample content that you can customize to fit your needs. There is room to include an executive summary, business description, market analysis, marketing plan, operations plan, financial statements, and more. 

Download Simple Fill-In-the-Blank Business Plan Template - PDF

Lean Fill-In-the-Blank Business Plan PDF

This business plan is designed with a Lean approach that encourages you to clarify and communicate your business idea in a clear and concise manner. This single page fill-in-the-blank template includes space to provide details about your management team, the problem you're solving, the solution, target customers, cost structure, and revenue streams. Use the timeline at the bottom to produce a visual illustration of key milestones. 

Download Fill-In-the-Blank Lean Business Plan Template - PDF

For additional resources, take a look at " Free Fill-In-the-Blank Business Plan Templates ."

Sample Business Plan PDF Templates

These sample business plan PDF templates can help you to develop an organized, thorough, and professional business plan.

Business Plan Sample 

This business plan example demonstrates a plan for a fictional food truck company. The sample includes all of the elements in a traditional business plan, which makes it a useful starting point for developing a plan specific to your business needs.

Download Basic Business Plan Sample - PDF

Sample Business Plan Outline Template

Use this sample outline as a starting point for your business plan. Shorten or expand the outline depending on your organization’s needs, and use it to develop a table of contents for your finalized plan.

Download Sample Business Plan Outline Template - PDF

Sample Business Financial Plan Template

Use this sample template to develop the financial portion of your business plan. The template provides space to include a financial overview, key assumptions, financial indicators, and business ratios. Complete the break-even analysis and add your financial statements to help prove the viability of your organization’s business plan.

Download Business Financial Plan Template

PDF  | Smartsheet

For more free, downloadable templates for all aspects of your business, check out “ Free Business Templates for Organizations of All Sizes .”

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When teams have clarity into the work getting done, there’s no telling how much more they can accomplish in the same amount of time.  Try Smartsheet for free, today.

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Advertising Agency Business Plan Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Over the past 20+ years, we have helped over 1,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans to start and grow their advertising agencies. On this page, we will first give you some background information with regards to the importance of business planning. We will then go through a advertising agency business plan template step-by-step so you can create your plan today.

Download our Ultimate Business Plan Template here >

What Is an Advertising Agency Business Plan?

A business plan provides a snapshot of your advertising agency business as it stands today, and lays out your growth plan for the next five years. It explains your business goals and your strategy for reaching them. It also includes market research to support your plans.

Why You Need a Business Plan for Your Advertising Agency

If you’re looking to start a advertising agency, or grow your existing ad agency business, you need a business plan. A business plan will help you raise funding, if needed, and plan out the growth of your advertising agency business in order to improve your chances of success. Your advertising agency business plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your company grows and changes.

Sources of Funding for Advertising agencies

With regards to funding, the main sources of funding for a advertising agency business are personal savings, credit cards, bank loans and angel investors. With regards to bank loans, banks will want to review your business plan and gain confidence that you will be able to repay your loan and interest. To acquire this confidence, the advertising agency will not only want to confirm that your financials are reasonable, but they will also want to see a professional plan. Such a plan will give them the confidence that you can successfully and professionally operate a business. Personal savings and bank loans are the most common funding paths for social media marketing businesses.

Finish Your Business Plan Today!

How to write a business plan for an ad agency.

If you want to start an advertising agency business or expand your current one, you need a business plan. Below are links to each section of your advertising agency business plan template:

Executive Summary

Your executive summary provides an introduction to your business plan, but it is normally the last section you write because it provides a summary of each key section of your plan.

The goal of your Executive Summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the type of advertising agency you are operating and the status. For example, are you a startup, do you have an advertising agency that you would like to grow, or are you operating a chain of advertising agencies?

Next, provide an overview of each of the subsequent sections of your plan. For example, give a brief overview of the advertising industry. Discuss the type of advertising agency you are operating. Detail your direct competitors. Give an overview of your target customers. Provide a snapshot of your marketing plan. Identify the key members of your team. And offer an overview of your financial plan.  

Company Analysis

In your company analysis, you will detail the type of advertising agency you are operating and your business model.

For example, you might operate one of the following types of advertising agencies:

• Full-Service Advertising Agency : this type of ad agency performs a variety of client services including digital, traditional, social media, radio and print advertising campaigns.
• Digital Advertising Agency: this type of ad agency focuses on digital marketing and advertising; social media marketing, email marketing, content marketing, web design, and SEO.
• Traditional Advertising Agency: this type of ad agency specializes in traditional marketing and advertising campaigns in ways such as radio and television commercials, billboards, magazines, and newspapers advertisements.

In addition to explaining the type of advertising agency business you will operate, the Company Analysis section of your business plan needs to provide background on the business.

Include answers to question such as:

• When and why did you start the business?
• What milestones have you achieved to date? Milestones could include the number of customers served, number of positive reviews, revenue generated from advertising campaigns, etc.
• Your legal structure. Are you incorporated as an S-Corp? An LLC? A sole proprietorship? Explain your legal structure here.

Industry Analysis

In your industry analysis, you need to provide an overview of the advertising agency industry.

While this may seem unnecessary, it serves multiple purposes.

First, researching the advertising agency industry educates you. It helps you understand the market in which you are operating.

Secondly, market research can improve your strategy, particularly if your research identifies market trends.

The third reason for market research is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that.

The following questions should be answered in the industry analysis section of your creative agency business plan:

• How big is the advertising agency industry (in dollars)?
• Is the market declining or increasing?
• Who are the key competitors in the market?
• Who are the key suppliers in the market?
• What trends are affecting the industry?
• What is the industry’s growth forecast over the next 5 – 10 years?
• What is the relevant market size? That is, how big is the potential market for your advertising agency business? You can extrapolate such a figure by assessing the size of the market in the entire country and then applying that figure to your local population.

Customer Analysis

The customer analysis section of your advertising agency business plan must detail the customers you serve and/or expect to serve.

The following are examples of customer segments: start-up companies, large corporations, small businesses and non-profit organizations.

As you can imagine, the customer segment(s) you choose will have a great impact on the type of ad agency business you operate. Clearly, a well-established business looking to expand operations would respond to different marketing promotions than a small start-up, for example.

Try to break out your target customers in terms of their demographic and psychographic profiles. With regards to demographics, include a discussion of the ages, genders, locations and income levels of the customers you seek to serve. Because most advertising agencies primarily serve customers living in their same city or town, such demographic information is easy to find on government websites.

Psychographic profiles explain the wants and needs of your target customers. The more you can understand and define these needs, the better you will do in attracting and retaining your customers.

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Competitive Analysis

Your competitive analysis should identify the indirect and direct competitors your business faces and then focus on the latter.

Direct competitors are other advertising agencies.

Indirect competitors are other options that customers have to purchase from that aren’t direct competitors. This includes marketing agencies, graphic designers and freelancers.

With regards to direct competition, you want to describe the other advertising agencies with which you compete. Most likely, your direct competitors will be house flippers located very close to your location.

For each such competitor, provide an overview of their businesses and document their strengths and weaknesses. Unless you once worked at your competitors’ businesses, it will be impossible to know everything about them. But you should be able to find out key things about them such as:

• What types of customers do they serve?
• What types of advertising do they specialize in?
• What is their pricing (premium, low, etc.)?
• What are they good at?
• What are their weaknesses?

With regards to the last two questions, think about your answers from the customers’ perspective. And don’t be afraid to ask your competitors’ customers what they like most and least about them.

The final part of your competitive analysis section is to document your areas of competitive advantage. For example:

• Will you provide a wider variety of advertising services?
• Will you provide more team support?
• Will you offer better pricing?

Think about ways you will outperform your competition and document them in this section of your plan.  

Marketing Plan

Traditionally, a marketing plan includes the four P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. For a advertising agency business plan, your marketing plan should include the following:

Product : In the product section, you should reiterate the type of advertising agency company that you documented in your Company Analysis. Then, detail the specific products you will be offering. For example, in addition to advertising services, will you include public relations and/or social media management services as well?

Price : Document the prices you will offer and how they compare to your competitors. Essentially in the product and price sub-sections of your marketing plan, you are presenting the services you offer and their prices.

Place : Place refers to the location of your advertising agency company. Document your location and mention how the location will impact your success. For example, is your advertising agency business located in a busy retail district, a business district, a stand-alone building, etc. Discuss how your location might be the ideal location for your customers.

Promotions : The final part of your advertising agency marketing plan is the promotions section. Here you will document how you will drive customers to your location(s). The following are some promotional methods you might consider:

• Advertising in local papers and magazines
• Reaching out to local websites
• Social media marketing
• Local radio advertising

Operations Plan

While the earlier sections of your business plan explained your goals, your operations plan describes how you will meet them. Your operations plan should have two distinct sections as follows.

Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your advertising agency business, including marketing your services, obtaining new clients and launching new services.

Long-term goals are the milestones you hope to achieve. These could include the dates when you expect to have X number marketing campaigns completed, or when you hope to reach $X in revenue. It could also be when you expect to expand your business to a new city.  

Management Team

To demonstrate your advertising agency business’ ability to succeed, a strong management team is essential. Highlight your key players’ backgrounds, emphasizing those skills and experiences that prove their ability to grow a company.

Ideally you and/or your team members have direct experience in managing advertising agencies. If so, highlight this experience and expertise. But also highlight any experience that you think will help your business succeed.

If your team is lacking, consider assembling an advisory board. An advisory board would include 2 to 8 individuals who would act like mentors to your business. They would help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. If needed, look for advisory board members with experience in overseeing advertising campaigns or successfully running their own advertising agency.  

Financial Plan

Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statements.

Income Statement : an income statement is more commonly called a Profit and Loss statement or P&L. It shows your revenues and then subtracts your costs to show whether you turned a profit or not.

In developing your income statement, you need to devise assumptions. For example, will you obtain two new clients per month or five? And will sales grow by 2% or 10% per year? As you can imagine, your choice of assumptions will greatly impact the financial forecasts for your business. As much as possible, conduct research to try to root your assumptions in reality.

Balance Sheets : Balance sheets show your assets and liabilities. While balance sheets can include much information, try to simplify them to the key items you need to know about. For instance, if you spend $50,000 on building out your advertising agency business, this will not give you immediate profits. Rather it is an asset that will hopefully help you generate profits for years to come. Likewise, if a bank writes you a check for $50,000, you don’t need to pay it back immediately. Rather, that is a liability you will pay back over time.

Cash Flow Statement : Your cash flow statement will help determine how much money you need to start or grow your business, and make sure you never run out of money. What most entrepreneurs and business owners don’t realize is that you can turn a profit but run out of money and go bankrupt.

In developing your Income Statement and Balance Sheets be sure to include several of the key costs needed in starting or growing a advertising agency business:

• Location build-out including design fees, construction, etc.
• Cost of equipment and supplies
• Payroll or salaries paid to staff
• Business insurance
• Taxes and permits
• Legal expenses

Attach your full financial projections in the appendix of your plan along with any supporting documents that make your plan more compelling. For example, you might include your office location lease or sample advertising campaigns.  

Putting together a business plan for your advertising agency is a worthwhile endeavor. If you follow the template above, by the time you are done, you will have an expert ad agency business plan; download it to PDF to show banks and investors. You will really understand the advertising agency industry, your competition, and your customers. You will have developed a marketing plan and will really understand what it takes to launch and grow a successful advertising agency business.  

Advertising Agency Business Plan FAQs

What is the easiest way to complete my advertising agency business plan.

Growthink's Ultimate Business Plan Template allows you to quickly and easily complete your Advertising Agency Business Plan.

What is the Goal of a Business Plan's Executive Summary?

The goal of your Executive Summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the type of advertising agency you are operating and the status; for example, are you a startup, do you have an advertising agency that you would like to grow, or are you operating a chain of advertising agencies?

Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your Advertising Agency business plan?

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Branding Plan

As a company that wants to continuously thrive, you need to make sure you find good and effective ways to market the products and/or services of your company. With that in mind, you need to immediately plan out the steps you need to take in order to have a successful market and sell what your company offers. Making a plan as to what you need to do will set attainable goals and help you keep track of your progress so far. Furthermore, it will also help you make sure you do precisely what steps are needed in order to achieve your goals.

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Aside from that, you need to make sure you establish your brand to your target demographic and make it known to potential customers. As you continue to make sure your business survives, making sure your brand becomes easy to recognize and well-known to the customers is essential to the process. With that in mind, a plan is important and helpful in advertising and keeping your brand alive. This article will help you plan for your brand as well as other important matters you should remember when you want to push your brand further.

What Is a Brand/Branding Plan?

As mentioned earlier, in order to ensure the survival of the company, it is important to assert and advertise your brand anywhere and anytime possible. However, you still need to choose specific strategies to use in doing so; otherwise, your effort will be futile. You need to have a thorough plan outlining which specific strategies should be done when so that it will be easier for you to execute them as well as measure your progress.

With that in mind, a brand or branding plan is a document that contains the strategies and tactics the company will use to do the direction they want to go for their brand as well as achieve the goals they have set. The brand plan is basically an umbrella that which encapsulates the marketing sales and product development plans . It puts into details what each aspect needs to perform in order to help the brand at the same time setting objectives that operations and finance need to support.

It is basically a plan that helps you utilize your brand’s limited resources to drive the biggest return. In this sense, a branding plan is a significant document that holds steps, actions, and procedures needed to accomplish in order to ensure the success of the brand. And since the brand is the most valuable asset of the company, a branding plan aligns, steers, and inspires all other functional areas of the company. Through this plan, the company has a guide on what steps to take, how and what the areas are supposed to do in order to support the branding efforts.

Elements of a Brand Plan

In order to make determine which strategies should be prioritized, you need to have a clear understanding of what you need in order to set and achieve the goals and objectives of the brand. Afterward, you can immediately start planning for the brand; this is when you start drafting a brand plan. However, it is important to remember that there are important aspects you need cover in your brand plan in order for it to be effective. With that, here are some of the most important elements of a brand plan you need to include:

1. Situation Analysis

A situational review is a deep-dive business review assessing where you currently are in the business or industry. In order to have an effective situational analysis you have to look at factors connected to your business such as the category, consumer, competitors, channels, and the brand. You have to determine what is driving your business as well as what is preventing you from fulfilling it. You also need to include the risks that may arise and the opportunities that has still to be tapped into.

2. Key Issues

After a summary is made from the situation analysis, you can determine what issues you are facing or about to face. With this in mind, key issues are basically the inhibitors that are preventing you from achieving the goals and objectives you already set. In this section, you will determine the inhibitors and the risks your brand is exposed to. At the same time, you will also need to include what effects these inhibitors and risks will cause your brand, how they can affect your growth, sales, etc.

3. Vision/Purpose/Goals

This section will contain of the branding plan contains the vision you have for the brand. You can only plan out the strategies you want to apply if you have a good reason behind it. In this case, the vision you have for your brand is basically where you want your brand to be after a certain period of time. You have to clearly define the purpose of your brand so that it will be easier for you to make a plan. In addition to that, you can also set measurable goals or objectives that will be what drives your plans as well as your strategies.

4. Strategies

In your branding plan, it is essential to include specific strategies and tactics, mostly marketing related, that you need to do in order to achieve the vision and goals you have for the brand. However, you need to remember that the strategies that should be included in your brand must be studied and tested. It is important that these strategies have ample data that supports their effectiveness; otherwise, resources will be wasted. In this case, it is important to remember that the strategies you use help you get to where you envisioned your brand to be on a certain period of time.

Since you have already identified and determined the strategies that you need to do in order to achieve you vision and goals, you need to be able to execute them according to the provisions or procedures of the said strategies. The way you execute your plan will be heavily influenced by the strategies you have included; this means that you have to be able to create a bond with your target customers in order to establish your brand’s reputation based on a distinct positioning and influence them to change how they feel, think, and act toward your brand.

In order to know if your efforts have borne the fruit you desire, you need to measure their effectiveness. Depending on how you want to measure your progress and growth as a brand, you need to assess whether there are significant changes brought about your shift in your old branding plan. You can conduct a survey , interviews, and so on in order to gather data you can measure and compare to your previous progress or growth. Measuring your progress will help you determine whether the strategies you have in place have been working or not.

Strategic Questions to Answer When Making a Branding Plan

In order to make an effective branding plan, you need to be aware of certain aspects and factors in your brand that can affect your overall growth. You need to know the current status and be aware with the current situation your brand is currently at. This will help you make better choices and make better decisions in order to help your brand grow even more or maybe penetrate new market, whatever you purpose may be. With that in mind, here are strategic questions you can use as guide when making a branding plan:

1. Where could we be?

This question refers to the vision/purpose/goals you have for your brand. You need to know and determine what you want to achieve in order to make moves that will help you get there. In order to answer this question effectively, you need to assess where you currently are and envision where you want your brand to go. In addition to that, you need to set a practical timeline of when you want achieve your goals. Doing this will ensure you set goals that are achievable and measurable. Answering this question will help you put specific vision and/or goals in your branding plan.

2. Where are we?

This pertains to your current situation. A thorough situational analysis will help you understand and be aware of where you are at in terms of growth and progress. When you started your brand you have already set goals and visions you need to achieve within a period of time, that will help you assess your current situation. In this case, you need to determine what has driven your brand to continue until such day, what inhibitors have prevented you to do certain things, the risks you have faced and may arise, and the opportunities you have yet to dive into.

3. Why are we here?

In order to answer this question, you need to figure out your current competitive position, the main strength your brand has, the connection your customers have with your brand, and the current business situation that your brand is facing. If you have figured out the mentioned aspects, you will have a better picture of why your brand is currently in the position it is now. Since you are aware of your current situation, you should also be aware why you are there. Figure out why you have grown so much from your first few months or why you have shown little progress so far.

4. How can we get there?

This is where your strategies and tactics come into the picture. However, in order to come up with suitable strategies, you need to think back to your vision. Your strategies will highly depend on the numbers, progress, etc. you want to achieve. You need to make sure that your strategies will help you pursue and get to the point where you want your brand to be; otherwise, the plan will have to be subjected to major improvements and changes. In addition to this, make sure that the strategies you use have been tested out prior to it being included in your branding plan.

5. What do we need to do?

This question is related to the fourth question. In order to accurately answer this question, you need to determine how to properly execute your strategies. This is where the testing of strategies comes in hand since it will give you of an overview of how the strategy can be effective, which means the most effective execution of such strategies have also been tested out. It is important to remember that although you tested the strategies, the market continuously changes and you need you make decisions to help you adapt. In addition to the strategies, how to measure their effectiveness as well as your overall progress should be included.

A branding plan is an essential document that will help you establish a connection with your customers. It can either make or break you brand. With that in mind, it is why it is important to study your market and plan accordingly. Although a branding plan will serve as your guide as you establish your brand in the market, make sure you are able to adapt to changes along the way. We hope you find the topics discussed in this article informative and useful.

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• K-Swiss Has a New Owner: Inside the Brand’s Comeback Plans

Deborah Belgum

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K-Swiss , the nearly 60-year-old brand, has a new executive team, new shoe designs, a new owner — and, by the end of the year, a new headquarters in Glendale, California.

This week, the Los Angeles-based footwear company unveiled a range of new spring ’25 designs with technology and performance top of mind.

The new shoe styles are part of the label’s plans to return to profitability.

It’s been a frenetic few years for the company: In 2019, it was acquired for $260 million by Xtep International Holdings Limited, a Chinese sports equipment maker with $2 billion in annual revenues. Xtep’s purchase came at a challenging time, right before COVID-19 sent the world into an economic tailspin. Despite the pandemic, Xtep went on to open 60 K-Swiss stores in China with high-end products selling for as much as $140.

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Amina muaddi unveils brito, 'wearable sculpture' named after her boyfriend, k-swiss and mclaren launch two sneakers is inspired by the formula 1 team's most successful car ever.

But amid challenges, Xtep recently announced it entered into a definitive agreement with its controlling shareholder, Ding Shui Po, for the sale and privatization of KP Global, which houses the K-Swiss and Palladium brands. The transaction was valued at $151 million.

“We faced three years of pandemic-related disruptions and an economic slowdown in China, which led to reduced consumer spending and adversely affected KP Global’s performance,” noted Ding, Xtep’s chairman and chief executive officer. “This strategic divestiture will eliminate the ongoing impact on Xtep’s profitability and cash flows attributable to the loss incurred by KP Global.”

Xtep said it would concentrate on its other licensed brands, including Merrell and Saucony. 

With profits waning, K-Swiss is injecting newness into the company. It brought back long-time former K-Swiss executive Barney Waters to become the company’s international brand president. Previously, he had been at the company for eight years. He left K-Swiss in 2021 to become president of Garrett Leight California Optical, and returned last November. “I left the brand in good shape, but the job is not done. It never really had a resurgence again, which is what I would love to be able to do,” Waters said.

“By taking K-Swiss private,” he added, “it allows us greater flexibility and opportunity to grow, while remaining in the Xtep family ensures our leadership and daily operations remain unchanged.”

The K-Swiss brand president kicked off the shoe presentation at Milk Studios in Los Angeles by saying the new shoe designs will be like waking a sleeping giant. “Everybody knows the brand, but in terms of being able to articulate what it’s doing today, it has been a struggle,” Waters explained.

K-Swiss was started in 1966 by Art and Ernie Brunner, two Swiss brothers who came to California and launched K-Swiss with one shoe silhouette – an all-leather tennis shoes whose design was taken from a ski boot that provided more lateral movement for better court play. The K-Swiss Classic was a hit and stayed at the top of the product charts for many years. Today, tennis and pickleball make up nearly half of K-Swiss’s revenues, Waters said.

Court shoes is one aspect, but moving into other sports and lifestyle arenas is another growth opportunity. In 2022, K-Swiss established a multi-year partnership with the McLaren Racing team that has K-Swiss supplying McLaren Race team mechanics, engineers, and other personnel with performance shoes. Last year, the partnership released three collaborative collections, and more are on the way for 2025, including the Aero Active II, the second generation of the Aero Active.

Rudy Manival, K-Swiss’s relatively new director of products, said when he interviewed for the job, he described the K-Swiss collection as “looking tired.”  K-Swiss is changing that image by introducing products with new forms, new materials and softer leather for comfort.  “We have to change the way we work,” Manival said. “We are looking at how we can do things differently from design innovation, performance and manufacturing. Innovation is clearly important for us to get back into the conversation.”

For the 2025 season, Don Reardon, the founder and principal partner of IDW, a footwear, apparel and hard goods design company in Portland, Oregon, worked with K-Swiss to develop some technological innovations. “Our job is to go in and give a different perspective than brands have internally,” Reardon explained.

Reardon’s team analyzed the mechanical elements that supply strength and came up with the K-Frame, a 45-degree angle support added to a shoe’s side for stability. “The K-Frame blurs the traditional demarcation line between the upper and bottom unit by joining the top to bottom closure system to ground one. It is the oldest stability statement in sports,” the designer said. The K-Frame is one of the new innovations being added to the K-Swiss line-up.

Other new products for the 2025 collection include: The Impulse Tubes Lite, a sleekly designed shoe with the company’s Tubes Lite technology for a lighter, more cushioned upgrade. Rubber pods on the outsole help deliver traction and durability. The Techna Trainer pays homage to the 90’s urban style and culture while playing up comfort. The Metro, with a plush foam midsole, is a trainer designed to blend style and functionality.

Larroudé’s New Nordstrom-Exclusive Sandals Add a Flirty, Feminine Finishing Touch to Your Summer Style

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Press Releases

May 14, 2024 • 9:00 am EDT

Skechers Announces Global Footwear Partnership With John Deere

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Nothing Runs Like a Deere™…including the new Skechers x John Deere footwear collection. Skechers, The Comfort Technology Company ® , and John Deere, the iconic American brand and signature leaping deer logo, are joining forces to expand the work, outdoor and fashion industries worldwide with a co-branded professional and lifestyle offering. The footwear collection hitting stores in July 2024 is designed for agricultural professionals, construction workers, outdoor enthusiasts and trendsetters—all seeking top-of-their-field brands that offer the latest innovations.

Launching in July, Skechers x John Deere footwear offers the brands' signature trends and comfort technologies for agricultural professionals, outdoor enthusiasts and trendsetters. (Photo: Business Wire)

“Skechers x John Deere is the union of two trusted American brands—bringing their appeal, their technologies, their style—all to deliver comfort that performs to millions who need and want it,” said Michael Greenberg, president of Skechers. “As the country’s number one work footwear brand, this new offering is a natural for us, but Skechers x John Deere also epitomizes the outdoors and fashion for millions of followers and fans. From specialty boutiques and leading department stores to work retailers, we plan to hit the ground running with the pinnacle of distribution around the world—as John Deere is best in class: a highly recognized and valued name with tremendous untapped potential for the greater market.”

“The John Deere brand is exemplified by the active, hard-working farmers, construction workers, maintenance crews and weekend warriors who bring our brand to life,” said Mara Downing, vice president of Corporate Communications and Brand Management. “We’re thrilled this partnership will bring the innovative, rugged and high-quality footwear Skechers is known for to all those who live and work just as hard as our customers.”

Greenberg added: “We’ve worked in close collaboration with John Deere’s team to ensure that our offering meets consumers’ needs—from our advanced technologies to durable designs emblazoned with their iconic colors. This collection will serve many demographics looking to add the Deere brand to their shoe collection—and we’re confident that Skechers x John Deere will build a devoted following across work, fashion and the street.”

Designed with sturdy construction and upgraded with premium and waterproof materials as well as protective features like PORON ® XRD metatarsal protection, the new men’s collection offers function and fashion—pairing Deere’s rugged durability with Skechers’ legendary comfort, style, innovation, quality and value. The initial line will include patented Skechers Hands Free Slip-ins ® Technology, Skechers Arch Fit ® Technology and Skechers Relaxed Fit ® Technology; children’s styles will feature kid-friendly innovations such as Skechers Air-Cooled Memory Foam ® and machine washable technology.

Skechers x John Deere sport adventure, work, utility sneaker and casual styles will be available at Skechers retail stores and www.skechers.com , as well as premium retail partners and specialty retailers worldwide in July 2024.

About SKECHERS U.S.A., Inc.

Skechers (NYSE:SKX), The Comfort Technology Company ® based in Southern California, designs, develops and markets a diverse range of lifestyle and performance footwear, apparel and accessories for men, women and children. The Company’s collections are available in 180 countries and territories through department and specialty stores, and direct to consumers through digital stores and approximately 5,200 Company- and third-party-owned physical retail stores. A Fortune 500 ® company, Skechers manages its international business through a network of wholly-owned subsidiaries, joint venture partners, and distributors. For more information, please visit about.skechers.com and follow us on Facebook , Instagram and TikTok .

About John Deere

Deere & Company ( www.JohnDeere.com ) is a global leader in the delivery of agricultural, construction, and forestry equipment. We help our customers push the boundaries of what’s possible in ways that are more productive and sustainable to help life leap forward. Our technology-enabled products including John Deere Autonomous 8R Tractor, See & Spray™, and E-Power Backhoe are just some of the ways we help meet the world's increasing need for food, shelter, and infrastructure. Deere & Company also provides financial services through John Deere Financial. For more information on Deere & Company, visit us at www.deere.com/en/news/ .

This announcement contains forward-looking statements that are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These forward-looking statements may include, without limitation, Skechers’ future domestic and international growth, financial results and operations including expected net sales and earnings, its development of new products, future demand for its products, its planned domestic and international expansion, opening of new stores and additional expenditures, and advertising and marketing initiatives. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking language such as “believe,” “anticipate,” “expect,” “estimate,” “intend,” “plan,” “project,” “will,” “could,” “may,” “might,” or any variations of such words with similar meanings. Any such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause or contribute to such differences include the disruption of business and operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic; delays or disruptions in our supply chain; international economic, political and market conditions including the effects of inflation and foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations around the world, the challenging consumer retail markets in the United States, and the impact of wars, acts of war and other conflicts around the world; sustaining, managing and forecasting costs and proper inventory levels; losing any significant customers; decreased demand by industry retailers and cancellation of order commitments due to the lack of popularity of particular designs and/or categories of products; maintaining brand image and intense competition among sellers of footwear for consumers, especially in the highly competitive performance footwear market; anticipating, identifying, interpreting or forecasting changes in fashion trends, consumer demand for the products and the various market factors described above; sales levels during the spring, back-to-school and holiday selling seasons; and other factors referenced or incorporated by reference in Skechers’ annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023 and its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q in 2024. Taking these and other risk factors associated with the COVID-19 pandemic into consideration, the dynamic nature of these circumstances means that what is stated in this press release could change at any time, and as a result, actual results could differ materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements. The risks included here are not exhaustive. Skechers operates in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risks emerge from time to time and we cannot predict all such risk factors, nor can we assess the impact of all such risk factors on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. Given these risks and uncertainties, you should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements as a prediction of actual results. Moreover, reported results should not be considered an indication of future performance.

Jennifer Clay SKECHERS U.S.A., Inc. [email protected] (310) 937-1326

Deere & Company Jen Hartmann Director, Public Relations [email protected]

Source: Skechers

Released May 14, 2024 • 9:00 am EDT

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Reporting by Juveria Tabassum, additional reporting by Savyata Mishra and Ananya Mariam Rajesh; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri

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Nippon key negotiator to meet U.S. Steel staff in Pittsburgh, Bloomberg News reports

Japan's Nippon Steel's vice chairman and key negotiator for the U.S. Steel deal, Takahiro Mori, will travel to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania next week to meet with local staff and elected officials, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people briefed on the matter.