Brand strategy is what builds your business and sets you apart from competitors. It is the foundation of a successful business that shapes customer loyalty. Whether you are a business owner, marketer, or brand designer, you need to position your company as the ultimate solution to your audience’s problem. The best books about brand strategy can help you create your brand approach. At the same time, it improves credibility, freshens up your perspective, and opens new opportunities for your business.
The practical and useful information in these books from experts helps you create and implement an influential business strategy. And this knowledge in hand helps you lead toward success. In this article, we will break down the seven best brand strategy books you must read this year. So you get to understand the essential aspects of strategy that the most appealing brand follows.
1-Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind–Al Ries & Jack Trout
Take a hands-on look at “Positioning” to understand its importance in creating a brand strategy. It’s not enough for a company to advertise its products or services simply in the over-communicated media; you need to carve out a unique position for your brand.
The book highlights a new approach to establishing a company’s “position” in a customer’s mind while considering the competitor’s strengths and weaknesses.
Through several case studies and examples, Ries and Trout prove how effective Positioning can create a distinct and memorable image for a brand.
Ries and Trout emphasize the value of being first in the customer’s mind and the challenges of repositioning.
Meanwhile, the book offers valuable insights on communication strategies and branding, making it a timeless resource for business professionals. In general, Positioning is a must-read for anyone interested in marketing or business.
2-Building a Story Brand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen – Don Miller
The words you use to advertise your brand product are essential for sales. Donald Miller highlights this in Building a Story Brand–the importance of using the right words to influence the customer. Donald Miller provides a proven solution to struggling businesses that fail to convey a clear and distinct message. He provides the seven universal story elements to connect with customers and help businesses thrive.
You’ll get a guide about messages and learn to speak about what you do. In the meantime, you’ll know how you can bring value that your customers can understand to engage with them, which will drive more sales.
He teaches the reason that triggers a customer to make a purchase. On top of that, you’ll learn how to use brand messages to make them understandable and effective.
If you want to improve your communication skills and drive business results, you must read one of the books about brand strategy, “Building a Story Brand.”
3-Building Distinctive Brand Assets – Jenni Romaniuk
Distinctive Brand Assets make your brand noticeable and imprint on customers’ minds. That’s what Jenni Romaniuk teaches in this book. He provides a long-term strategy to build a powerful brand identity and tips to protect them. The book is split into 3 parts: brand asset creation, implementation, and continuous management. At the same time, it offers valuable insights on creating distinct brand assets, measurement approaches, and usage. Next, the book digs into the strengths and flaws of assets while introducing the Distinctive Asset Palettes Idea.
This book is a high-bar deal for learning how distinctive brand asset creation, execution, and effective management drive brand recognition and influence consumer choice.
Whether you are a marketer, brand manager, or business owner, read this one of the best books on brand strategy to understand the value of creating and maintaining distinctive brand assets.
4-Fusion–Denise Lee Yohn
The next brand strategy book we recommend is Fusion by the in-demand keynote speaker of branding, Denise Lee. She has an expert approach to building great brands and outstanding organizations. In Fusion, she provides a roadmap for brand enthusiasts to set up brand culture fusion to gain a competitive edge.
You will read detailed case studies on the biggest companies, such as Amazon, Adobe, Nike, and Airbnb, as well as interviews with company executives.
Somehow, big brands infuse brand and culture, and Denise Lee reveals how they align and integrate to achieve their desired results. You will gain valuable insights into how aligning internal culture with external brand identity establishes a unified and genuine brand experience.
If you are passionate about learning about workplace culture, branding, strategy, and leadership, then you must read this engaging book. It is one of the best books on brand strategy.
5-GROW – Jim Stengel
This book is worth reading for businesses seeking to outperform their competitors through a branding approach. Jim Stengel shows 50 top-performing companies over 10-year growth studies, including 50k brands, and a direct connection between brand purpose and financial performance. In addition to that, Grow introduces a system of discovering, shaping, communicating, delivering, and evaluating your brand ideal. (higher purpose, other products or services).
Grow highlights the importance of business in connecting human emotions, hopes, values, and higher purposes that big brands follow. Through deep-dive studies, this book cracks the code of big brand successes like Red Bull, Samsung, Visa, and Zappos.
This book is worth reading to explore the connection between a brand’s purpose and a business’s financial functionality.
6-Branding In Five and a Half Steps – Michael Johnson
This practical book can help you create visuals and a successful brand through modern identities. The Branding: In Five and a Half Steps book, author Michael Johnson is a leading brand designer who creates many appealing brand visuals. This book presents many graphics, illustrations, case studies, and templates to help you create your brand identity.
This insightful book reveals the basic elements of familiar brands along with case studies. You will learn how brands identify and close the gap in the market. Johnson breaks down the elements of successful brands and the connection between design and brand purpose to apply typography. Additionally, you will find the simplest ways to create a compelling brand.
If you don’t know where to get a start and convert your strategy into design, then it’s a must-read for you to get valuable insights.
7-The Brand Gap — Marty Neumeier
Last but not least, The Brand Gap perfectly presents the branding cohesive theory through visual language. Neumeier points out in the book that a brand is not a logo or what you say; it’s a person’s gut feeling about the company that they perceive. When several people’s gut feelings about a business are the same, then that is what we call a brand.
In The Brand Gap, you’ll learn how a strong brand can give your company an edge over your competitors. You’ll also explore the principles of a strong brand and how to implement them.
Moreover, The Brand Gap delves into the gap that exists between business strategy and design to build successful brands. The author provides clear insights to close the gap between strategy and creativity and become a charismatic brand. All in all, if you are in marketing, design, and branding, read this book to bridge the gap in creating a successful brand.
Final Thought-Best books about brand strategy
A well-crafted strategy is the heart of every thriving brand. You can understand from the above the best books on brand strategy in depth, to broaden your horizon. Meanwhile, if you know the basics or are stepping into brand development for the first time, at the end of the day, these brand strategy in-depth books will help you build a strategy to dominate the industry.
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