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beloved brands

the playbook for how to create a brand your consumers will love

Covering every aspect of brand management, it is no wonder that our readers reach for Beloved Brands multiple times each week to guide them through the challenges of day-to-day brand management.

Get ready for a mind-bending journey as we take you on a deep dive into your brand strategy. We’ll challenge you with thought-provoking questions designed to shake up your thinking and help you see your brand in a whole new light. And our unique process for defining your brand positioning will leave you with fresh ideas and new possibilities for how to differentiate your brand.

But we won’t just leave you with ideas – we’ll show you how to turn them into action. Learn how to write a brand plan that everyone can follow, ensuring that all stakeholders are aligned and contributing to your brand’s success. We’ll walk you through the creative execution process, from writing an inspiring brief to making smart and breakthrough decisions.

And when it comes tao analyzing your brand’s performance, we’ve got you covered. Our innovative methods will help you dive deep and uncover insights you never knew existed, giving you the knowledge you need to make the best decisions for your brand’s future.

But don’t just take our word for it – our Amazon reviews speak for themselves.

With over 85% of our customers giving us a glowing five-star rating and an overall rating of 4.8 out of 5.0, we know we’re doing something right. And with numerous weeks as the #1 bestseller in brand management, you can trust that we have the experience and expertise to help you achieve success.

Ready to join the ranks of the Beloved Brands community? Order our book on Amazon, Rakuten Kobo, or Apple and start your journey towards brand success today.

Take a read through our sample chapter on strategic thinking

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b2b brands

the b2b playbook for how to create a brand your customers will love

As a B2B marketer, you know that the key to driving growth is a strong brand. But how do you develop and execute a winning B2B brand strategy? Look no further than the B2B Brands playbook.

Prepare to think differently about your B2B brand strategy with B2B Brands. We want to challenge you with thought-provoking questions and take you through our process for defining your brand positioning. Our goal is to expand your mind to new possibilities for your brand by using real-life examples of successful B2B brand positioning strategies.

We’ll start by showing you how to create a brand plan that’s easy for everyone to follow, ensuring that all stakeholders understand how they can contribute to your brand’s success. Moreover, we guide you through the creative execution process, including how to write an inspiring brief and make decisions to achieve smart and innovative communications.

Finally, we’ll teach you new methods to analyze your brand’s performance through a deep-dive business review.

Our B2B Brands playbook offers a wealth of knowledge and insights, including B2B case studies and examples to help you learn new techniques. It’s no wonder that 85% of our Amazon reviewers have given us a 5-star rating. So, join us on this journey to unleash the potential of your B2B brand.

Take a read through our sample chapter on marketing decisions

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healthcare brands

the playbook for healthcare marketers to help build a beloved healthcare brand that your patients, customers, and healthcare professionals will love

Healthcare Brands book

The best healthcare brands win by creating a lasting bond with their patients, customers, and healthcare professionals.

I have a special spot in my heart for healthcare marketing having spent 12 years between Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson, working on OTC (Over-The-Counter), customer healthcare, and prescription brands. I have worked with many healthcare brands during my decade of consulting, including OTC, pharmaceutical, medical equipment, leading hospitals, and scientific discovery brands. 

Based on my passion for healthcare, I created our Healthcare Brands playbook to share my experience to help you run a healthcare brand. In our playbooks, we explain how the concept works and provide examples to bring it to life. Every example I use will be a healthcare brand. 

You will see many examples based on different types of healthcare brand models. We have a pharmaceutical model that convinces healthcare professionals (HCPs) to recommend our brand to their patients. We have OTC (over-the-counter) and consumer healthcare brands who use the influence of HCPs, and then battle competitors at the retail shelf. 

Moreover, we include a business-to-business (B2B) healthcare brand whose customers are healthcare professionals, hospitals, or medical offices. Choose your business model based on how your customer wants to buy, not how you want to sell. As brands mature, you might evolve into multiple models for your brand. 

Reach your full potential as a healthcare marketer.

Join us on a journey of unleashing your potential as a healthcare marketer with our Healthcare Brands playbook, which is filled with a wealth of knowledge and insights. You’ll have access to healthcare brand case studies and examples that will help you learn new techniques and strategies. Our playbook has received a remarkable overall rating of 4.8 out of 5 from Amazon reviewers, proving the effectiveness and value it brings to healthcare marketing professionals.

So, come along with us and explore the vast opportunities and possibilities in the healthcare industry. It’s time to elevate your healthcare brand and make a positive impact on the lives of your customers.

Take a read through our sample chapter on the ideal target

Our playbooks teach how to think, define, plan, execute and analyze

1. How to think strategically

Too many marketers are so busy that they do not even have time to think. 

The best brand leaders do the necessary critical strategic thinking to find ways to win in the market. Strategic thinking is an essential foundation, forcing marketers to ask big questions that challenge and focus brand decisions. Our brand management books provide you with the tools you need to think differently. 

I will show you four ways to enhance your strategic thinking, using the brand’s core strength finder, consumer strategy, competitive strategy, and situational strategy. You will learn how to set a vision for your brand, focus your limited resources on breakthrough points, take advantage of opportunities you see in the market, find early wins to leverage to give your brand a positional power to drive growth and profits for your brand.

In our section on strategic thinking, you will learn how to: 

  • Use five elements help smart strategic thinking

  • Leverage our 360-degree strategic thinking model

  • Build everything around your brand’s core strength

  • Use strategically to tighten your brand’s bond with consumers

  • Think strategically to win the competitive battles you face

  • Understand the brand’s current situation

  • Write strategic objective statements for each of the four strategy

2. How to define your brand positioning

Too many marketers are trying to be everything to anyone. This strategy is the usual recipe for becoming nothing to everyone. 

The best brand leaders target a specific motivated consumer audience and then define their brand around a brand idea that is interesting, simple, unique, motivating and ownable. 

In our brand management books, we will show you how to write a winning brand positioning statement with four essential elements: target market, competitive set, main benefit and reason to believe (RTB). You will learn how to build a brand idea that leads every touchpoint of your brand, including the brand promise, brand story, innovation, purchase moment and experience. With this marketing book, I will give you the tools for how to write a winning brand concept and brand story. 

In our section on defining your brand, you will learn how to:

  • Write brand positioning statements

  • Focus your target market, with insights, enemies, and need states 

  • Define consumer benefits, both functional and emotional

  • Come up with brand support points and claims

  • Use the relationship between brand soul, brand idea and brand reputation

  • Build your brand idea

  • Write brand concept statements

  • Turn your brand concept into a brand story

  • Use the brand positioning and brand idea to build your internal brand credo

3. How to write Brand Plans

Too many marketers focus on a short-term to-do list, not a long-term plan. 

The best brand leaders write brand plans everyone in the organization can follow with ease, including senior management, sales, R&D, agencies and operational teams. 

I will teach you how to write each element of the brand plan, including the brand vision, purpose, values, goals, key Issues, strategies, and tactics. We use real-life examples to give you a framework to use on your brand. With our brand management books, you will learn to build execution plans including a brand communications plan, innovation plan, and in-store plan.

In our section on how to write brand plans, you will learn how to:

  • Use five strategic questions as an outline for your entire plan

  • Write an inspirational brand vision statement to frame your brand plan

  • Come up with a brand purpose and brand values

  • Summarize your brand’s situation analysis

  • Map out the key issues your brand faces

  • Write smart, brand strategy objective statements to build around your brand’s core strength

  • Create smart, consumer brand objective strategy statements

  • Write smart, competitive brand objective strategy statements

  • Build smart, situational brand strategy objective statements

  • Focus tactics to ensure a high return on effort

  • Write specific execution plans for brand communications, innovation, and in-store

  • Figure out the profit statement, sales forecast, goals, and marketing budget for your plan

  • Build ideal one-page brand formats for an annual brand plan and long-range strategic roadmap

4. How to inspire marketing execution

Too many marketers are becoming task-masters and step over the line into execution. 

The best brand leaders need to inspire experts to produce smart and creative execution. With our brand management books, I will provide tools and techniques for judging and making decisions on creative advertising from your agency. 

For judging execution, I use the ABC’s tool, believing the best executions must drive Attention (A), Brand link (B), Communication (C) and Stickiness (S). I will provide a checklist for you to use when judging executions, then show you how to provide direction to your agency to inspire and challenge great execution. 

In our section on how to lead the marketing execution, you will learn how to:

  • Use your crucial role as the brand leader to get great creative execution

  • Be the brand leader who can successfully manage the 10 stages of the advertising process

  • Write a brand communications plan

  • Turn the brand communications plan into a creative brief

  • Learn from smart and bad examples of the creative brief

  • Use the ABC’s advertising decision-making tool

  • Give inspiring feedback on advertising that pushes for great work

  • Use our six questions to help frame your media planning

  • Line up media choices to where consumers are most willing to engage with your brand

5. How to analyze your brand’s performance

Too few marketers take the time to dig into data analytics. There is no value in having access to data if you are not using it to discover meaningful insights. 

The best brand leaders can tell strategic stories through analytics. With our brand management books, I will show you how to create a deep-dive business review, looking at the marketplace, consumers, competitors, channels, and brand. Then, I will teach how to turn your analysis into a presentation for management, showing the ideal presentation slide format. I will also provide a Finance 101 for Marketers, giving you every financial formula you need to run your brand.

In our section on how to analyze the brand’s performance, you will learn how to:

  • Analyze the marketplace your brand plays in
  • Assess your consumers
  • Assess the retail channels you sell through
  • Analyze the competitors
  • Analyze the health of your brand
  • Use 60 of the best analytical questions to ask
  • Bring the analysis together into the drivers, inhibitors, threats, and opportunities
  • Use our financial formulas for compound CAGR, price increases, COGs. and ROI
  • Prepare a deep-dive business review presentation

 

Our brand management books will help you achieve your full potential

Beloved Brands book

“Graham Robertson hits all the right notes in his new marketing book, Beloved Brands, a book every CMO or would-be CMO should read.”

Al Ries

Bestselling author of Positioning and Marketing Warfare, and viewed as “The Pioneer of Positioning,”

Beloved Brands book

“Most books on branding are really for the MARCOM crowd. They sound good but you find it’s all fluff when you try to take it from words to actions. THIS BOOK IS DIFFERENT! Graham does a wonderful job laying out the steps in clear language and goes beyond advertising and social media to show how branding relates to all aspects of GENERAL as well as marketing management. Make no mistake: there is a strong theoretical foundation for all he says…but he spares you the buzzwords. Next year my students will all be using this book.”

Kenneth B. Wong

Distinguished Professor, S.J. Smith School of Business, Queen’s University

Brand Consulting

“Whether you’re an aspiring marketer trying to elevate your brand, or an established leader looking to separate your brand from competitors – Beloved Brands and B2B Brands are absolute “must-have” brand management books that masterfully articulate the essence of effective brand marketing through a series of practical concepts and relevant examples.”

Keith A. Gordon

President & CEO of Fight For Children, and former President of NFL Players Inc.

Beloved Brands book

Beloved Brands is the definitive, must-read, toolkit for brand building! Graham Robertson has produced a straight-forward marketing book for anyone who wants meaningful distance from the competition, greater customer engagement, increased brand loyalty, or more customer referrals! Drop this book into your shopping cart!”  

Joseph Michelli, Ph.D.

New York Times #1 Bestselling Author

If you are a professor looking for brand management books, we do provide teaching slides you need for your classroom.