A while back I was chatting with someone who’d just launched a beautiful little wellness product. Gorgeous formulation. Lovely name. Real care had gone into it. And then she showed me the packaging and my heart sank a little.
It was plastic. Not the recyclable kind. Not the soft, refillable, ‘we’re trying’ kind. Just shiny, single-use, destined-for-landfill plastic.
Her ideal client? Conscious, slow-living women who read ingredient labels for fun and have strong feelings about supermarket bags.
Oof.
It’s the kind of mismatch that makes me want to grab every new business owner by the shoulders and say: please, do the brand strategy first. Before the packaging. Before the logo. Before anything.
Brand strategy isn’t the boring bit you do later
I get it. When you’re starting a business, brand strategy can pretty much feel like the homework you know you need to do but don’t want to prioritise. The unsexy admin you’ll get around to once you’ve nailed the fun stuff like the logo, the website, the Instagram grid.
No. You’re going around it all backwards..
Brand strategy is the fun stuff. It’s the thing that decides whether the logo actually means anything, whether the website converts, whether your Instagram grid attracts the people you actually want to work with. Without a clear brand strategy, you’re just guessing in pretty fonts.
Most business owners don’t realise that knowing your ideal client deeply, before you make a single decision, is what stops you from accidentally turning them off in ways you didn’t even know were possible.
Every brand touchpoint is a vote for or against you
Back to my plastic-packaging friend. Here’s what I want you to sit with for a second.
The packaging isn’t just packaging. It’s a brand touchpoint. It’s a moment where your customer holds your brand in their hands and unconsciously decides whether you’re ‘their people’ or not. And if your packaging quietly contradicts what they value? They notice. They might not say anything. They might still buy the thing once. But they won’t come back, and they certainly won’t tell their equally conscious friends about you.
Brand touchpoints are everywhere. Your packaging. The fonts on your invoice. The tone of your automated email. The music in your studio. The font you reply to DMs in. The ‘thank you’ card tucked into the parcel. Whether you use plastic mailers or compostable ones.
Every single one of these is either reinforcing your brand or quietly undermining it. And here’s the thing: you can only make those choices intentionally if you actually know who you’re choosing for. That’s why brand strategy comes first, not last.
What ‘knowing your ideal client’ actually means
And no, I don’t mean ‘people aged 30 to 45 who like coffee’. That’s a demographic, not a person.
Knowing your ideal client means understanding what they value. What they’re quietly judging in other brands. What makes them feel seen. What makes them roll their eyes. What they’d happily pay extra for and what they absolutely will not compromise on. The kind of language they use when they talk to their friends. The kind of language that makes them cringe.
When your brand strategy is built around all of that, decisions stop being agonising. You don’t have to wonder whether to use the cheaper plastic mailer or the slightly pricier compostable one. You already know. You don’t have to wonder whether your pricing should be transparent or POA. You already know. The strategy makes the decision for you, every single time.
The cost of skipping brand strategy
Here’s the part that stings. When you make brand decisions without strategy underneath them, the choices don’t just sit there politely. They have consequences.
Packaging is a great example because it’s so physical and so permanent. If you’ve ordered 5,000 units of non-recyclable plastic boxes, that’s not a quick swap. That’s months of stock you’re stuck with, money you’ve already spent, and every single one of those boxes is going out into the world telling your audience that you didn’t think about them.
It’s the same with a website built before you knew your messaging. The same with a logo designed before you understood your brand voice. The same with a pricing structure pulled out of thin air. You can fix it later, sure, but it’ll cost you twice. Once to do the wrong thing, and again to undo it.
Good brand strategy isn’t a luxury spend. It’s the thing that protects every other dollar you put into your business.
Brand strategy makes you boring on purpose (in the best way)
One of the things I love about doing the brand strategy work first is that it makes future decisions wildly less interesting, and I mean that as a compliment.
When you know your ideal client, you stop second-guessing every choice. You stop staying up at midnight wondering if your brand colours are too soft or if your captions are too casual. You’ve already worked out who they are and what they respond to. The decisions get faster, calmer, more aligned. Less drama.
And every brand touchpoint, from the packaging to the pricing to the way you sign off your emails, starts pulling in the same direction. That’s when a brand actually starts to feel like a brand and not just a collection of pretty things you cobbled together.
Before you pick anything, pick your ideal client
Before you pick the packaging. Before you pick the colours. Before you pick the platform, the price point, the products. Pick them.
Get to know your ideal client so well that you could write their grocery list. Then let everything else follow from there. Your packaging will make sense. Your messaging will land. Your brand touchpoints will all quietly say the same thing: ‘I see you. I made this with you in mind.’
That’s what brand strategy actually does. It’s not a luxury. It’s not a ‘later’ thing. It’s the foundation that decides whether everything else you spend money on is going to work, or whether it’s going to sit in a warehouse making you wince every time you look at it.
Ready to do the brand strategy work first?
If you’re a Melbourne-based founder (or anywhere else, really) who wants a brand built on something more thoughtful than vibes, I’d love to help. Take a look at my brand strategy services and let’s figure out who your ideal client really is, before you spend another dollar on the rest.
Do the strategy first. Your future self, your future customer, and your future packaging supplier will all thank you for it.
