What Is a Strategy Session?
Ah, strategy. This broad word is tossed around a lot in the marketing world. But what does it really mean? If profit and growth are the buried treasure for a business, then strategy is the map. It guides you from where you are to where you wish to be through intentional, data-driven tactics. So you can get sh!t done and grow your business.
That’s precisely why, before we even think about flexing our creative muscles at HAVEN Creative®, we get together for a Strategy Session.
What Exactly Is a Strategy Session at HAVEN?
Imagine an in-person pow-wow (workshop) with your brand’s MVPs and our strategy dream team. Think of it less as a meeting and more like a quest for that buried treasure, and we’re your trusty guides. Over the course of four hours, we facilitate a discussion to strategically define and align your brand’s identity, positioning and messaging.
We help your brand answer big questions like:
- Who are we, and what do we stand for?
- Who are we trying to reach, and what do they care about?
- What makes us different from our competitors?
- What’s working, and what needs to be improved?
For most of the companies we work with, it’s a total reset. And many tell us they wish they’d done it years ago.
One client shared, “We’ve repeatedly experienced that marketing partners always tell us what they’re going to do without understanding us first. HAVEN was different. They asked questions and got honest feedback from us to form their recommendations and drive messaging to the right audiences.”
The Topics We Cover in a Strategy Session
Here’s a peek at the terrain we cover during your session:
- Your brand’s unique value proposition
- Your key services/products
- Internal pain points that are affecting your growth
- Your audience: who they are and what they want
- Your competitors and what they’re doing (and not doing)
- SWOT Analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats
- Past efforts: what’s worked, what hasn’t and why
- Tone and messaging audit (and how aligned your team is internally)
Every session is tailored to your team and your goals. Just your team, your vision and a group of seasoned brand strategists to lead the way. And we might even crack a few jokes along the way because who says strategy can’t be fun?
Who Should Be in the Room?
When it comes to Strategy Sessions, we like to have the right people in the room.
We recommend including:
- Your leadership team
- Marketing and communications leads
- Client-facing team members who know your audience well
- Decision-makers who will guide implementation after the session
We’ll bring our most talented Mavens, including strategists, facilitators and note-takers (because nobody wants to take notes when they’re in the middle of a breakthrough).
What You Get Out of a Strategy Session
You don’t leave with a messy whiteboard photo and a “great convo.” Our strategy team will take all the information from the session and create a comprehensive Strategy Report, including recommendations and next steps for your business. This is your treasure map!
You’ll walk away with:
- A summary of the Strategy Session
- Refined brand pillars and positioning statement
- Your target audiences and what they care about
- A comprehensive competitor analysis
- SMART Goals
- Recommendations for growth
If you’re not sure how to best achieve or implement some of these recommendations, our team of Mavens can help.
Why We Start With Strategy at HAVEN
Every client engagement starts with a Strategy Session. Whether you’re coming to us for brand development, marketing strategy or a full-blown communications campaign, the Strategy Session is our way of clearing a path for the road ahead.
This session gives us the insights to apply our Maven Method®, HAVEN’s proprietary framework for building campaigns that actually resonate.
It helps us understand how to create assets that align with your goals, strike the right tone and generate buy-in from both internal teams and external audiences.
Without it, we’d just be guessing, and that’s not how we do business.
Book Your Strategy Session Today
It’s time to stop guessing and start building with intention.
Whether you’re launching something new, realigning after years of growth or finally ready to invest in your vision, a Strategy Session is your next move!
Book your Strategy Session and Let’s Get Sh!t Done.