If you’re reading this, you’re most likely wanting to learn brand strategy and are looking for the best brand strategy courses online.

And I don’t blame you. It’s a tough market out there as a designer.

Not only do we have to compete with our peers but we now also have to compete with DIY tools such as Canva and cheap marketplaces such as Fiver.

Are you feeling the decline? Struggling to make a good living from your freelance work? Never fear, specialisation is here! Specialising allows you to increase your fees and get hired for your unique skillset without competing on price.

Think about it, if you owned a Porsche and it broke down, would you take it to a regular mechanic or a mechanic that specializes in Porsches?

The same goes for our creative industry. If you specialize, you get hired for that skill set and you can charge more for the privilege.

When I learned how to separate my designs from my creative thinking I became a specialist and was able to increase my fees and you can too!

Have you specialised yet? Now’s your chance, learn brand strategy!

Here are the best brand strategy courses online, many of which I have taken personally.

Enjoy your trip down the brand strategy rabbit hole.

Also be sure to check our out list of the 101+ best brand strategy resources.

Top 10 Best Brand Strategy Courses

Here is a summary of all the courses we will dive in to below. Many of these include brand strategy templates, PDFS, frameworks, examples & all the different types of brand strategy so if you’re wanting to develop branding strategies, look no further!

You will find even more at the end of the article.

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Top Brand Strategy Courses Compared

Are you wondering what is the best brand strategy course online? Compare them below and find what’s right for you:

 

Course	By	Length	Cost
Brand Master Secrets (Editor’s Choice)	Brand Master Academy	120 Videos, 20 Hours	$897
CORE	The Futur	15 Videos, 4 hours	$489-$1729
Activate Your Strategic Brain	Stef Hamerlinck	8 Hours	$299
eResonaid	Fabian Geyrhalter	15 Videos, 1.5 Hours	$649-$949
Story Brand (SB7)	Donald Miller	10 Hours	$275
LEVEL C	Marty Neumeier	1-2 Days In Person	$1060-$1560
Brand Strategy Class	Mark Pollard	1.5 hours	Free (2w trial)
Branding Masterplan	Daniel Patterson	70 videos, 10 hours	Free 60mins then $595
Brand Consulting Mastery	Tobias Dahlberg	3 months with coaching	$5000-$10,000
Brand Strategy Fundamentals	Anneli Hansson	30 videos	$199

 

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The Best Brand Strategy Courses Online & In-Person

Brand Master Secrets (Course + Worksheet Bundle) (Editor’s Choice)

Cost: $897 | Length: 120 Videos, 20 hours | By Stephen Houraghan

Brand Master Secrets helps you become a brand strategist and earn specialist fees. And in my opinion, this is the most comprehensive & best brand strategy course online.

Stephen Houraghan, a brand strategist and producer of the course, has truly gone above and beyond with this course to give you everything you need to become a brand strategist.

I thought I knew a lot about brand strategy before I took this course, but by the end, I realised how much more there was to know.

The course gave me all the techniques and processes and more importantly… all the systems and tools I needed to build brand strategies for my clients.

I literally watched every video front-to-back and learned something new in pretty much every module (and that’s coming from someone who has been in branding for 15+ years!).

This is the consolidated “fast-track” version to becoming a brand strategist.

I wholeheartedly endorse this course for any designer or creative who wants to become a brand strategist and earn specialist fees. It truly transformed my business.

Check out the 15-minute video about the course, which lays out exactly what you get in the Brand Master Secrets.

If you do enrol, you should know that there is a full cash back guarantee if you decide it’s not right for you.

If you want to ask me any questions about the course, send me an email and I’ll be happy to answer them for you.

You can also check out the video with Stephen and I answering all your burning brand strategy questions.

Brand Master Academy also offers a comprehensive course focused purely on how to run a brand strategy workshop which is outlined further below. Plus they also offer a messaging toolkit + contract template as optional add-ons.

Who’s this for? For those who want the most comprehensive and best value course on the market (based on me taking over a dozen here myself), with all the systems, tools, worksheets and processes to help you earn specialist fees.

 

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CORE Discovery for Creatives

Cost: $489-$1729 |  Length: 15 videos, 4 hours | By: The Futur, Jose Caballer

CORE Discovery from The Futur, taught by Jose Caballer, “empowers you, the creative, to hold Discovery work sessions with your clients to define, align and generate insights for all the key stakeholders, allowing you to go from being an “order-taker” to being a powerful strategic leader and valued partner to your clients and community.

This course focuses on a collection 6 key exercises (Culture, Customer, Voice, Feeling, Impact and X-Factor) in which Jose Caballer walks you through in a series of videos. There are templates and explanations and some print outs for live facilitation too.

This is design strategy framework and while it’s one of the more insightful courses on the market, it is tiered towards senior designers who have been in the game some time. A lot of background knowledge is required, which is why I preferred the aforementioned Brand Master Secrets as it teaches you these advanced principles to actually help you position yourself as an expert and be confident in selling through strategy as a service.

On a side note, you could actually learn the fundamentals with Brand Master Secrets then use the CORE framework for your sessions, so they can work in tandem quite well.

Who is this for? CORE is an advanced ‘course’ for those who understand what strategy is and are looking for a framework to help improve their process and facilitate workshops of their own.

 

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Activate Your Strategic Brain

Cost: $299 | Length: 8 Hours | By: Stef Hamerlinck

Activate Your Strategic Brain will help you master the fundamentals of brand strategy and become a more valuable designer, allowing you to create better design solutions for your clients.

Although I still in the midst of taking this course, the modules seem quite promising:

• The key concepts: brand purpose, personality, customer, value proposition,
• How to sell brand strategy and how to price it
• How to do a workshop with your client
• How to think strategically and get beyond the brief
• How to bridge the gap between strategy and design

The course covers the whole spectrum of brand strategy, from selling, facilitating, positioning to preparing for design. The goal is to become a more complete and strategic designer, so you can charge more and create brands that connect with their audience.

Who is this for? Designers who want to jump straight into the core concepts of brand strategy to help better their designs and service offerings, at a slightly more affordable rate.

Stef also has a few separate niche courses (modules) on brand strategy:

• How to Facilitate a Brand Workshop – $79 –  Learn how to get on the same page with your client, build trust and create better design outcomes.
• Brand Strategy Research – $299
  This module shows the magic ‘under the hood’ of a lot of brand strategies. Research is what drives powerful insights that are the foundation for strong brands.
• Brand Strategy Fundamentals – $79
  Get a deep understanding of the key concepts that drive brand strategy and its relation to marketing and business strategy.

 

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eResonaid by Fabian Geyrhalter

Cost: $649-$949 | Length: 1.5 Hours, 15 Videos | By: Fabian Geyrhalter

Fabian Geyrhalter is an acclaimed brand strategist, author and podcaster, who I had the pleasure of interviewing, and he has taken his one-day brand strategy workshop, which he has done hundreds of times around the world, and made it into an online course, ready for the taking.

eResonaid will help “Define your company, your culture and your story, while drawing your audience into your offering”.

This course consists of 15 videos that range between 3-10 minutes in length, so it’s short and sweet.

But what I found the most valuable, were the PDF worksheets that came with it, including an interactive PDF workbook that acts as your hands-on guide through the course. You can take this and easily apply it for your own clients.

Fabian includes 2x 1-on-1 30min advisory calls within the price to gain feedback and guidance on your discovery journey or to course-correct if necessary. (But you could always go with the basic version of the course if you do not see value in it).

As a bonus, you also receive Fabian’s two branding books in e-book format.

You can easily complete this course in a day, making it an extremely condensed version of strategy, that will help provide brand clarity, without the fluff.

Who this is for? eResonaid is perfect for someone who needs to learn or apply brand strategy quickly since you can easily get through the course in a single day.

 

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Story Brand (SB7) by Donald Miller

Cost: $275 (yearly subscription) | Length: 10 hours | By: Donald Miller

Although Story Brand (based on the book) is a messaging framework, it’s worth mentioning because it is solid framework to help sell any product or service. In fact, the principles of Brand Story are used on the home page of JUST Creative.

You won’t learn how to become a brand strategist, but you will learn how to hook your customers with a “story brand”.

The basic premise is this:

“A CHARACTER who wants something encounters a PROBLEM before they can get it. At the peak of their despair, a GUIDE steps into their lives gives them a PLAN, and CALLS THEM TO ACTION. That action helps them avoid FAILURE and ends in a SUCCESS.”

Each of these 7 bolded chapters/modules come with actionable step-by-step guides that help you implement what you’ve learned into your own brand. There is also a free online tool that guides you through the implementation process.

This course used to be $1500 but has just recently dropped to $275 as part of their Business Made Simple subscription which now includes three all-new courses on Marketing, Leadership, and Emotional IQ.

Who is this for? Someone who wants to improve their messaging & marketing skills, with an easy to follow framework, at a great value price.

 

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LEVEL C – By Marty Neumeier

Cost:  | Length: 1-2 days In person | By: Marty Neumeier

Marty Neumeier, “the grandfather of branding” is running Brand Masterclass Workshops around the world.

Unlike the other courses on this list, this course is done in person (now also online due to COVID), in locations such as London, LA, Philly and Dublin. I am working with their team, to bring Marty to Australia too.

The workshop is called Level C because they are on a mission to permanently place the role of “BRANDING” in the C-Suite (aka CEO, CBO, CDO).

This best part? This Masterclass Workshop is a certification so when you’re finished, you will become a Certified Brand Specialist.

Graduates from the London masterclass have already used this credential and are leveling up into roles such as Global Director of Marketing, Head of Strategy, Head of Brand, and more — which means higher levels, broader scopes, more influence, better titles, and more money!

Although not technically brand strategy, you master modern brand building disciplines hands-on, and in the process build connections along the way, meaning you can level up together.

It goes without saying, this is a rare opportunity to get up close and personal with some of the best in the industry and get certified in the process.

Seats are extremely limited, so don’t wait too long on this one.

See their website for upcoming locations and dates.

Who is this for? For someone who prefers to work within a classroom format & wants certification to level up their career.

 

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Brand Strategy: Build a Business that Lasts on Skillshare

Cost: $10/m (2 Month Free Trial) | Length: 1.5hours | By: Mark Pollard

In this short 1.5 hour crash course from Mark Pollard, you learn how to create a brand that can stand the test of time. Mark breaks down every brand into three categories—Product-centric, Customer-centric, and Vision-centric—and draws out frameworks for understanding how brands can develop and thrive within each. Successful brands need a bit of all three, but as the class progresses Mark shows how one of these types of brands continually outperforms the rest and shares how to move your brand towards this model. You can download a worksheet to follow along and learn how to write out your brand on a single page to distill it into clear and concise terms.

Whether you’re a freelancer, marketer, small business owner, or entrepreneur getting your brand off the ground, this class will give you a deeper understanding of brands, businesses, and quite possibly yourself.

Who’s this for? Someone who wants to dip their toes into the world of brand strategy without too much investment.

 

The Futur’s Brand Strategy Fundamentals Course & Workshop with Anneli Hansson

Cost: $199 or $299 with workshop | Length: 30 videos | By: Anneli Hansson

Learn to facilitate workshops with a proven brand strategy framework and become your clients’ go-to for solving their big business problems. Take the course to learn the fundamentals of brand strategy and add on the live workshop to gain experience with the process and problem solving through a real client brief.

Who’s this for? Beginners to intermediate level creatives who want to learn the fundamentals of strategy with a proven framework.

 

10 Best Brand Strategy WORKSHOP Courses Online

If you want to learn how to run a brand strategy workshops, there are a few courses online that will do just that as per below.

Brand Master Workshop Course: How to run a brand strategy workshop

This is the only program you need to run effective brand strategy workshops with your clients, allowing you to develop strategies and brands they understand, feel connected to.

You can sit in on an in-person brand strategy workshop and watch the process in action as you look over the shoulder in a live recording with a leadership team of five for an industry-leading business.

Here is an overview of what you will learn in this extensive course + toolkit.

• Brand Strategy Fundamentals
• How To Sell Brand Strategy Workshops
• How To Structure Sales, Discovery & Workshops
• How To Facilitate Your Workshop Like A Pro
• How To Coach Strategy To Create Better Clients
• How To Deliver Workshop Exercises Step-By-Step
• How To Increase You Average Client Invoice
• How To Deliver Your Workshop Review
• How To Uncover Marketing Opportunities
• How To Deliver Your Brand Strategy

Cost: $697 | Length: 12 modules, 75+ videos | By: Stephen Houraghan

Who’s this for? Those looking to run effective brand workshops with structure and processes, plus those looking for the tools and templates to streamline the process.

 

The Remote Brand Strategy Workshop Masterclass

This course will teach you how to facilitate brand strategy workshops so you can get paid to think, upgrade your offering and go remote.

• WORKSHOP OUTCOMES
  In this chapter Charlie introduces the course, share the outcomes of completing the course and bust myths about workshops.
• BRAND STRATEGY BASICS
  Here Charlie teaches you what a brand is, how we should think about strategy and its best practices.
• HOW TO SELL THE WORKSHOP
  In these lectures Charlie shares his  step-by-step process to selling workshops to clients, including the ideal first call script and email templates.
• THE BRAND DISCOVERY SURVEY
  The client is excited and on board for a workshop. Now, it’s time to extract information from them with the brand discovery survey.
• THE WORKSHOP DOCUMENT
  Here, Charlie introduces you to the document that will be used to guide us through the workshop. Explaining each section and its purpose.
• PREPARING FOR THE WORKSHOP
  The key to a successful workshop is preparation. Here Charlie will show you the steps to being fully confident running your workshop.
• FACILITATING A SUCCESSFUL WORKSHOP
  In these lectures Charlie shares the mindset of a professional facilitator and walks you through each of the 20 fun and impactful exercises with a mock client.
• WORKSHOP FOLLOW UP
  With the workshop over, it’s time to recap all the insights. Here Charlie shows you how bring this together in a professional document.

Cost: $675 | Length: 8 self paces modules, 85+ videos with 1:1 Coaching | By: Charlie Osborne

Who’s this for? Those looking to run remote brand workshops with some coaching along the way.

 

Other Business / Marketing / Brand Strategy Courses

• The Future Academy Brand Consulting Mastery – $5000-$10,000
• Mini MBA in Marketing by Mark Ritson – $1250
• BrandIt (for Leadership Teams) by Matt Davies – $750
• Designing Strategy by IDEO U – $799
• WHY Discovery Course by Simon Sinek – $150
• Business Strategy Sprint by Scott Galloway – $750
• Brand Labs by Watson Creative – $250-$800
• Brand Strategy 101 by Philip VanDusen – $497
• Brand Clarity by Aventive Studio – $997
• Brand Mapping Method by Carli Anna – $997
• Brand Strategy Bootcamp by Melinda Livsey – $2,500
• Planning Dirty Academy by Julian Cole – $1297
• Branding Masterplan by Daniel Patterson – $595
• The Future London Academy – $1599
• Strategy Finishing School by Julian Cole – $1997

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Free Brand Strategy Courses & Resources

• Planning Dirty Newsletter by Julian Cole (Free Resources)
• Skillshare – Type in ‘brand strategy’ into their search (Includes 4 weeks free trial)
• Archetypal Branding on Udemy – 1.5 hour course on brand archetypes
• Strategyzer – 30+ downloads & videos that you can use to better design, test, and assess your business
• Brand Strategy Made Simple – The Futur Academy Free Training
• The Futur’s YouTube Channel – See their video on How to become a brand strategist

Have another brand strategy course or resource to add? Please let me know!

 

Frequently Asked Questions

10 Best Brand Strategy Courses Online: Key Takeaway

Some of the Brand Strategy Courses Online on the list were taken personally as mentioned earlier. Take advantage of these course offerings and start implementing them today.

You will definitely benefit from these courses regardless of whether you are an owner, a designer, or just a beginner starting your own business. These are the online courses you can access from wherever you want during your free time.