Everything an organization does or doesn’t do, says or doesn’t say, takes note of or ignores, becomes part of its brand. And while companies go to great lengths to develop a positive brand image, it’s also possible to have a neutral brand (nobody cares) or a negative brand – the latter sometimes through no fault of your own. Here are seven key branding tips to help improve and grow your business.
1. Develop a Consistent Brand Essence
Before you can start promoting and enhancing your brand, you first need to understand what your brand essence is. It’s vital because it will dictate the manner in which you do things and even the kinds of products and services that you offer. Once you have that essence, you need to implement it with consistency. Your corporate livery, company slogan, staff uniforms, advertisements, sponsorships, PR campaigns – and everything else in between – must all consistently reflect the essence of your brand.
2. ‘Live’ the Brand
Once you have that brand essence, there needs to be a company-wide commitment to ‘live the brand’ every day. It’s not something you can take out and dust off every time there’s a need to create an advertisement or ‘do some PR’. Branding is with you all the time – from the way the phone is answered to how you handle visitors at the front gate. But it goes deeper than that too. It’s no good telling the world you’re an environmentally-aware good corporate citizen, for example, when tomorrow Greenpeace is likely to be picketing outside your gates because, behind the scenes, you sell equipment to the baby seal cullers in Namibia.
3. Understand that you No Longer Own your Brand
For many it’s a hard concept to grasp, but the brave new world of social media means consumers now exert a massive influence on your brand and how others perceive it. Once upon a time, businesses carefully crafted their brand messages and then sent them to consumers – who listened but seldom responded. Now, via Facebook, Twitter, blogs, e-mail, private websites and consumer complaint sites, these once faceless people are empowered and can make their feelings known (often within hours) to millions of others across the globe – including governments, lawmakers, activist groups and the mainstream media. So a key branding tip for companies is to engage with (as opposed to talk at) their audience. They must contribute to the debate around their brand – and try to shape it by talking to people and giving the company viewpoint – but they need to understand that they no longer control it as they once did.
4. Do Good
For one thing, it’s just the right thing to do! Granted not everyone can spend vast sums on high profile corporate sponsorships and large donations to charities. But do what you can, whether it’s helping the local Rotary Club by donating prizes or manning a table at the annual church bazaar – anything that helps to build a positive brand image in the minds of the local community or your target audience. Then at least if you do fall foul of Greenpeace, the ratepayers’ association, or the local health inspector, you’ve already built up some residual goodwill. ‘Doing good’ does wonders for staff morale too.
5. Involve the Staff
One of the most important branding tips is to involve your employees in the company’s branding activities. Explain your brand strategies in detail and why they’re important to the long-term wellbeing of the organisation, so that everyone can ‘live the brand’ – not just management. Employees are also an important factor in spreading positive (or negative) messages about a business/brand and those who ‘share the vision’ are more likely to be positive and act in a manner that’s appropriate to the brand image. This is particularly important for front-line staff like salespeople, receptionists, call centre workers and delivery personnel. As an added bonus, they’ll quite likely put the word out and attract like-minded new employees – who are just the kind of people you want if you’re to continue to build your brand in the way that you want!
6. Communicate
A great brand that nobody knows about is no brand at all, so you need to constantly work at communicating with your target audience in a manner that’s consistent with your desired brand image. After all, if you’re not talking about your brand, the chances are that your competitors will be talking about theirs. This doesn’t necessarily mean expensive and ongoing national advertising campaigns. Instead, use simple branding ideas like blogging about your activities, getting in-house experts to contribute articles to suitable magazines or websites, or undertaking cost-effective PR or promotional campaigns. As mentioned in point 4, remember to keep your ear to the ground and monitor what’s being said about your brand in the press or via social media. When necessary, respond quickly and positively to become involved in the discussion. Oh, and don’t wait for five days for the only designated company spokesman to return from an overseas trip before commenting – social media is a 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week environment where an issue can become a hot topic within hours and a full-blown crisis within a day.
7. Monitor and Evaluate Constantly
Keep track of how your brand is developing and evolving; constantly evaluate if the messages you’re putting out and the things you are doing are in keeping with the essence of the brand. Also find out whether the target audience is perceiving them in the manner that you intended. If not, you need to tweak accordingly, but be wary of knee-jerk reactions that may lead to big changes and unintended consequences. Realigning a brand is a long-term strategic decision that needs to be taken at the highest level and only after serious consideration of the implications.
