Branding goes well beyond marketing. It will not be successful without ensuring that all aspects of your business reflect and support your brand. One of your most valuable assets, your people, must be well-trained in articulating and delivering your brand. This step is particularly important for service-based businesses that don’t have concrete products. Your offerings are soft assets like great service, knowledge, experience and people.
Despite what many believe, brand isn’t all about your logo, website and glossy brochure. Instead, a strong brand integrates multiple components, all of them necessary, including customer interactions, employee communications, corporate philosophy and advertising/marketing efforts. If these components don’t consistently reinforce your brand, customers become dissatisfied, which could lead prospective customers to buy from someone else.
On the other hand, brand consistency throughout all levels of your company helps drive you to grow and prosper. Strong brands can drive an increase in sales. The company is better suited to attract and retain the best employees. Even vendors can see value in your brand and look to establish partnerships with your business.
Does your company have a brand standards guide? If not, you should really consider it. The brand standards guide should include logo use, company colours and fonts. It often also includes templates for social media graphics, corporate stationery, email signatures, ads for all media, company clothing and much more. This guide is distributed to your staff and it becomes the guide for everything you do.
Take a look to see if all facets of your business support your brand. Make sure you have internal processes in place to ensure your brand is evident in everything you do.