Your brand is incredibly important to the success of your business. It’s what you’ll use to communicate your ideas with customers, and it’s the logo of your brand that they’ll recognize, whether they’re shopping online or in stores. Your brand proceeds with you, helping to draw in customers or retain customers that you’ve already traded with. So, it’s with these facts in mind that it’s clear that a consistent, engaging brand is something that all businesses require. This article is about how you’ll create and maintain one, using creativity and technology to help you get there.
Your Brand
Let’s start by looking at your brand. Your brand generally consists of several different components, from the name and the logo that you use on your products and in your marketing to the color scheme and the tone of voice you use to address your clients or customers. All of these need to be designed expertly to make sense to consumers. If there is a disparity in these key components, you’re likely to confuse customers, leaving them unsure of what you stand for and what you’re trying to achieve as a firm.
So, there’s little point in reading further in this article if you’re unsure of what your brand is. Instead, you should read a guide, often provided by marketing experts, on what you’ll need to create a winning brand. You could also engage with brand consultants, who will be able to tell you themselves about what they think you should change about your current brand. You never know what you’ll be set to gain from rebranding with expert advice – it could just make the difference for your firm in the long run.
Your Staff
Your workers are the principal ambassadors of your brand. When they communicate with customers, they are doing so as a representative of your brand. When they design marketing material, they need to keep it on-brand. Even attracting new talent is about your brand, as you’re looking for workers who will understand what you’re trying to do as a business. You’re looking for people who will be a good fit for your firm, and you can find them by creating and maintaining a strong brand.
That brand is maintained, in part, by your personnel. They need to be fully aware of what your brand is, what it represents, and its personality, at all times. They should act as if they’re reading off a script – that’s what employees at the best-branded companies do because they know their firms so well. As such, training your workers in your brand identity, and sharing documents that’ll help them keep on script, is important for the progress and maintenance of your brand.
Brand Materials
Whenever you create a brand material, you’ll want to save it in a brand folder. That way, all of your employees can see what your current branding looks like, how it’s being reiterated, and whether there’s anything fundamental changing about how you go about your branding. This folder will also help your key marketing staff quickly access relevant materials when they’re building campaigns. So, what’s the best way to organize all this brand information?
Well, one of the best ways is through a program such as Brandfolder. As the name suggests, it’s an interface that stores all of your internal marketing and design documents in one place, which can help you keep every piece of marketing material on brand and looking fresh. It’s something all of your staff can access, whether they’re looking for a colored logo for a presentation or they’re looking to post on social media. It’s the perfect way to collect and collate your brand materials, all in one place.
Brand Bible
A combination of the above tips, the brand bible is something that you store internally to school new employees on the brand identity of your firm. That identity is something they’ll need to pick up straight away – preferably, in their first few days in the office. That’s something you can achieve through a document that is designed to on-ramp them to everything about your brand. A brand bible should share:
- The fonts you tend to use on your website and in your marketing materials
- The colors that you use, including those in your logo and the other colors that represent your brand. Share the color hexes so that people can access the colors easily on digital programs
- The types of communications you support – such as the tone of voice and your house style in writing
All of these features will come together in one single document, which can help inform new and existing staff members about the direction of your brand.
Events
There’s nowhere better to communicate your brand than at an event. Whether that’s the sort of thing that you’ll run within your firm to get every staff member on board with your vision, or an external event such as a conference or trade show, these are the perfect moments to engage your workers in communicating the ideals of your brand. You can offer training to this end, helping staff get up to speed with what they expect of you.
Conferences and trade shows are particularly useful in helping you refine your brand. You’ll meet hundreds of people who are interested in your company – what you do and why you do it. These questions, answered again and again, will help you realize your “elevator pitch” and what you can say to customers or clients to help them understand the key information about your firm.
Maintenance
Your brand will need constant maintenance. If you simply create it and leave it for years, you’ll find that people drift off-brand relatively quickly, leaving you without a consistent vision for your team or your customers. Always have your brand in the back of your mind, developing it and making it stronger, to stand the best chance of being considered consistent by the general public.
These tips are all maintenance tips, helping you to keep your brand consistent and hitting the right notes – something that’s incredibly valuable in business.
