Wales Business Insider - Ask the Expert
How can a company ensure that its brand continues to be communicated successfully with staff and customers whilst it grows?
A brand can be your most valuable asset as it’s what a customer buys into. It influences our decision to shop at one supermarket over another, why we choose a certain estate agent; it even affects what beans we put on our toast.
A successful brand needs to be right for your organisation. As branding and design specialists, we work with all our clients to really understand who they are as an organisation. We call this process of defining an organisation’s proposition their Brand Blueprint. This is used as a strategic document and guides future business decisions.
Your brand must be based in meaning and is intrinsically linked to business strategy. Otherwise it’s just a nice logo or a list of values on a website that customers will see through unless you deliver on who you say you are.
Your brand is your organisation. It is crafted through every aspect of your business from a new contact receiving your business card through to an existing client dealing with your accounts team. This is the real meaning of your brand. As your organisation grows it is crucial that your brand is monitored and your messages are controlled.
The company behind the product is as important as the product itself. All staff need to believe in the brand so they can act as brand ambassadors. As an organisation gets larger, you need to ensure all team members are fully engaged and feel part of the brand.
Brand experience is important as society moves online. Organisations now get fewer opportunities to communicate with their customers face to face meaning purchasing decisions are made based on how easy it is to navigate your website or the level of service provided by your customer team.
Your brand is hard to control as it’s what others say it is, not what you say it is. Social media allows customers to quickly tell their peers about you and this content will always be in the public domain, which is why it is so important that every aspect of your organisation remains true to the brand.