The real value of brand comes when it is evident and understood at every level from boardroom to factory floor.
Creating a brand isn't just about well-designed logos, catchy taglines, or even high-quality products. It's about embodying an identity, a culture that truly permeates every level of your organisation and through every employee. A true brand must be woven into the very fabric of your company’s business mentality and not treated as a mere afterthought or add-on.
Brands Are the Backbone, Not Just the Facade
It's a common misconception that branding is just about marketing strategy but it’s a lot more holistic than that. Successful brands are those that use their value propositions and company ethos as a fundamental part of their operating principles. When everyone in the company, from CEO to new starter, understands the brand's core values and messages, you are empowering them to contribute positively to the brand image because with each business interaction, whether with customers or within the team, they are bringing your brand to life.
Cohesive Branding Leads to Better Business Performance
Great brands are a business investment - they will not only pay for themselves but will add real tangible value to your company, so building a new brand, or re-branding as your business changes, is both a head and heart decision. It’s not about fluff, this is about cold hard cash returns.
A brand-driven culture will add value through:
Alignment: When communicated correctly your brand provides a behaviour and delivery framework that will guide delivery, not just in what you do but crucially how you do it. Teams across your company will make decisions aligned with your brand’s values, leading to a coherent and consistent brand experience for the customer and better efficiency for your teams.
Motivation, Retention, Recruitment: A brand-centric mentality with a strong, clear ,internal staff culture, creates a sense of pride and belonging among employees, which motivates them to work harder as they pull together to achieve shared company goals. This also increases staff retention and will help you attract new talent, as your strong brand positioning will showcase who are as a business and what it is like to work for you.
Trust, Spend, Repeat: Consistency and clarity in brand delivery builds consumer trust, as customers know what to expect every time they interact with your brand, no matter the touchpoint. In every sector, customers gravitate to brands they know and trust and are more likely to stay with them for the long term. To create that long term relationship you need to deliver what you promise and make use that those brand promises are at the front of your messaging again and again. This will reassure customers and ensure that they can trust you now and tomorrow.
Adaptability, Agility and Ability to pivot: A brand that is established and truly rooted in the heart of a business can adapt more readily to market changes whilst maintaining core values and mission integrity. This is because when a business really knows who it is, what it stands for and how it behaves it can change many elements to respond to market conditions eg a shift to home working, whilst still remaining true to itself and its customer base. As Dolly Parton famously said “Find out who you are and do it on purpose” and we would add - do it a lot!
Your Team: The Ultimate Brand Builders
Every employee, from the CEO to the production line worker, is a brand ambassador. They have the capacity to shape customer perceptions through their daily actions and decisions, so ignore their role in your brand at your own peril.
To harness and maximise their role though does require input and focus:
Educate: Ensure every team member understands the brand's mission, vision, and values. They should be able to articulate what the brand stands for and how it differentiates from competitors. We would advise that you make it part of every team members induction and ensure you give them something in that session (PPT, leaflet) that allows them to take core brand positioning with them so they can refer to it later.
Empower: Give your employees the tools and authority to make brand-aligned decisions because every business decision should be based on your core brand and values. This autonomy will encourage them to take initiative in creating positive brand experiences for customers and for their colleagues. This means having clear brand touchstones that they can use to help make day-to-day choices.
Engage: Don’t just share your brand once and then never mention it again unless it changes. Keep the team engaged with the brand through regular updates, workshops, and feedback sessions. Make core messages part of the working environment, tell your team about when and how the brand values have influenced decisions and make brand behaviours part of your ongoing team assessments. When a team feel involved in the brand's evolution, their commitment to its success will strengthen your brand and your value.
Evaluate: Consistently challenge yourselves and your team to ensure you brand is alive and well. Measure how well your brand values are being expressed through employee actions and customer feedback, and adjust training and strategies as needed. If we walk into a business that is well branded we should feel and experience the brand in every interaction with every team member, not just see it written on a wall. Walk around your business, talk to your team and if you can’t feel the brand then it’s time to re-evaluate.
Embedding your brand across your business isn't an overnight process. It requires commitment, time, and the consistent effort of every team member at every level. But, when a brand truly becomes central to a business’s operations and culture, the rewards are immense: a more loyal customer base, a more engaged workforce, a more resilient business capable of weathering market shifts and above all, a business that has added real value to its bottom line.
Want to talk about how a fresh new approach to your brand could add real value then give us a call?
Don’t worry, Fred doesn’t do a hard sell so even if you just want to chat through what is possible, then get in touch.
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