It’s easy to get in the weeds of day-to-day business operations and lose sight of the big picture: what your company stands for and why you do what you do. That’s your brand, and if your brand is in sync with your business, it’s a powerful combination that builds customer engagement and helps deliver winning strategies.

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Develop Brand Values and Live by Them

Unless you’re a one-person company, it’s extremely tough for the whole company to know and internalise brand values unless they’re written down. So write them down. Think about why your business exists, what it stands for, what sets it apart from others doing the same thing, and why a customer should choose you instead of one of those competitors. It can be difficult to articulate your values clearly and concisely, which is why a brand strategy agency can be invaluable.

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The next step is to make sure everyone in the company understands, believes in and acts on the values. If they don’t, then either the values need to be communicated more clearly or there are obstacles that stop people putting them into practice. You’ll need to identify these and remove them. Really Helpful Marketing are a brand strategy agency who can help with this, but there are many others too.

Check Your Business Matches Your Brand

A lot of businesses make the mistake of thinking their brand values are for internal use only. They’re half right: you don’t necessarily want to show every customer a bullet point list of your values, but you do need to make sure that your products, communications and the way you treat your customers all reflect your brand values. Customers buy into a brand at least as much as they buy into a product. You can’t have a personal relationship with a vacuum cleaner, but you can with a company that exists to change your life through being authentic and cutting-edge.

A brand strategy agency can be a big help here too. Someone outside the company will always be better positioned to tell you how you come across to customers.

Business strategy plays into this as well. For example, you need to target customers who actually want to buy into your brand.

None of these processes is easy, but they’re steps to a healthy brand and a stronger business.

By Roger Walker

The writer of this article, currently manages his own blog moment for life and spreads happiness, and is managing to do well by mixing online marketing and traditional marketing practices into one.

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