The new year is a great time for goal setting. There are a number of schools of thought on goal setting and how to track and measure your progress. Whatever your goal setting and tracking paradigm, if increasing brand awareness or building your brand is one of your goals, then we offer the following tips to make your branding resolutions stick.
1. Know the right branding steps to take.
Marketing and branding agencies and consultants will recommend all kinds of branding solutions. Before you consider solutions, you need to understand what is meant by each of the proposed solutions. The basic categories of solutions are: Brand Analysis, Brand Strategy, and Brand Systems. In a nutshell, brand analysis is where you are, brand strategy defines where you want to go, and brand system and marketing plans are how you will get there. Our post Brand analysis, strategy, systems: what do you need? breaks down the menu of branding offerings which you will likely encounter.
2. Don’t be a lone wolf in your branding.
Building a brand isn’t something that is best done by a lone maverick in an organization. If you really want to reap the rewards of brand building, you need commitment from your entire team. In our opinion, this is much more important than the most gorgeous logo on the planet. If we had to choose, we would choose an A+ in commitment over an A+ (even over an A-) in your brand’s design look, and we love beautiful design. At the end of the day, your brand is not just a logo, your brand is the sum total of your organization’s reputation and this goes deeper than a design veneer. For more on the value and fundamental importance of inclusion and commitment by your team to build your brand, check out the following posts.
(i) Brand Building – The Value of Commitment,
(ii) The Perils of Business and Brand Strategy Silos, and
(iii) An Authentic Brand Motivates Employees Better Than Money.
3. Never Lose Sight of Your Customer.
Above all, in your work to improve your brand this year, do not lose sight of your customer as the primary audience for your brand. The success of your brand revolves around fulfilling your customer’s need in a valuable way. You must ensure that you return time and time again to thinking about your customer and how your customer will experience your brand and your brand marketing efforts.