As businesses, we understand that our brand is much more than just a logo, but understanding exactly what you need to have in place to make your brand work for your business right now can be a challenge.
Ok you've got your logo, your website and social media channels. In fact you've even got brochures, pens, banners etc. what next?
For many organisations with a drive to increase profile, delight clients and drive growth, evolving your brand is crucial to growth. However, when your business is constantly evolving, having the space to focus on your brand becomes pretty impossible.
For others, brand has remained static since launch and is in need of some t.l.c and fresh ideas. But where to start and how do you know the direction you want to take things?
Wherever you find your business, unpacking the essentials of your brand can help you streamline the process and make sure your current activity, and your budget, works harder for you.
Here we'll walk through a few of the brand essentials that can make your life easier;
Brand guidelines
Messaging
Brand strategy
Quarterly plan
Brand Guidelines:
Having a document that not only sets out visual elements of your brand in clear and simple guidelines but also pulls together your messaging, purpose, tone of voice and priorities means you know what you have, how it all fits together and also where the gaps are. Not just reserved for the marketing and graphic design teams, your brand guidelines can provide a road map and should be constantly evolving. They can become part of your staff on-boarding and can be scaled up or down depending on where your current phase of growth is.
Messaging and Purpose:
Do you have a clear view of your key messages? Have you articulated your purpose? Have you looked at your messaging to reflect your key audiences and clients? It may be the case that you and your team members can reel off your messages however they're not reflected anywhere in your communications. Or that, as your business has grown and evolved, your messages have fundamentally changed. Having your messaging clear and ensuring your team and all your communications truly represent your business can also prevent problems further down the line.
"Keep your brand evolving"
Brand Strategy:
Along with a host of other business strategies, brand strategies can end up as dusty documents left on the office shelf. So, in order to avoid that and get your brand essentials working hard, keep your brand strategy a simple, working, living process. Based on your business and revenue objectives, set out two or three headline objectives that you need your brand to achieve. This may be around targeting a new sector, improving client service or recruiting talent into the business. Working back through your messaging and brand guidelines for each of these objectives will help you set tactics for a quarterly plan.
Quarterly Plan:
Last but not least, have a plan. Keeping it simple means keeping it achievable. If you are looking to raise your brand profile then consistency is key and setting a handful of activities per quarter is much better than holding off brand activity until you have time to do that mega-awesome campaign. Use the marketing and communications tactics that you're already delivering to insert some additional brand features and messaging. Identify one thing per quarter for your team, clients or prospects that ignites your brand in a creative way. Use seasonal opportunities or just do one thing per quarter to evolve your brand - photography, video etc.
Of course you can make it as simple or as complicated as you want, but the most important thing is to keep your brand evolving and don't let things go stagnant or become confused!
If you have any questions or would like to find out more about any of the above recommendations don't hesitate to get in touch sarah@wildepurpose.co.uk