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10 Steps to Developing a Great Brand
By Jean M. Gianfagna
Your brand is one of your company’s most valuable assets. An effective brand conveys the highest value you deliver. It serves as an emotional shortcut to what your organization stands for. It sets you apart from everyone else in your marketplace. And it’s the foundation of a smart marketing strategy.
How do you build a great brand? Here are the 10 key steps:
1. Audit your marketing and communications to evaluate your current brand identity.
- Study all customer communications and marketing materials.
- Determine the messages you’re delivering about your company and your products and services in every marketing channel.
- Pay closest attention to the in-person customer experience – how customers feel when they interact with a member of your staff.
2. Determine how your customers see you – their perceptions of your organization and your brand and what they value most about you.
- Talk to customers, prospects, your sales team, and the customer service representatives who work with customers every day.
- Try to see your company’s strengths and weaknesses through independent eyes. Be brutally honest.
3. Pinpoint the unique value your organization – and only your organization – delivers to customers.
- Determine what you do better than any competitor.
- Focus on the benefits you offer and the ways your products and services improve the lives of your customers.
4. Identify and capitalize on your natural branding advantages, such as:
- An established reputation for excellence;
- Superior technology or product capabilities;
- Endorsements by recognized authorities in your marketplace;
- A new company direction or the launch of a major new product line that creates an opportunity to reposition your company to customers or prospects.
5. Decide what you want your brand to stand for – the attributes you want customers to associate with your brand.
- Determine the expectations prospects and customers should have of your brand every time they encounter it, in every situation.
- Clarify the brand’s “persona” or point of view.
6. Create a unique graphic identity for your brand that establishes a distinct logo and look for your organization. Your graphic identity should differentiate you from every other resource in your marketplace and visually communicate the attributes of your brand or your brand persona.
7. Create a short, memorable positioning tagline that succinctly conveys the most important benefit, advantage, or distinction you offer in the marketplace. This tagline should be used in all your marketing.
8. Develop core marketing messages that capitalize on your strengths and serve as the copy foundation for all your marketing materials. These are the “proof points” that support your brand promise.
9. Develop and distribute guidelines for using the brand and graphic identity across all marketing materials and customer communications.
10. Deploy the brand:
- Make a splash in the marketplace with your new brand by launching a highly visible marketing campaign in multiple media to showcase your new identity.
- Follow the branding guidelines to apply your new brand consistently to marketing communications in all media (advertising, print materials, web marketing, direct mail, e-mail, retail point-of-purchase displays, trade shows, product shipments, etc.).
- Remember that the way your customers are treated is the most important element of your branding strategy. Train every member of your staff to understand your brand and deliver on your brand promise with every customer interaction.
Jean M. Gianfagna is a marketing strategy expert and the founder and President of Gianfagna Strategic Marketing, Inc., a consulting firm in Cleveland that provides marketing strategy and creative services to leading business-to-business marketers. Jean is past president of NAWBO Cleveland and a winner of NAWBO’s Top 10 Women Business Owners award. For more marketing tips, visit Jean’s Smart Marketing Strategy blog at www.gianfagnamarketing.com/blog.
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