While businesses can never have complete control of their brand, they absolutely have the opportunity—and obligation—to work to manage and influence how their brand is perceived. Part of that journey starts with some basic market research. You need to understand how you’re currently perceived before you can start planning to get to where you want to be.
At Strategic Communications, we work regularly with both individuals and businesses to assess, analyze and manage brands. This often involves conducting an assessment of customer perspectives, prospective customer perspectives and even employee perspectives. Employee perspectives are critically important because employees can serve as important brand ambassadors helping to communicate and support brand attributes.
The most important thing for businesses to know about their brands is how well aligned their desired brand attributes are with those audience perspectives we mentioned previously. Where are there gaps the organization needs to minimize or close? These gaps can be related to product, price, place or promotion. Getting insights into how your key audiences evaluate competitors can also be extremely instructive in terms of positioning. In an article for Forbes based on an interview with Informatica CMO Sally Jenkins, Forbes contributor Blake Morgan writes, “While a full rebrand doesn’t need to happen on a regular basis, companies should constantly be testing their messages with customers and honing their communication in an ever-changing world.”
The way we’ve done this is by asking this question:
“Where, on a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being highest), would you rate us on the following attributes?” We then provide a list of desired brand attributes—generally between 5-10, which would include things like “high quality,” “innovation,” “customer service,” etc. These attributes would be based on the criteria the company would like to use to establish itself relative to competitors.
This type of feedback is very important because, as we’ve frequently said, companies don’t define their brands—consumers do. Knowing how consumers are currently defining your brand, and comparing those perceptions to your desired brand identity, can help you spot opportunities for improvement as well as areas of strength that you can capitalize on through your communications.
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About Us
Strategic Communications, LLC, works with B2B clients to help them achieve their goals through effective content marketing and management with both internal and external audiences. We are adept at evaluating and analyzing communication efforts and working with clients to plan, create and publish high-quality, unique content, through both on- and offline media to achieve desired results. Our background in business journalism, marketing, PR/media relations and online communications makes us well-positioned to serve the needs of 21st-century marketers.
We serve clients who are looking for help creating content for a wide array of channels—from social media posts to full-length manuscripts, and everything in between. We focus primarily on service-related B2B topics and work with a number of independent consultants interested in building their thought leadership through online channels. For ongoing content management, our first step is to fully understand your goals, objectives and competitive landscape.
Then we’ll conduct a thorough analysis and assessment of your digital presence, compared to competitors, and recommend a communication strategy to achieve your goals. But, we also regularly take on individual projects – white papers, blog posts, contributed articles, etc. If you’re interested in learning more, let us know!
(Strategic Communications is certified as a Woman-Owned Business Enterprise through the Wisconsin Department of Administration.)
Recommended Reading
The Everything Guide to Customer Engagement
Tags: brand evaluation, Brand Management, branding, competitive analysis