In our work with organizations, primarily in service professions (e.g. healthcare, consulting), we often find one critical audience overlooked–employees. Particularly for service organizations, employees are everything. They literally are the product! If they aren’t kept informed about your company’s mission, vision, values and desired brand image, they can’t help you support your brand.
The big question for you: do your employees understand your desired brand image? (more…)
Branding is one of those concepts that is both extremely simple and exceedingly complex at the same time. One of the most common questions we hear related to branding is: “Can a company like ours develop a brand?” The answer: “Absolutely! But…” Here’s the thing… (more…)
1) Clarify how the client would like to be perceived. We generally go through a two-part exercise, including some kind of projective exercise (e.g. “if your organization was a house, what kind of house would it be; draw a picture…,” or “if your organization were a person, what would that person look like; tear out pictures from magazines…”). We develop a list of desired attributes based on these discussions.
2) Assess how their target markets currently perceive them. This includes employees (because they play a critical role as brand ambassadors), customers, prospects, community leaders, etc. The specific audiences vary by organization. We generally accomplish this step through research while might include both qualitative (focus groups/interviews) and quantitative (surveys). This step can also be a great communication tactic to help engage various audiences in the process and convey to them the core attributes you wish to be known for.
3) Identify the gaps between desired and perceived brand image. In some cases, this may mean that the audience doesn’t perceive you as strongly for a particular attribute as you would like to be perceived. In other cases the opposite is true. And, sometimes, you may find that your audience has positive perspectives of you that you hadn’t even considered and may wish to emphasize. Based on this gap analysis, you would prioritize the gaps to focus on; this will drive your communication strategies and tactics.
4) Develop a plan to close the gaps; this includes both marketing communication and operational strategies and tactics.
Most of this process is fairly straightforward and it’s not that difficult to get to step #4. But that’s where the challenges emerge. Why? Because most organizations view branding as a communication process. While communication is certainly part of the branding process, it is just a part. Operational issues also play a major role in how companies are perceived. For service businesses (e.g. health care organizations, professional services firms like law firms, consultancies, etc.) brand management is especially challenging because every interaction their target audiences have with their organizations serve to form impressions: this includes everything from how clean their parking lot is and how easy it is to find parking, to how their staff answers the phone, to how staff are dressed, etc., etc., etc.
It’s a worthy challenge though. If you’re up for the challenge, we have a number of additional blogs related to branding that you may find helpful.
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 work with clients to plan, create and publish high-quality, unique content. Whether on- or offline, or both, we’ll help you achieve desired results.
(Strategic Communications is certified as a Woman-Owned Business Enterprise through the Wisconsin Department of Administration.)
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Recent logo changes by Google and Yahoo! have gotten the marketing and branding communities around the country buzzing. Neither change is significant which, from a branding standpoint, is significant. In fact, if you review most iconic brand logos over time (think Coca-Cola, Starbucks, McDonald’s, etc.), you’ll see only slight changes–often changes so slight that, if they hadn’t told us about the change, it’s likely that we wouldn’t even have noticed.
Why are these slight changes so prevalent among the top brands? (more…)
Much of my work over the years has been with “service brands”–brands that are not tied to a particular product, but to the delivery of some type of service, like health care, legal services, educational services, energy services, engineering services, consulting services, etc.
Developing and maintaining a strong brand for a service organization is, in my opinion, significantly more challenging than developing and maintaining a strong brand for a product. Why?
Because a service is less tangible, more ephemeral–and often involves multiple “touchpoints” that really determine the “brand experience.”
What makes a strong brand? (more…)
This is an older story, but still an important lesson for organizations that decide to “mess with” their brand and its related images–like logos.
Late last year, the University of California system unveiled a new logo and they were immediately met with a firestorm of protest from various audiences. So, they decided to stop using it and go back to their original logo. Good move? (more…)
I recently did a presentation for a group of Young Professionals that are part of a local Chamber of Commerce on how to create and deliver effective “elevator speeches.” Elevator speeches are those brief introductions that we’re all called upon to give from time to time, particularly in networking situations when we’re asked: “What do you do?”
For business owners, consultants and business leaders in any field, the opportunity to deliver an “elevator speech” is an opportunity to support your desired brand perception. We often fail to think of it that way, though–instead, we tend to think of it as simply a requirement to provide some general information about what it is we do.
Interestingly, as I worked on the presentation for this group it became very clear to me that just as when thinking about organizational brand impact, individually we have an opportunity to define and manage our personal brands. The steps are very similar to the steps I take when working with clients on branding-related issues. They are: (more…)
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