We’re culminating the series I introduced last month, “Ride Your Brand Through Economic Uncertainty” with your brand action plan. So far, we’ve discussed:
- Considering a change in services
- Differentiating your brand
- Being the safe choice
- Staying top of mind
Now what? This fifth installment is all about prioritizing and creating a brand action plan in four steps:
SCRUTINIZE
- Determine which of these four areas has the most potential to strengthen your brand. These questions and their answers are different for everyone.
- Maybe some businesses actually do need to make a change in their offerings.
- Others may already be as differentiated as possible. (Another useful outcome of a messaging audit.)
- Are you already perceived as a safe choice? If so, move on.
- And maybe you already have a plan in place to stay top of mind.
If your bases are covered on all these fronts, congratulations! Your brand is in good shape. If not, that means you’re in good company. Most businesses—my own included from time to time—need to address these issues. Assuming that’s you, let’s move on to how.
You wouldn’t launch into white water with a raft that’s been abandoned for years, would you?
PRIORITIZE
One of my many favorite mottos to throw around is “We can do anything. We just can’t do everything.” Meaning, prioritize! And one of my favorite ways to do that is through an impact/effort matrix, inspired by The Eisenhower Matrix.
In short, start by focusing on the areas that will have the greatest impact while taking the least effort and end, if at all, with the areas that have the least impact and take the most effort. (Rarely does anyone get to this quadrant, and that’s okay.)
SYSTEMIZE
Most of these endeavors are not one-and-done activities, so as you’re doing them, plan their continuation or, at the very least, their ongoing measurement. For example:
- Give someone responsibility for re-evaluating your service offerings on a regular basis. Market demands change very stealthily. They can sneak in at any time.
- Make a plan to conduct regular audits of your competitors’ messaging along with your own. Unlike radio stations, which all seem to play commercials at the same time, businesses do not typically update their brands in unison.
- Get a sense of how folks are feeling about your business from your client-facing teams on a regular basis. Are they still enthusiastic about your relationship or are they starting to take you for granted? If the former, can you repurpose any of that enthusiasm for your business development activities?
- In terms of staying top of mind, create—and respect—a viable schedule for reaching out to clients and prospects, sharing content, and reminding the world you exist. Monthly newsletter anyone?
If you’re focusing on more than one, pick a focus for each quarter. For the ones that are most relevant to you, do them at least annually.
FINALIZE YOUR BRAND ACTION PLAN
Most importantly, remember that investing in your brand is never a nice-to-have—especially in challenging economic environments. (See our white paper, The Uncorrelated Asset, for proof.) You wouldn’t launch into white water with a raft that’s been abandoned for years, would you? Didn’t think so.
If you have any questions about the ideas in these five posts, don’t hesitate to reach out. I’m always down to talk about brand strategies—in any environment.
Claude, Opus 5.5 highlighted embarrassing typos. Writing is my own.
