What are your new year’s resolutions for your brand? Sure, as we start another trip around that big yellow dot in the sky, you may be thinking about breaking up with Netflix, actually going to the gym and not just paying for it, or trying that meditation thing everyone’s talking about.
Those are all great and best of luck! But given how important your brand is to your business and career, doesn’t it deserve some resolutions of its own? Here are some suggestions.
Given how important your brand is to your business and career, doesn’t it deserve some resolutions of its own?
I resolve to drive consistency. Inasmuch as inconsistency is enemy #1 of a strong brand, resolving to drive consistency at every touchpoint is an important promise to make and keep. After all, consider these stats from Lucidpress:
- Brands that are consistently presented are 3 to 4 times more likely to experience brand visibility.
- The average revenue increase attributed to always presenting the brand consistently is 23%.
Driving consistency across your brand means ensuring that every message and every action reinforces what your brand stands for. It means that the way you speak to customers is the same way you speak to employees. Your pricing strategy is in line with how you position yourself (i.e., you don’t call yourself a premium provider and throw out discounts at the first sign of resistance). The examples go on.
The average revenue increase attributed to always presenting the brand consistently is 23%.
I resolve to share the love. One way to drive consistency is ensuring that everyone at your organization—not just the marketing people—understands your brand strategy and how it impacts their jobs. When your colleagues know why they’re doing something, when they see how it contributes to the company’s greater good, their work is likely to be much more enthusiastic and effective. This axiom is particularly true for client-facing staff. How can you engage customers if employees are not engaged as well?
A brand education program can get this job done and can be as simple or structured as you like, but it has to exist. Oh, and an added benefit? When they understand your brand, they are much more likely to fall in love with it.
When they understand your brand, they are much more likely to fall in love with it.
I resolve to check in. Brands are emotional by design and therefore pretty subjective. However, that does not mean you cannot or need not check in once in a while to see how it’s doing. Conduct meaningful, objective research with clients and employees to validate that your brand is indeed connecting with them in relevant, competitively differentiated, and meaningful ways.
Our own white paper shows that when looking at the most positive effects gained from a brand strategy, those organizations that are continually doing research on their brand yielded more positive gains than those simply just throwing more money at their brand strategy.
When it comes to your brand strategy there are many other resolutions you can make, of course. To determine which ones are most important for you, just ask yourself, “Where do I want my brand to be when we start this journey around the sun again next year?”
