PROOF OF IDENTITY
Branding - How to Integrate Your Brand Into Your Company

Brand identity tells your customers who you are as a company. It is one of the most important aspects of any business, large or small, retail or B2B. An effective brand identity gives you an edge over your competitors. It is your promise to your customer, and it tells them what to expect from your products and services and what differentiates you from the competition.

However, the message must be consistent across all platforms to be effective. Integrating your brand into all aspects of your company culture will help to establish this consistency. So how can you integrate your brand into your company?

Define your Brand

This is where your companies’ vision is defined. What are the values of your company? What differentiates you from competitors? What will customers gain by buying in to your brand? The vision doesn’t just take sales and marketing into account, it focuses on areas such as finance, product development, customer touch points and corporate culture. In essence, it looks at the complete experience of your customer whenever they come into contact with your company – the brand experience.

Create a Style Guide

Every piece of communication that is sent from your company must contain some element of your brand. This includes emails, memos, marketing collateral, telephone calls, website… the list goes on. All these different elements must carry your brand identity. Therefore, as each area of your company gets involved with your brand, questions will arise such as ‘How will marketing use the logo?’ or ‘What typeface should I use for corporate communications?’. To answer these questions, a Style Guide needs to be created to give instruction about all the various components of your branding which should be readily available to your employees and also third parties such as licensees.

Understand your Target Audience

Your target audience is a very important factor for your branding. To be able to define your ideal buyers and target audience will give a clearer picture of your intended market and their demographics which will help to align your marketing strategies.

Develop your Value Proposition

This is the most important element of your marketing message. A value proposition tells potential customers why they should do business with you rather than your competitors. It also highlights the benefits that your product or service offers from the outset. Examples of this can be anything from a simple slogan to a comprehensive list of features and benefits listed on your website.

Consistent Branding

Your logo should be an integral part of your company and appear on every piece of communication from website, printed collateral, exterior signage through to uniforms and vehicle livery. Consistent promotion of your brand will increase awareness within the marketplace.

Employee Training

Your brand should be ingrained into your employees. Your employees are your ambassadors and unfortunately sometimes it is assumed that they will automatically take on board all of your brand values. If your employees do not understand your brand and its values, they will not be able to convey these effectively to your existing or potential customers. Training should be provided to show how to handle different business operations correctly, how branding can be integrated into their daily activities and how to work with all aspects of branding in the correct way. All branding resources should be readily available if required.

Integrating your brand is all about consistency. By making sure that branding is at the forefront of all your company and employee’s activities this will ensure that your customers and potential customers will never forget your brand.

Please note that the views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to any other group or individual. To ensure you are fully compliant with all current legislation, please take legal/professional advice and do not rely solely on the information provided in these articles.