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Brand-building in seven steps…really
People are talking, and they’re talking about you—to their friends, networks…and people they don’t even know.
Since your brand is a collection of all their impressions of you, what they’re saying is your brand. That makes how you represent yourself in both word and deed more important than ever, because it can make those conversations work in your favor.
Looking for a refresher course? Here are the seven basic steps for building a brand.
Step 0: Research
All brand building starts with knowing where in the external landscape you’re currently positioned, where your leadership wants to move your organization, and with what internal resources you have to work with. Research is the best (only!) way to get that knowledge.
Different types of research accomplish different goals: quantitative measures current conditions, actions, and behaviors; qualitative helps determine motivations. Understanding how both combine, internally and externally, gives you solid ground on which to build your brand.
Step 1: Constituents
Your brand only exists in the minds of your customers and prospects, not in your conference room. That means you can’t define your brand until you define your constituents, what they value, and understand how that overlaps with what your organization is and does.
Your constituents are the ones that actually build your brand and make it real.
Step 2: Brand foundation
With your “builders” known, you can begin to lay your brand foundation—the definition of your current and hoped-for states—via your mission, vision, brand attributes, and desired market position and personality. There will be gaps, but the purpose of your branding efforts is to close those gaps. Defining the starting and ending points is an integral part of that process.
Step 3: Messaging
With all the noise out there, your message has to cut through. It’s not about an elevator speech anymore—you’re lucky if you make it that far. You need to be able to articulate, in words anyone can understand, who and what you are, why that’s important, and how you do it. Your message needs to survive the game of “Telephone 2.0.”
Can it?
Step 4: Visual identity
In a world of 140 characters, a picture is still worth a thousand words. Your visual identity combines things you can “own” (your logo, tagline, etc.) with those you can’t but can come to own through consistent use: fonts, color, imagery, and design. It ensures you’re recognizable and get credit for all you are and do, no matter how or where people interact with you.
Step 5: Action
These days, there are communications you control (your brochures, websites, tweets, etc. ) and those you can influence (those conversations others are having…). Crafting an architecture that outlines how all of those communications will combine, to whom, and how, helps you spend money wisely, connect to those whose interest in important, and deliver content in ways it will be received and shared.
Step 6: Sustainability
No matter how smart you and your team are, you need the enthusiastic engagement of others within your organization—and of constituents and commentators who care about you. The goal of any brand-building effort should be to create something that resonates not only with the marketplace, but also with how your customers and prospects see themselves, to find that intersection between your brand and theirs.
So make it easy for them: make sure these groups understand your strategy and have the tools and messages to be good ambassadors.
- conclusion
Most importantly, brand-building is a process, one in which each step is designed to give you the firm footing on which the next piece can be added, and one which ultimately gets repeated continuously to adapt to ever-changing reality. It needs to accurately reflect—and evolve with—both what is and what is possible. It needs to provide something on which you can build, and grow, and change.
It’s the framework for your future.
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