Brand Implementation – Turning Strategy into Action

Never forget that your brand is an ‘idea’, not a logo or a suite of assets. Your brand is your opportunity to differentiate: to inform your audience who you are in your market, and what you stand for as a business.

Today, we’re going to talk about how to take your brand strategy and implement it across your organisation because for many of our clients that’s where the true challenge lies.

It goes without saying that your brand and marketing efforts should share aligned messaging and that your content marketing and advertising should resonate at each touchpoint. So, we’re not going to discuss that here – instead we’ll focus on areas that many businesses forget.

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Your brand idea

Think of your brand as your North Star (cheesy, but accurate!). Doing so helps you to understand how it guides your activities and influences everything you do as a business.

Your brand’s role is to encapsulate your mission, vision, and promise to customers – and to your company’s people.

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Internal communication

Consistent communication is KEY to creating both internal and external buy-in from stakeholders. Unfortunately, companies sometimes skip the internal stakeholders and head straight to the market.

That’s a significant risk! Every department and employee needs to understand how their role contributes to the big-picture business objectives.

This creates a culture of connection and ensures a unified approach that permeates from the top down.

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Communicating your brand externally

Your internal communications will influence your external communications, too. That’s why you need to invest in your people’s understanding of the big picture and their role within it.

To generate external buy-in, you’ll need a consistent roll-out of your visual assets and messaging across touchpoints and channels.

From website design to customer support interactions to marketing materials, a customer’s experience must feel cohesive throughout the customer journey.

That consistency (and unified approach from your people) reinforces brand recognition and builds trust. People need to know and understand that what they see is what they’ll get, no matter the means of communication.

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Aligning UX with brand values

Something businesses forget is that brand applies to every element of a business. It doesn’t end once a sale is achieved.

Ensuring your brand values align with your users’ experience is key. If your brand emphasises simplicity – your UX should offer a streamlined simple interface, not an overly complex dashboard. If your brand value is reliability, your UX should be seamless and error-free ensuring confidence in users.

Your approach to service should also align with your brand values because customer support is an integral part of a customer’s experience. Ensuring that support channels, and their approach to resolving issues, reflect your brand’s tone and values is crucial, especially during troubleshooting and support interactions.

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Brand is never a one-stop-shop

Brand implementation isn’t a one-off task. Regular evaluation (and evolution) is part of the long game and your way of making sure your strategy and execution remain aligned with your business objectives.

Always remember, how your brand is implemented influences:

• How customers perceive your product or service
• How they engage and interact with your company, and
• How you build loyal advocates from strangers.

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In Summary

With implementation, communication is key. Often, the misconception that communication has happened and that the message has been successfully received, costs businesses avoidable and significant time and money.

Consistency of message across customer touchpoints is what matters most when creating a brand experience that’s memorable for the right reasons.

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