Let’s set the conversation straight about branding. Branding isn’t something you do once. It has little (if anything) to do with logos, hex colors and fonts, and has everything to do with people. Your audience is the reason your brand gets to exist from this day to the next.
As a brand strategist, I often encounter business owners who think the opposite—and that’s why they’re stuck.
So how do you know if you have a branding problem? Branding problems are frequently just identity crises in disguise. Here are five tough questions you should ask to crush those identity crises before they have a chance to rear their heads.
1. Why does our brand exist? If the answer is “for the money,” quit (and quit it now). Brands designed to both last the test of time and grow know that making money is the result of a combination of factors, not a guiding principle for a brand’s reason to exist. Ask yourself and your colleagues why you’re doing what you do. No matter the age of your brand, it’s a powerful reminder, and the answer can take you from derailed to on track in moments.
2. Who isn’t our client or customer? If the answer is “everyone,” you’re delusional. The most wildly successful brands in the marketplace know precisely who’s never going to walk through their doors. That’s because they’ve built their brands to keep those people away—or at least, keep them disinterested. Start with a reverse inventory of your audience—the folks you could care less about. Oddly enough, this makes a whole lot more room for the folks you want standing in line for what you have to offer.
3. Where do we stand? There’s only one thing that happens in the middle of the road (and you’re not a cast member on the Beverly Hillbillies). Get out of road kill ville and take a stand. Brands without clear opinions aren’t human, and people do business with people. Don’t believe me? I offer you the number 2.2 percent—that’s how much Chick-fil-A’s sales increased year-over-year following the announcement of its same-sex marriage stance. Some would call the move a PR debacle (to say the least). Others? A powerful branding move that brought people with similar values closer and showed those who differed the door.
4. How does our ideal audience see us? Here’s the problem: We look in the mirror every day and see the same thing. Chances are, folks aren’t looking in the same mirror as we are. If you haven’t already put an audience feedback mechanism or process in place, the time is now. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a survey, feedback form, online forum like GetSatisfaction or UserVoice, or simply a post on your blog or Facebook fan page wall. The point is, if you don’t ask, you’ll never know. And I’ll bet that you walk away from every question you ask with better information than you had before to help shape your brand and keep it on track toward the brand you want to be.
5. Do we own our brand? I see it happen—often. Companies and brands go through the heart-wrenching process of figuring out exactly what they want to be to best serve their ideal audience … then they let it all die on the vine. Why? Because the company, as a whole, doesn’t own what the brand is and needs to become. Brands aren’t static—they’re dynamic. They grow with your company, your audience, and ever-shifting things like the economy and time. Your company’s perception of your brand has to shift alongside those things. It’s time to take inventory and understand how deep your brand’s blood runs within your own company. People will always be the driving force behind a brand’s longevity, and the first audience you have to build and serve is the one within your own walls. Who’s on board, who isn’t, and what needs to change to make your brand part of the company’s DNA?
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