Your brand identity is one of your most valuable marketing assets. If it’s not consistent throughout your business ecosystem, you could be eroding that value plus losing customers in the process!
As a business grows and time becomes less available, it’s quite possible for different departments to lose touch with each other. You might have one person heading up your online marketing and another doing your traditional marketing. You’ll also probably have different people heading up your sales, accounting and administration departments. And unless these people are all constantly in touch with each other, there is no way they can know what the other is doing at all times.
How Do Customers Encounter Your Brand?
You might have one company image being presented through traditional channels and another on online platforms. Plus, clients who are coming to your bricks-and-mortar office might go away with a completely different image too, depending on the type of company culture you encourage or even the way you have chosen to decorate!
Be Consistent in Your Brand Identity
When your viewers/potential buyers come across so many different versions of your business, they might go away feeling confused. Making yourself clear to them from the outset will ensure that they can see your brand identity for what it really is.
If your brand is youthful and hip, then that’s what your marketing material should say about you. That’s what your office decor should say about you. And, of course, that’s what your product should say about you too. Consistency is key.
Use Your Business Ecosystem to Amplify Your Brand
You need to create a business ecosystem which surrounds the customer with the same message on all fronts.
How do you do this?
If you are the business owner, you need to be very clear about your branding message and what you want that message to say. This can be something you sit down and discuss at length with your marketing department or it can be something that you come up with yourself.
If you have a certain vision of how you want your company or your product to develop, then that can form the basis for your brand. Just remember that your brand should tell people what’s unique about you and how you can add value to their lives.
Keep Your Brand in Mind When Making Decisions
Marketing companies may come to you with various ideas about how you should be growing and developing your company in different ways. Before you make a decision, you have to ask yourself “is this truly in line with my brand?”
Choosing a marketing campaign that doesn’t align with your brand’s identity may end up costing you more in the long run through the loss of customer segments, online communities and important sales funnels.
When Should You Decide to Change Your Brand?
Obviously we’re not saying that your brand should never change.
Sometimes, you see a business opportunity and you take it, even though it may not have been the thing you visualised when you first started your company. And there may be certain marketing avenues that start working better for you than others even though they don’t really portray your brand in the way that you visualised.
In such cases, you can think about whether the change in your company image or brand will be helpful in the long run. If you think it will be, then why not go ahead and change it? The idea is not to be completely rigid but to go ahead and encourage change when it seems like it’s in the best interests of your company.
If a discussion about your business ecosystem is something you and your team might benefit from, Oracle Tree can definitely help! Get in contact with us today.
