Spread Your Brand Across Your Business

Successful businesses know that branding isn’t just for marketers. But how do you infuse your brand into different areas of your business, including sales, operations, customer service, and more? Here are a few tips and techniques to collaborate within your organization and build brand advocates along the way.

Set your goals

As with all good communications, having a clear plan will make your work easier to do and more effective in the long run. Start by identifying your goals. Do your employees have a baseline of your brand already or is branding a foreign concept? Are you trying to accomplish something specific like preparing for a product brand launch or improving brand culture? Or maybe you just want your employees to help amplify your brand through new channels and more touchpoints? Having clarity around your goals will give you direction on what type of education, training, or support your teams may need to accomplish the desired outcomes.

Consider your audiences

Next, break down your internal audiences into subgroups and figure out what each group specifically needs to be a better brand advocate. Don’t be afraid to ask them. In fact, employees will respond much better when they are asked what they want rather than being told what you think they need. Use surveys, town hall meetings, or one-on-one conversations with leaders and frontline people alike to gather input, suggestions, and feedback about what type of branding tools and training they would like to have. Use that information along with your knowledge about branding best practices to create an approach that will cover all the needs of the various teams.

Create your resources

With your plan in hand, you are now ready to get to work implementing the training and tools for your internal teams. Your list may look different, but here are some items you might want to consider to support your internal brand-building process:

• Brand training sessions for key business areas that are customized to the unique questions, concerns, and opportunities for each section of the business to create consistent brand experiences inside and out of your organization
• New employee onboarding sessions to share the importance of branding and inform the employee about their role as a brand advocate
• Creation of brand ambassador teams representing cross-sectional roles throughout the organization that meet quarterly to report on new branding efforts, share brand success stories, and offer up new ideas for marketing support or tools that are needed in the field
• Internal branding awards given out monthly to employees who are successfully living the brand
• A variety of internal communications (enews, emails, events, meetings, roundtables, etc.) to support brand storytelling, questions and answers, and ongoing collaboration between different business areas

Whatever you determine is needed, make sure you do it in a way that is on brand. Remember your employees are an important audience and the communications you create for them are an illustration of that brand experience. Make it a good one that makes them proud and encourages them to share your brand with others within and outside of your company walls.

Stay the course

As with all branding efforts, being consistent and redundant will pay off over time. Building brand advocates that understand the value of branding, the unique aspects of your own brand, and how they can play a vital role as an employee, will take time. But in the end, with a little planning, training, and commitment, you’ll get a lot more traction from your brand if you share the work throughout your organization.