Your Brand is More than a Logo

You’ve heard it. You know it, but we all forget. Your brand is so much more than the mark on your business card. Feel like your brand is blah? Here are some issues you might need to address.

Your offerings

The greatest logo in the world won’t have any effect on your business if your customers don’t like what you’re selling. If you have a bad product or service a new logo is just lipstick on a hog. You’ve got to fix any underlying issues before you start promoting yourself. You can lose the trust of your audiences if you promise something great with your image and fail to deliver. And that trust is much harder to gain back once it’s lost.

Your people

Your employees can make or break your brand. They are your brand ambassadors 24 hours a day. Do you have the right people in place to fulfill that mission? If you have the right people, are you giving them the right support? They need to love where they work (or at least like it) and know how to express that to customers.

Your sales process

There are many steps from initial brand awareness to making the sale (and the next sale). How do your customers learn about you and are you helping them along the way? Think about every touchpoint your customers have with your brand. Do you have the tools in place to make those interactions delightful? Are they getting the right message at the right time when it is helpful in making their purchasing choice? Are specs easy to find? Does a coupon show up just when they need it? Can they talk to a person if they want to? Get your sales process in order and it will reflect positively on your brand.

Your tools

Once you have all of the above in place you can start thinking about how to project your brand to the outside world. Do you have all the right tools? These can include: a distinguishing logo, understandable and practical brand guidelines (color palette, typography, visual elements, photo styles, etc.), a website, stationary, collateral, ads, and any other touchpoints you have with your customers.

Don’t forget about verbal tools as well. What does your voicemail say? Do you have an elevator speech? Are all your verbal communications up-to-date and do all your employees understand them? Update, disseminate, and train, if not.

You may not need a complete brand overhaul, but you probably need to refresh at least one of the elements above. Think about what will have the most impact and start there. Brands aren’t remade in a day.