RSS feedsIn today’s increasingly sophisticated and competitive market, the branding of your firm couldn’t be more important. When I talk to people about their brand they automatically assume I am talking about their logo. In fact, there is a much broader set of issues around brand identity that need careful consideration.
Branding is defined by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as ‘the set of physical attributes of a product or service, together with the beliefs and expectations surrounding it – a unique combination which the name or logo of the product or service should evoke in the mind of the audience’.
This makes branding one of the most important elements to get right before you go to market with your services. If you are already in the market without having defined your brand, this could be your undoing.
Marketing-savvy firms are now taking their branding very seriously indeed and are investing a substantial amount of time and resources into getting it right. Differentiation is key to the future success of your business. Without it, you run the risk of becoming just another accountancy firm – indistinguishable from the mass.
Intangible benefits
Branding has both tangible and intangible qualities. The tangible elements are what people usually focus on when asked to define branding: the visual representation of your brand – the logo, literature, website and so on, but it is the intangibles that are probably the most important.
Public perception, reputation, trust, image and the way your staff conduct themselves when talking to external and internal stakeholders of the business – these are all manifestations of your brand identity.
Stakeholders include any person or organisation your business touches in its day-to-day activities, from employees, clients and contacts, to local chambers of commerce and other business networking groups and service or product suppliers. All stakeholders will have an opinion on your firm based on their encounters with you. What’s more, people who have had a bad experience with your firm are more likely to share their stories than those with something positive to say.
If you haven’t already done so, go back to basics. Review your firm from an external perspective and define what you believe your unique selling points (USPs) are and the core values of your firm.
Don’t make the mistake of trying to undertake this process on your own. Involve all your staff as they will all have valuable ideas and perspectives. Remember, your staff are part of the corporate image that forms part of your brand, so it is imperative you get their buy-in. If you simply tell them, they may forget, but if you involve them in the process they will remember and are more likely to embrace your brand unconditionally.
USPs are a term most people are familiar with, but core values are something that not all firms will have defined even if they understand their meaning. By core values we mean defining the very essence of why you are in business. You define your core values by outlining the principles that are central to the way you do business and define how you treat those you come into contact with. This could include the way you treat your staff, to how you deal with your clients to your commitment to the environment. This is closely-linked to your ethos – what makes you distinctive as a firm from others.
Integrated strategy
Once defined, these core values need to be integrated into your overall business plan with strategies and objectives defined to make them not just lip service but a reality.
You must set yourself targets to aspire to and always monitor your return on investment.
If you prefer an external point of view from a professional brand consultant, there are plenty of them out there. But be careful to clearly define what you expect to get from the process, otherwise you could end up with a very expensive logo that has added no value.
A complete rebrand is a costly process, so consider a re-evaluation of what you already have. This can be achieved for a relatively small investment, but the impact and positive results it will have could be huge.
Once you have developed your USPs and core values you must ensure they are communicated throughout your firm so, no matter what their role is within the organisation, they relay exactly the same message. This uniformity of answer is key to ensuring external stakeholder perceptions of your brand are consistent.
It is important that all your staff understand and communicate your USPs and brand values in an authentic and meaningful way. I am sure everyone has encountered organisations where this fails to happen and, like me, I am sure you think to yourself they are not authentic – not a good image to portray.
Your staff need to reinforce those messages by their actions. For example, if you include client responsiveness as one of your key attributes, ensure you stick to your pledges without exception. If you don’t, you can easily turn a positive into a negative by not living up to your stakeholder’s expectations. If your values and goals are not achievable you will not get the important buy-in from your staff who will, in the main, help you to achieve your goals and objectives. Your core values might be aspirational, but they shouldn’t be completely fanciful.
Protect your brand
Once you have developed your brand you must ensure it is protected. By producing a set of corporate identity guidelines you are clearly defining how, where and what your branding can be used for and establishing the consistency of that usage.
Particularly important in this is the use of your logo. The logo is the main visual representation of your brand and must be protected vehemently. How many times have you seen advertisements using pixelated images that make the advertiser look unprofessional, giving the viewer a bad impression of the firm? The guidelines need to maintain control over colour, size, proportion, positioning and orientation of your logo on all visual mediums. The best people to police this are the people who understand branding the most: your marketing department. Once you have developed your corporate identity guidelines, empower your marketing people to be the custodians of your brand. If there are no marketing professionals in your firm, then it should be monitored from the top, or by a senior member of staff.
Developing any brand is a long-term commitment and should be high on any firm’s agenda. If you haven’t already done so, take the bold step and re-evaluate your current position and, if required, develop a strategy to address this issue.
Remember that your brand needs to continually evolve, so don’t let things stand still. If you maintain a system of re-evaluation and re-invention and adopt an attitude that your brand can always be improved, you will always be one step ahead of the competition.
The commandments of branding
- Differentiation is the key to the future success of your businesses.
- Branding has both tangible and intangible qualities.
- Stakeholders play an important part in communicating your brand.
- Branding is an all-encompassing issue that permeates through your entire firm.
- Go back to basics.
- Define your USPs and core values.
- Involve all your staff and they will buy into the brand.
- Make sure the leadership of this process comes from the top.
- Integrate your USPs and core values into your business plan.
- Set yourself targets to aspire to and always monitor return on investment.
- Adopt an internal and external communications strategy to relay these messages.
- Communicate your message effectively to ensure a consistent awareness of your brand and corporate identity.
- Uniformity is key to ensuring external stakeholder perceptions of your brand.
- Caution: ensure your staff do not regurgitate your USPs and core values like pre-programmed robots.
- Maintain your credibility by delivering without exception.
- Core values might be aspirational to a degree but should not be fanciful.
- Guard your brand vehemently.
- Produce corporate identity guidelines.
- Empower your marketing people as the custodian of your brand.
- Developing a brand is a long-term commitment, so start today.
- Ensure your brand continually evolves. Evaluation and re-invention will keep you one step ahead of the competition.
Simon Campbell-Davies is marketing and business development director of Haslers Chartered Accountants & Business Advisers
