In today’s competitive world, effective brand management can be the key to success or failure. So how can you put in place a strong process to get it right?
- Brand guidelines
- Accessible branding materials
- Template for 80/20 success
- Brand management systems
- Digital marketing investment
- Leverage brand management consulting
Let’s dig deeper into these
Have clear brand guidelines in place
Clear guidelines are essential to creating a consistent and strong brand.
An agency that specialises in brand management will always recommend to businesses that this is their first step towards successful brand development and management.
Make sure your materials and guidelines are accessible
Store your brand guidelines centrally in a way that they can be easily accessed.
Create a suite of materials that will be consistent, on-brand and which contain the key marketing messages that you need to speak to your target audiences.
A digital brand management system will allow you to do this in a well-managed, slick and efficient way that offers levels of sign-off, authorisation and read rights.
It will also allow you to share your guidelines with external stakeholders.
Help users to create on-brand materials
It’s an expensive business to require the services of a graphic designer at every turn, especially for a smaller business, or for businesses which require basic ongoing materials to communicate with customers or to present a positive and professional image.
If you can provide branded templates then this makes the process far quicker and easier, saving the business time and money and ensuring that the final results are on-brand and look professional.
This is vital for consistency.
Invest in a good brand management system
Digital systems make it easy to better manage your brand assets, from logo sharing and distribution through to materials sign-off, production, template access and so forth.
A good digital brand management system will greatly enhance your workflow and make your business far more efficient. The marketing team are usually a good place to start with this, as marketers tend to be well ahead of the digital curve and can review available systems.
Invest in your digital marketing
It is vital you invest in your digital marketing in order to build a sustainable, well-recognised brand.
Create a powerful and effective digital marketing strategy which integrates with your print, out-of-house and overall offline strategy.
Look at your website, your app, social media marketing, PPC, online PR, SEO and digital channels that allow you to engage with potential customers.
The value of good brand management consulting
An agency with specific brand management expertise can give you real value by helping you to create a brand that gains rapid acceptance and traction in a highly competitive marketplace.
Branding can be expensive and time-consuming, and can easily fail to achieve meaningful returns, especially if the brand fails to succeed in the marketplace.
Branding is an art form and a core business activity that can result in true competitive advantage. If your brand currently isn’t seeing the returns that you’d expect, now is the time to invest in it – from good brand management through to development of your digital marketing channels, for lasting, true competitive advantage in your market.