When building a brand, the work you do is not simply the creation of a logo to stick on the top of your invoices and website. Rather, your brand is a multi layered, highly complex personality that evolves and develops over time.
That is time and money that is invested in the current and future success of your business. Brand recognition instils that ‘know, trust, like’ element of the buying process, bringing potential customers to your door, and making it easier to convert them into paying customers.
However, there are some really simple elements of a business that, if they don’t match up to your brand values, can inadvertently turn potential customers away rather than keeping the on track. While some may genuinely know they don’t need your services, others may be repelled by the fact that the further they get down your pipeline. More often than not this is because the journey they are going on with you no longer matches up to the ‘brand’ that they were experiencing initially, the brand that had initially attracted them to you.
So here are the two oft forgotten principal areas that you need to make sure you double check to make sure that brand integrity is maintained, nurtured and strengthened if you want to build your business.
Make sure you print collateral reflect your brand
Have you ever met someone who you found interesting and engaging, and felt there could be a business opportunity, only to be handed a flimsy, moth eaten card that looks as though it was done through a quick print run in the local corner shop. The discrepancy between the ‘brand’ that was presented to you by that person, and what you see on the card reflects badly on the business as a whole.
With so much work done online these days, it’s easy to start to neglect your printed assets. As a result, the quality of any printing you get done risks a reduction in overall quality.
However, print is far from dead, and the commercial opportunities that can be generated by reintroducing and developing print into your marketing mix, rather than simply adding it on as an afterthought, are wide and varied.
Re-incorporating quality printing services as part of that marketing mix is important, but more crucially it needs to be properly scrutinised to enhance your overall branding.
Tone of Voice
Tone of voice is an oft neglected area of developing a brand but is becoming more and more talked about by marketeers. Quite simply, tone of voice is the language, words and tone that you use to tell the story of your company. It equally incorporates your body language.
There are many different ‘tones’ that can be used – and how you integrate them into your overall brand personality Is really down to you and your marketing team. But it actually involves everybody within the company, from those on the front line of sales, to those working in the back offices, out on the factory floor, and right the way through all departments.
Your tone can be formal or informal, humorous or serious, optimistic and motivational, conversational or academic, respectful or more ‘street’. The options are only limited by your imagination, but the strict rules are:
- That it must be consistent throughout every area within your organisations, both in your internal and your external communications.
- That it reflects your overall brand values, otherwise you are working at cross purposes and lose the trust of your clients.
- It needs updating regularly and can ‘evolve’ along with your company.
