When the time comes to reinvigorate or reinvent your company brand ensure that you align the experience employees have of the brand with the promise made to them.
How can you ensure that your brand gains traction with all of your employees – from the boardroom to the production lines – and that it becomes part and parcel of the company’s culture?
Remember that every company is unique and requires a tailored branding solution. Every workforce is different and requires tailored communications to help them grasp the importnace and relevance of the brand to the job they do and future business success.
You need help – don’t do it alone
The task of creating and managing a company brand involves a lot more than collaborating with those good people in marketing. It must be driven from the top. Make sure you include the people from HR and those satellite businesses that no-one ever seems to talk to.
Don’t be afraid of change
Dust off your vision and mission statements and check them for relevance – did they die a death some time ago while no-one was looking? Are internal beliefs consistent with the brand promise or is there a disconnect that needs fixing?
Will they get the message?
Your internal audiences need to be segmented in the same way you would segment external ones. Tailor communications to the specific needs of each segment. The messages you direct to employees in the factory will not be the same as those that go to senior managers or your sales team.
Don’t blow the budget
If you are creating a new brand or breathing new life into an old one, it is very easy to blow all the budget on external-facing applications and marketing. Plan well ahead to allocate sufficient funds for internal applications and communications. Remember the ‘inside out rule’– if it doesn’t work on the inside first, there isn’t much chance of it working on the outside.
Don’t get carried away with the creative
Ensure that the brand ‘essence’ is worked out well in advance of the creative team warming up their Macintoshes. Work out the essential aspects that underpin your brand – values, mission, vision, benefits etc and how they differentiate it. Work out a strategy for its success. Identify the gaps between the present brand and the aspired brand and how to fix them. Be very, very confident that what you offer is grounded in truth. Employees have the knack of recognising brands that are all ‘front’ where experience of the brand is a far cry from the ‘promise’.
Hit them at all touchpoints
The days of introducing new brand initiatives through the quarterly staff newsletter and hoping for the best are far gone (or are they?). Employees demand and deserve much more. They need to experience the brand dynamically and emotionally in a way that will excite them, inspire them and persuade them that they are part of a great team and a great company that has vision for the future and faith in itself, its products and its employees. The brand and its values need to permeate their environment and the day-to-day workings of the organisation, so they understand it and become part of it.
Their involvement will move you forward
Employee uptake of a new brand requires a considered approach. When planning a new brand or changes to an existing one, involve your employees and inform them what it is, what it means to the company and the important role they play in its success. Gain their input at an early stage so they start to take ownership. Once this happens real and relevant behaviours will emerge consistent with your objectives for the brand.
Measure performance
Changes to a brand or the creation of a new one can be time consuming and expensive exercises. You need to measure their performance before and after, to determine whether you are getting a return on your investment and whether your strategy for the brand moving forward is sound. Because no two brands or cultures are the same, determine the best means of measurement for your particular situation. Are employees engaged by the brand? Do they believe in it? Do they understand its purpose? Can they communicate its value and benefits to customers?
If you’ve successfully followed a comprehensive plan such as our EmployerBrandGuidanceSystem, within six to 12 months you should witness higher scores from employee satisfaction surveys, experience reduced attrition and attract ‘better fit’ job candidates. Your employees will love you for it.
Tony Heywood is a Fellow of the Design Institute of Australia, founder of Heywood Innovation in Sydney Australia and joint founder of BrandSynergy in Singapore.
tony@heywood.com.au
www.heywood.com.au
www.brandsynergy.com.sg
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