Maybe you are pledging to drink more water, walk 10,000 steps daily, or increase sales by 15%. But since your brand is a living part of your organization, have you ever considered pledging to better your reputation with brand management?
Everything you do to impact your brand’s reputation, from your logo to how your staff interacts with customers, is encompassed in the term “brand management.” Our team firmly believes there is no silver bullet to how you should approach brand management, but we are here to help. Read on to learn why brand management is important, how it affects your bottom line, and ways to manage your reputation.
Maybe you are pledging to drink more water, walk 10,000 steps daily, or increase sales by 15%. But since your brand is a living part of your organization, have you ever considered pledging to better your reputation with brand management?
Everything you do to impact your brand’s reputation, from your logo to how your staff interacts with customers, is encompassed in the term “brand management.” Our team firmly believes there is no silver bullet to how you should approach brand management, but we are here to help. Read on to learn why brand management is important, how it affects your bottom line, and ways to manage your reputation.
Achieving your business goals comes down to two words, brand loyalty. When you actively manage your reputation through intentional brand management, you create consistent customer experience, decrease risk, and increase brand loyalty. Having a loyal customer base truly affects your business. In fact, according to Forbes, “by increasing your customer retention rates by 5%, profits increase anywhere from 25% - 95%.”
It is no secret that people like to talk about their experiences with a brand, good or bad. Think about the last time you had a bad online ordering experience you most likely talked about it with friends and did not return to that website for your next purchase. On the flip side, think about an amazing experience at a restaurant. You probably raved about the service or the food and want to return. Essentially, when customers rave about their experiences, they advertise your brand. As reported by Forbes, “77% of customers would recommend a brand to a friend after a single positive experience.”
So while you cannot directly control what people say, you can implement strategic processes that affect a customer’s experience. If you can do this, you will cultivate brand loyalty and increase word-of-mouth advertising and profits.
Now that we are on the same page that brand management is crucial to the success of your business, how do you do it? Brand strategy and our team is here to help. By planning, building, and executing strategic brands, the Hardy team helps clients find the best success. These are some of the tools that our team recommends utilizing for brand management in 2023.
At Hardy, we think of branding in four phases: strategy, identity, accountability, and awareness. Our team has developed an effective process for reputation management, the Brand Operating System, BOS. After we work with a client on developing a strategic brand, we can partner with you to help you stay accountable in consistently managing and executing your brand. We work with clients to develop and implement a unique brand maintenance plan for their needs. To learn more about BOS check out our blog, 7 Steps to Grow and Effective Brand.
You can have a great brand strategy, but if your team is not living it, there is no point. Consistent brand experiences start with every member of your team. Think about it this way every team member acts as a brand ambassador for your brand, the person answering the phone, the accounting team, and the project managers.
One of the barriers to employee brand buy-in is knowledge. We recommend incorporating brand training into your onboarding process. Your team's connection to the brand’s values, story, and positioning can make or break a customer’s experience. However, you should not stop at onboarding. We recommend scheduling regular team brand trainings.
The Blue Collar Restaurant Group is home to nine different dining concepts. While the food served ranges from sushi to mountain tex-mex, all restaurants are dedicated to the mentality of ‘service first.’ Last spring, our team met with all their managers to train and empower them to connect with the BCRG brand. Since these trainings, managers have a more personal connection to the brand, teach their staff about their values, and now are empowered to hire new members that share the same values. United by their brand, the different dining concepts consistently exceed customer expectations for service.
Typically when you think about brand management tools, you think about methods to increase brand awareness you think of advertising. However, everything from your website, product packaging to interior design affects customer brand awareness. As a business leader, when making decisions, you should always be mindful of how these things relate to your strategy and whether it will create consistent customer experiences. To learn more read our blog, 8 Tips for Building Brand Awareness.
We hate to break it to you, but unfortunately, mind reading is not yet possible. So, while you cannot know what a customer is thinking at any given moment, there are many tools to obtain data about their experiences. Routinely listen to your customers, and identify priorities, problems, and solutions. When you are gathering information, do not make the mistake of excluding your team. Your team will have excellent insights into the reality of your perception because they are closely interacting with your brand.
Utilizing tools like routine surveys, social media, and review platforms like Yelp, you can gather needed information to address customers' and employees' needs and complaints. We recommend tracking data so your team can make any necessary adjustments.
If you want to get started on your brand’s New Year's resolution, it is time to manage your reputation. Contact our team to discuss how a brand strategy toolkit can create consistent customer experiences and help you reach your goals. And we wish you the best of luck in your other resolutions.*
*Here is an extra tip, if you want to drink more water, we recommend using a straw.
Like our work, the Hardy Brands team is an embodiment of the perfect balance of strategy and creative. We’ve cultivated a team of certified brand specialists and strategists, designers, copywriters and marketing professionals who are ferocious about helping you succeed. We’re a Montana marketing agency that will constantly strive to improve your business.
As a branding, marketing and design agency, we partner with all types of businesses, from restaurants and breweries to building and real estate professionals, nonprofits to accountants and many others. Get a better idea of who we are and what we do by visiting our Work page.
