Regardless of funding, revenues, or company size, one of the strongest differentiation an organization can have is its brand. But brand strength doesn’t happen on its own. It’s a competitive advantage that needs to be earned. It takes organizational self-reflection, focus, and discipline to create a brand that customers prefer over competitors. That’s why brand management is important. The brand must have rules placed around it to be easily upheld and presented appropriately. And it needs to be considerate to a quickly changing world with numerous cultural nuances.
Brand management is an ongoing process that involves maintaining consistency around your brand and delivering on the values your organization holds dear to forge a positive association with your audiences. This includes facets like customer satisfaction, packaging, visual presentation, the competition, and more. It’s also a critical business practice for organizations of any size who want to stay relevant in the minds of today’s powerful consumers.
Branding and brand management is more than a marketing thing. If your brand only aspires to mimic the visual styles of the most successful brands, you’ll miss the opportunity to connect with an audience uniquely. A brand should be embraced across the business.
When your brand is embraced across the organization, everyone wins.
Now that we have a better understanding of what is brand management and who benefits from it, let’s look at why brand management matters.
From the person who answers the phone at your front desk to the sales rep they interact with to the website page they visit and the support people they chat or email, your organization is sending a message. Your brand isn’t just a logo, campaign, or tagline. It’s the culmination of every experience a person has with your organization — which leaves a perception in their mind.
Unfortunately, you can’t control perceptions. You can only influence them.
There are three important things your organization can do consistently to influence positive associations with your brand: