CEO, Founder and Manager at Hot Dog Marketing helping businesses prepare for their next phase of growth with comprehensive marketing.
Branding is a relatively obscure concept. The simplest way to understand branding is to think of it as the personification of your business. Let’s say you walked into a party of 100 people. You only knew three people at that party, but you met and connected with four new people. There was also a famous person there. Who would you remember? Only the seven or so people you connected with and the famous person whose reputation proceeds them.
Branding is the same. Without connection or reputation, we overlook businesses and fail to remember their names. Like a room of people you don’t know, advertising and corporate sponsorships turn into nameless, faceless static to the people who come in contact with it online or in traditional media.
As author and speaker Seth Godin put it, “A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.”
Businesses have four distinct stages where leaders need to revisit their brand strategy. A set of new opportunities and threats at these stages is solved foundationally with brand strategy. Not addressing the brand as a business moves through these stages can cost a business more money than a branding project ever would.
New Businesses: Aspirational Branding
New businesses are babies—as a parent, you have some hopes and dreams for that baby, but there’s no way to know what that baby is good at and where their future will take them. For all new businesses and startups, branding is typically aspirational and based on the hopes and dreams of the founder. The primary brand strategy components to focus on with a new business typically include:
• Mission (What are we trying to do?).
• Vision (Where are we trying to go?).
• Brand purpose (Why do we exist in the first place?).
• Logo.
The answer to these three components shouldn’t be “money” or “profit,” but rather big ideas and audacious goals. As a new business, you will look to hire new staff, and you’ll be introducing your product or service to a market that has never heard of you. Leading with what you’re trying to do and why you’re doing it will help you rally early adopters and loyal staff.
Established Businesses: Growth Branding
Established businesses over the five-year hump are at the “post-college, early adulthood” stage of business. People in their 20s have relationship drama and might be unsure what direction to take with their careers. Adulting is often harder than you thought. Businesses in this stage also start to suffer from their own identity crisis. This may manifest in poor employee retention, long, unpredictable sales cycles, ineffective marketing tactics or plateaued revenue growth. The major brand strategy components to focus on at this stage are:
• Revisit mission, vision, and brand purpose (Do these still resonate?).
• Core values (What about the business makes it work?).
• Messaging and positioning (Since businesses know their ideal customers by now, they can make sure their brand messaging and positioning statements are customer-centric.).
There are huge advantages a business has at this stage to nail its brand strategy. Established businesses know what they do well and what they don’t. Employees and customers can speak about their experiences with the company to inform a strong brand strategy. Businesses at this stage have a brand to be discovered and can create some new aspirational milestones to strive for.
Scaling: Focused Branding
Businesses may go from new to scaling immediately, especially if they have investors. And some small businesses have no desire to scale. For those that do, scaling requires a dynamic marketing program, effective and refined sales processes and expert employees dedicated to the company’s growth. Branding plays an important role in ensuring all those things’ success.
When businesses look to scale, a few strategic business decisions are probably being made: Narrowing the company’s focus on a specific vertical or service, expanding product lines or adding new locations. With any of these transitions, refinement of core brand components and focused attention on operations to meet those brand promises is required. Core brand strategy components to focus on when scaling include:
• Vision (Do you need to craft a new vision statement to embody the new growth goals?).
• Messaging and positioning (Is the messaging and positioning statement focused enough? Does it align with the vision and strategy?).
• Logo and visual design (Marketing, people and sales investments usually increase at this stage. Therefore, every asset should be refined and updated.).
Exiting: Maximized Branding
A privately owned company with an owner looking to exit, no matter the size, will want to get the maximum return on that deal. In addition to cash flow, buyers of businesses are looking for things like customer loyalty and a good reputation. More and more, businesses acquiring other businesses and private equity firms also look at employee culture. Your company’s brand informs these “goodwill” components.
A report by the Marketing Accountability Standards Board reports that brand value contributes 19.5% to the enterprise value of a business. However, since the value of a brand is difficult to measure in financial terms before this stage, businesses spend very little or are hesitant to invest in the cultivation and management of a strong brand.
Businesses late to the game should look five to seven years ahead of exiting, at a minimum, to work on brand strategy if they want to maximize the enterprise value of their businesses. These brand components should be “working” for the business by the time it reaches valuation:
• Vision, mission, brand purpose.
• Core values.
• Visual brand design and materials.
• Messaging and positioning.
What stage is your business at, and when did you last revisit your brand strategy? Whether you’re controlling and managing your brand intentionally or not, your business has a brand and reputation. Businesses should be in control of their own personification to achieve the growth they’re hoping for.
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