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You’re all fired up to launch your new brand guidelines. You’ve poured time, effort, and resources to make sure everything is in place. You’ve prepared a big reveal and were waiting for the whole organisation’s round of applause.
But all you heard was the sound of silence. Or maybe the murmur of confusion. Perhaps maybe a faint, indecisive clap.
Let your Brand Be Heard
No matter how many sleepless nights spent and gallons of coffee consumed, and countless revisions implemented to come up with a new brand guideline, if it does not talk to the people you want to talk to, then your efforts are all for naught.
Whether you are only starting a business or your company needs to go through a whole branding revamp, it is crucial to create a message that will not fall on deaf ears. Eloquent words or attractive visuals will not suffice if your branding guidelines are not properly crafted for your target audience. If your content does not resonate with the intended crowd, then you might as well be shouting at a wall.
If you are struggling to put together effective branding guidelines, then here are the top 3 branding tips that you should keep in mind:
1. Identify and Include Key Elements
It is a basic rule in marketing to know your target audience. The same goes when you are crafting the basic branding guidelines.
There are three key elements that you need to remember in designing your branding rules:
- Identify the Primary User
Your brand guidelines must be relevant to potential key users within the company. To be effective, it should have some sort of significance to a person’s line of work.
For example, the sales group must be able to identify with the brand and speak with a cohesive brand voice to be able to properly represent the company.
- Identify Its Primary Use
Your content should provide relevant value to prospective users. It should be able to anticipate the possible queries or needs that might arise especially when dealing with external stakeholders.
The branding guidelines will be a code where employees will glean their knowledge about the brand. When the public relations team communicates to the media, for instance, they must speak with only one brand voice.
- Make It Accessible for Use
The branding guidelines will be of no use if only the marketing or the communications team know about. It should be accessible to everyone, across ranks and departments.
Even if there is an appointed spokesperson for the brand, for example, it is still crucial for each employee to know the brand by heart. The knowledge and buy-in will be manifested in how they conduct themselves, how they do their jobs, and how they interface with external parties such as clients, suppliers, and the media.
When all three key elements are considered during the drafting the brand guidelines, then you can expect a bigger buy-in from the group. By knowing your target users, knowing how the guidelines can help communicate the brand well, and making it easily accessible to the internal stakeholders, you have done your part in ensuring that your brand is properly represented.
2. Adopt an Engagement-Driven Approach
The traditional way of simply posting a memo or even just flooding everyone with emails about the new branding guidelines will not fly.
If you want the whole company to live and breathe according the brand guidelines, then you must engage them in an experience that will really drive the message through. There are different platforms that will encourage everyone to be more involved and participatory.
For example, you can schedule a series of immersive workshops that will allow them to get to know the brand in an up close and personal way. There are executive coaching services that you can tap into so your branding messages are inculcated into every fibre of their being and lead to transformational results.
3. Set Up Success Indicators
Creating guidelines and charting plans are good but if you do not have a yardstick to measure their success against, then you will be left wondering if they were effective or not.
Plans should be measurable. In this case, you should set up both internal and external indicators to gauge the effectiveness of your brand guidelines. To measure internal buy-in, you can have a checklist that you might consider monitoring, such as:
o Does everyone know the brand value and can articulate it simply and clearly?
o Does everyone in the organisation know his or her role in the delivery of your brand promise?
o Is there a clear understanding of your brand differentiation from competitors?
o Are all departments aligned with your brand objectives?
Let Your Brand Be Absorbed
Brand guidelines are there so that you and the rest of your company will have a defined code of how to best project the brand values to your public. It is a set of guidelines that underline the brand identity, the brand vision and mission, the brand voice, and the necessary tools to consistently demonstrate this identity to the environment you move in.
For these guidelines to be effective, it should be able to move and influence action within the four walls of your company. It should speak to every employee and drive unity within the organisation. If everyone embraces the brand guidelines, you can expect that most – if not all – will walk and talk as one company.
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