Brand equity is built, measured, and communicated via various marketing programs and activities that are part of the strategic brand management process.
Maintaining or improving the awareness, associations, and use of your brand is an essential aspect of effective brand management.
Here is a 6-step brand management process that’ll help in scaling your business:
1. Establish clear brand values and positioning
Understanding who you are as a brand is the first step in developing a solid brand management plan. Developing your brand’s values and positioning may seem straightforward at first, but it takes careful consideration.
Everything you do will be based on your fundamental principles, objectives, and market position. This involves everything from how you communicate with your audience to who you recruit and the processes you use to make decisions.
Get this portion wrong, and well, the entire thing comes apart.
A firm’s culture, communications, aesthetics, habits, and decision-making all rest on its established brand values, which express what the company stands for.
The following are some of the advantages of this increased clarity:
Improved decision-making. As a point of reference, brand values provide context for enterprises as they consider prospective opportunities and risks, as well as potential collaborations. By asking yourself, “does this choice match with my values?” With these questions in mind, you’ll be better able to remain loyal to your core values even as your business grows.
Positioning
Brand positioning is often described as the process of developing the brand’s product/service & aesthetic to occupy a particular spot in the market.
Done well, a brand positioning plan creates the framework for forming connections in your customers’ minds—it’s the key to molding consumer perceptions, driving loyalty, and developing trust and credibility.
An excellent place to start is with:
- Identifying and satisfying the needs of your target audience
- Defining what your brand can do to achieve those requirements
- What their brand’s current positioning is?
From that, you’ll need to construct a positioning statement. When it comes to branding, a brand positioning statement is like an elevator speech for your company. It should clarify what you provide, who this is for, and how you’re unique from your competition.
Positioning statements should satisfy the following criteria:
- It does not make any promises that it cannot keep.
- It resonates with clients’ pain issues, wants, or desires.
- It describes what you do that your rivals don’t.
- Finally, it’s crucial to remember that brand positioning should establish your visual identity, tone, and target audience.
2. Develop a system for tracking brand assets
Employees, consumers, and members of the public may view your brand assets, which include:
Accounts in social media.
Logos, graphics, photography, layouts, and color palettes are examples of visual components.
Website
Maintaining brand standards and legal requirements while making it simple for workers to discover the assets they need to execute their jobs is the goal of a brand management system.
All assets should be managed, organized, and secured from a single location.
The following are basic minimum requirements for an asset management platform:
- A system that is easily accessible.
- Standardization of names
- Performed regularly to ensure that nothing is out of date or inconsistent
- Employees are given instructions on how to access and use company assets.
To ensure that the brand’s identity is protected, there must be access restrictions, including sharing and editing rights.
Asset management systems should be audited on an ongoing basis to ensure that all channels, visual representations, and information are consistent. You may have to change the structure of your folders as your processes change over time.
3. Determine how your brand will be distributed
Where will you be advertising the brand? As a result, how well you manage your brand’s reputation will determine how well you assess its success.
Usual distribution channels include a website, blog, social networking outlets, and search advertisements, but they may extend into a sophisticated, multiplayer network as you scale.
You may also sell your items via channel sales partners, influencers, affiliates, and third-party merchants. In this case, you’ll need to provide paperwork, training, and materials that assist your partners in remaining on-brand.
You’ll need to devise a strategy for ensuring consistency across various platforms. As with any other social media platform, there should be a common thread across all of them.
4. Create a Brand Reputation Management Plan
More than ever, consumers can share their experiences with friends and family, as well as the world at large.
Unhappy consumers may air their grievances in front of a large audience through social media outlets, which can seriously harm your company’s brand if you’re not cautious. When consumers talk about their good experiences, they bring in new business and strengthen customer loyalty to a company.
Additionally, you’ll need to develop a plan for getting reviews on all key sites.
It’s best to use Google My Business, Yelp, and TrustPilot for local companies, while e-commerce enterprises should concentrate on creating star ratings and reviews for their website.
However, SaaS firms will strive to improve their brand on G2 and Capterra.
5. our brand’s perception should be monitored.
A long-term strategy is to monitor your brand performance, ensuring that all of your messages are aligned with your values and positioning.
Success may be measured in three significant ways:
Internal. Is this on the same page about the company’s principles, positioning, and culture? Customers, social media, and in-office interactions: How do staff communicate about the brand?
External. What are people saying about your brand on social media? How often do you see this in polls? Are they receptive to the substance or the message? How are the reactions on various channels different? What are the best materials to use?
Ensure that everyone in your firm is on the same page about your brand. At every point of contact, are your beliefs and positions communicated? Do consumers’ discussions reflect these values?
6. Be aware of the market and the competition.
To effectively manage your brand, it is necessary to do regular competitive analyses.
At any given moment, newcomers may enter the market. Consumer tastes and technological capabilities are constantly changing.
To stay relevant, you must be able to adapt to new possibilities, rivals, and the shifting demands of your audience.
More than just product or marketing materials, great brands are founded on trust, experience, and a sense of value, not just the product itself.
When it comes to strategic brand management, it doesn’t matter whether you’re running a mom-and-pop store or a multinational corporation. You just need help from a professional to get things done the right way.
