Corporate Branding in 2022
Corporate Branding in 2022.
Sprout has help launch over 300 companies in the last 20 years and in that process, we have seen countless changes to how marketing is done, but the principles remain the same. One organization’s story comes to mind. They had an opportunity to get coverage in Fortune magazine. The CEO and founder knew someone who was in the PR arena who did freelance writing for Fortune. They said, “I’d love to interview you and explain what you’re doing, and I can get you in fortune magazine.” The organization got the great feature article in Fortune Magazine shortly after with high hopes of great coverage and increased exposure for their brand.
I remember meeting with the CEO later on and I asked him what had happened as a result of the Fortune spread and he told me that they didn’t get anything from it other than a nice, framed photo of the magazine in his office. He said that it was a great article, but that they didn’t feel any different afterward. This is symptomatic of what I call ‘Random Acts of Marketing. It’s when an opportunity comes along, and you jump on it without any thought for strategy and other supporting tactics. In this case, he hadn’t done any build up or runway to be able to capitalize on what that exposure provided.
The starting place for a corporate brand is with the target personas, the messaging strategy, and the brand strategy. Next, ask “what is this company going to represent? How is it going to communicate itself to the market?” Once these questions have been answered, you can safely start to build out your brand: logos, business cards, a website, and the right foundational elements.
After laying the foundation then you can start to add “launch and layer”, which means that you can start to launch different communication vehicles that will communicate your value to your target audience, typically starting with vehicles that are the most cost effective. Once you get those working, usually you can start to feel the difference right away. Next, layer the next vehicle, each time measuring the delta. You will see what’s working, how well it’s working, and you’ll find that as you add additional marketing vehicles, you start to see a domino effect, or the exponential effect starts to work in concert with one another.
For new companies, we tend to wait to add things like advertising, which is more expensive. Once you see how well everything is working, then you can start to add in advertising an additional growth opportunity. Our strategy is always to see what things are working well before we start to add additional pieces.
People often ask how important it for your brand is to be unique and being different. Being unique and different is important but if you have to choose between uniqueness and consistency, always choose consistency. People choose consistency because they want to be able to count on the brand and its personality. When you are consistent, they come to know, love, and trust your brand, rather than the flashy new feature or change. If you want to make a unique change to your brand, make sure that it is a change that does not erode trust with you customers. New products are great, but the way you speak, interact with customers, and the way you portray yourself should be consistent over time. What experiences do you have with random acts of marketing? What did you learn from the experience? We’d love to hear about. Reach out today.
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