7 Branding Resolutions

By Kim Brooks

I will live my message. Your branding message can't just be a slogan; it has to be a policy you and your employees follow.

If you promise service, deliver service.

If you promise best pricing, offer guarantees, do pricing research and implement a price-matching policy.

Then check with your customers to make sure they agree that you deliver. Use mystery shoppers, online surveys and customer feedback to gauge your performance.

I will be consistent. You've defined a message. Now stick to it. The first rule of branding is "repeat as necessary."

Incorporate your branding message into your press kits and product literature, Web site content, advertising and communications with customers; eventually, customers will memorize the message.

Develop a branding guide for your employees, with simple "who we are and what we do" value statements and a style sheet. The style sheet is an internal document that should include your mission statement, advertising strategy summary, brand catch phrases and yearly goal. It helps your employees communicate a consistent message.

Branding guides might seem like bureaucratic mumbo jumbo, but they improve your branding and clarify your message for your employees.

I will be flexible. OK, you promised to be consistent. That doesn't mean you can't evolve. Your brand should have meaning and appeal; that's why you set up measurable goals associated with its mission, and why you're tracking your performance and customer perceptions.

But maybe your mission is unattainable. Perhaps you simply can't deliver the lowest price now that there is a warehouse in town. Or you might find the mission is no longer relevant. Your customers don't care about your long history; they just love your unique selection.

Let your mission evolve with market and customer needs. Evaluate the relevancy of your message yearly, to see if it's still on track with your market and goals.

I will be positive. One of the biggest branding mistakes in defining a message is to position yourself against a competitor. This just creates more recognition for your competitor. In some countries, it's illegal to mention a competitor in an advertisement. Strange law but good branding practice.

By framing yourself in terms of "We have better prices than Widget.com does," "Our product is easier to use than Microsoft's," or "Our service is faster than Company X's," you become reliant on a competitor's positioning. You limit yourself to staying in their shadow.

Rather than a negative, such as "We were rated faster than our competitors X, Y and Z," frame your value as a positive, with facts such as "We have the best service, with a guaranteed 24-hour response time." This sets you apart and demonstrates that you meet a measurable goal without passing on any recognition to your competitors or limiting your achievements to "better than bad."

I will brand online. The Web is a particularly brand-dependent medium. Online customers want to do business with consistent, trusted, recognized sites. Good branding communicates those messages.

Outdated information, inconsistent look and feel, broken hyperlinks and lack of responsiveness to customers all add up to bad online branding.

Invest in your site like you'd invest in an ad campaign: Think about what response you're trying to elicit, hire a professional designer and plan how to promote the site. How will you follow up with customers? Who will address questions and inquiries? Do you have the capacity to answer questions within 24 hours, or will you need to hire a dedicated Web staff? How will you reconcile order department and customer service flow between the site and your stores or toll-free order number?

I won't spend tons of money on branding. Branding is mainly about a message, which means it's about repetition and consistency. It's not about sock puppets, Super Bowl spots or large ad campaigns. While a huge budget will increase recognition and possibly bring in more business (if you do it right), it won't necessarily build a brand. You can have a big budget and completely blow a brand.

Good branding starts with the simple stuff: press kits and product literature, consistent branding guides, customer service and daily communications with customers. It doesn't cost extra; it just takes forethought.

I won't base my company on branding. Instead, base your branding on your company. 2000 was the year of the reality check for online companies that tried to base their business model on branding. They assumed that branding equals recognition; recognition equals visitors; visitors equal potential revenue; therefore, a good brand is a good site is a good business model.

Base your brand on your company's values, mission and customers' needs — not on hype. A good test is to reduce your business model to a single customer case. How would they find you? Why would they choose you? Would they come back? What else would they need? How could you guarantee them a great experience?

Strip away the talk about branding, market share, mind share, visitation tracking and impressions. Then think about how you'll interact with each customer and how that will translate into revenue, experience and reputation. Because branding starts at that level of granularity: What do customers need, and why do they choose you?