Brand management
Your brand is a promise. Your website, digital newsletter and blog conveys your brand and inform what you deliver. Are you actually delivering what you promise? Are your products and services always "on-brand"? Or are you often in the quality of your products or services "off-brand"?
When thinking about clients make a mental shift. Think "outside-in" instead of "inside-out," to quote marketing guru Philip Kotler. What do your clients really appreciate? How do you delight them?
Be your brand
Your marketing and your brand have to reflect fact. Both have to be honest and credible. What you promise should be exactly what the client or customer gets.
You have to truthfully be your brand. If you cannot back up the image which you project, if any part of your products or services is not as perfect as you portray it to be, do not get a false message out. In this day and age, good and bad news spreads very, very fast via a wide range of Web-based channels.
Market your marketing messages internally
Ensure that you team knows the content of your marketing plan. Involve them in developing it. Each has to grasp what his or her personal role is in executing this plan. Recruit and train for delivery of your message. Many companies spend thousands in getting a marketing message out and fail disastrously in marketing internally. Simply stated, your team members drop you - as they are not selected and trained to execute your brand.
Your marketing budget and efforts are wasted if you and your team do not actively deliver your brand's promise.
To repeat, your brand has to be based on substance.
Next go to...company culture.
Last modified: 15-07-2009