Brand is the Sum of All Touchpoints
I see a lot of companies getting branding wrong. And I don’t mean their website or logo or tagline. Companies miss out on brand opportunities in unexpected places – the meetups at conferences, SDR calls, or even emails.
Part of the problem is that the team responsible for brand support can become a bottleneck. Maybe they are overwhelmed or don’t have enough resources – or maybe they’re being a little too perfectionistic. Either way, a branding bottleneck hurts your team and ultimately hurts your brand.
Here’s how the problem happens, and what you can do about it.
Engagement with Prospects
Your brand is the sum of all customer touchpoints.
It’s not just your website. Your brand is represented in every email, ad, SDR conversation, AE conversation, social post by someone on your team, sales collateral piece, conference meetup, and even discussions by employees with friends outside of work (yes, this is important too!). The list goes on and on.
Everyone at your company and every external touchpoint they have becomes part of your holistic brand.
So, what’s the issue?
The Branding Bottleneck
Your brand team is supposed to enable your brand. They create the resources so everyone and every touchpoint can represent your company in the best light.
If your brand team is a bottleneck for teams getting things out the door, you will have a problem. Similarly, in SEO, if you are constantly holding up projects so you can optimize a post, people will find other ways to get it done.
People will find a way to work without the brand team or they will leave. It's only natural!
Brand Success
Whoever owns the brand at your company needs to be an enabler so more people can produce content, talking points, email, websites, campaigns, and sales collateral.
Let legal be the bottleneck.
The brand team needs to set the tone with every touchpoint internally by being proactive in communicating the talking points, the core strengths, and the brand attributes to the company.
I don't mean they need to say, "Here is a packet of our brand guidelines.” That won't work, and I think you know why. People don’t necessarily have time to read through brand guidelines, and it’s much more effective to SHOW rather than tell.
Another critical element of brand success? The brand team needs to get buy-in from executives and team leaders. They need to build a brand that can be represented by more than just the creative director, flexible enough to translate to any person in the organization.
A few companies that have done this well are Hubspot, Drift, Google, Predictive Index, and Atlassian.
Final Thoughts
Your company’s brand should be evident in every touchpoint for everyone on your team. Brand is your website, emails, meetings, conversations, social posts – the works. But so often, brand teams become a bottleneck for approvals, and so motivated employees have to take matters into their own hands.
Successful brand voice requires buy-in from executives and real enablement on the part of the brand team.
What companies do you see doing holistic branding well? Drop a comment and share your findings!
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