Who is responsible for your brand? Your director of marketing? Communications person? Or you, the owner? Do all of your team members have a clear understanding of your company's goal and of their specific role within it?
A few years ago a client and I were discussing the direction for their brand and he said, "Our marketing guy didn't create any taglines for our business." My immediate response was, "It isn't their job to choose your company's direction – it's yours." But afterwards I started thinking about whether that was entirely correct. This article will explore this and hopefully give you some ideas to work with.
Before we start assigning strategic responsibilities, let's define some roles. I'll use my company as an example.
- Owner: Big-picture thinker, guides overall company direction.
- Communications: Works with owner and executive team to create and articulate company values.
- Marketing: Spreads the word, sets the measurable matrix, decides how to hit targets.
- Branding: Creates the tools required to communicate company values. Could be an external agency or may be a subdivision of marketing.
- CFO: Creates a budget based on company goals. Provides accurate numbers to measure progress against.
So the owner, in collaboration with the communications person, is responsible for company strategy (let's face it, if the ship springs a leak, staff can get a new job, but the owner's there until the bitter end). Creating an accurate brand and formulating an appropriate strategy involves an in-depth analysis of the company, starting at the top.
It's useful to begin by studying the past and asking each senior team member how it relates to the present:
- Why was the company started (owner)?
- What do the numbers say (CFO)?
- What is the market doing (marketing)?
- What is your voice and who are you (communications and branding)?
There are key pieces of information required from each person. Once these are collected, you have something to work with.
Don't fixate on your competitors. They may offer a similar product or service to yours, but the items above will most certainly be different. Keep that in mind as you start exploring your company.
If you are the owner and are exploring your brand strategy, try to establish the following:
- Where do I want to take this company?
- What will keep me interested?
- What type of people do I want to spend my days with?
And for the executive team:
- How can I support our growth?
- How do I know if I am going in the correct direction?
- What is my one big goal this year?
The above six goals are quite different but they point in the same direction and will form the essence of your brand message. For your company to move forward, it's vital that everyone's goals are aligned and are supported by your taglines and overall strategy. If your brand looks great but doesn't reflect some of these aspects, it isn't the end of the world, but understand that what you have is more of a "paint job" than a complete brand strategy.
If you're the owner, get ready to roll up your sleeves. While this project is generally too big and involved for one person to tackle, that doesn't mean that it's delegation time. Everyone has to be involved, especially you. Going through the process with the entire team will ensure that not only is everyone aware of the overall goals, but they're also familiar with the path that brought your company there. This is by far the best way to guarantee that your team's efforts will be aligned with the overall direction planned for the brand.
