Developing a memorable brand, creating engaging content and tying all the pieces of the puzzle together to gain a fantastic audience response. It isn’t easy. But it all begins with having a strong communication strategy, a foundation that a skilled branding agency can help you build.
By Russell Britton
Research and planning
Any brand communications agency worth their salt will begin working with you with a heavy research phase. They’ll get to the bottom of your company, what makes you tick, what you stand for and what you aim to achieve. They’ll look at the market, what your competitors are doing and what makes you different.
The first step is figuring out how your brand feels, what feeling does it give to people, how do you behave in order to leave the desired impression on potential customers. Reaching this level of self-understanding enables you to map out the framework for how you communicate.
Forming an identity
The next pieces in your communications strategy puzzle are your verbal and visual identities. These guides will not only dress your brand to impress and provide the framework for your content, they’ll guide the way your staff operate. In turn, you will have more consistency and confidence from top to bottom.
Verbal guides will provide you with tone of voice and key messages, to position how your employees and company as a whole engage audiences. The visual identity will do the same in terms of your overall aesthetic, and provide you with the tools to stand out from the crowd.
Bringing it to life
Now it’s time to put your strategy into practice and roll out your brand. Time to update your email signature, Alison from accounts! And you can start producing content, activating your social channels and really getting your brand out there.
Just make sure to keep an eye on how your staff are communicating and how the broader brand is expressing itself to make sure everyone is aligned. Return to your visual and verbal identities regularly to check that you haven’t strayed too far from the beaten path. It’d be a shame – and potentially a costly one – if all that hard work went out the window now, whether slowly or overnight.
Remember, you can refresh your brand with time, revisiting your identity to retain relevance or regroup after an internal change has taken place. In fact, this is advisable, as even a rock-solid brand will weather with time.
Maintaining a strong communications strategy for your brand is the secret to making the right impression on your audience, driving leads and creating advocates. It keeps your team marching to the beat of the same drum and arms you all for disruption. So, give it the time, thought and work your brand deserves.
Russell Britton is the digital director at uberbrand, a brand design agency. He is an award-winning creative leader with over 15 years of experience in managing the planning and creative execution of through the line brand experiences. His passion drives him to connect with brands to give an experience that will change perceptions and create action.
Communication strategy stock photo by Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock
