If you’re a fan of sports – any sport, really – you already know how important teamwork is to success. Good communication is also critical. In both cases, the goal is a coordinated effort. Imagine a team where some of the players are running one play while others are running something entirely different.
The results of this disconnect are always less than optimal. The quarterback throws the ball to a seemingly empty spot on the field as the receiver runs a different route. A point guard hits a forward in the head with a pass she wasn’t expecting.
It can be easy to take employees for granted as you put brand-building strategies into place for your business.
Initial conversations about brand building tend to focus outward on customers. Your coworkers should already know what the company brand stands for, right?
That’s assuming a lot, and it’s not really fair to employees. They need to be treated as a unique target market for your branding message. They are busy, and they often tune out brand messaging they may see because they assume it doesn’t apply to them. It’s a lack of teamwork that stems from bad communication, and it can result in major fumbles when it comes to your brand communication.
Here at Anchor, we believe that your internal audience is just as important as the external one. If your marketing tells a viewer that you’re the bank that “starts every day with a smile,” but that same viewer is greeted with a business-as-usual attitude when they approach the teller line, all of your work at branding has been wasted.
How can you ensure that your team is living the company brand?
Get them on board early in the process. As soon as your marketing and leadership team finish crafting a brand message, launch an internal campaign to tell employees how they can be part of its success. This internal marketing should happen at the same time that you launch your external messaging, if not sooner.
I’m not suggesting that you decide on your branding messages via a democratic vote that involves all employees (the resulting marketing would be so compromised and bland that it would never work). I’m suggesting instead that you tell employees / coworkers how critically important they are to executing your brand message. Then reward them when they do it well.
Build this internal communication component into every brand message you deploy. That way, there are never any surprises, either for employees or customers.
Great branding makes an impact both outside and inside an organization. It can’t succeed unless it does.
