Keeping Your Brand on Message

3 MIN READ

Is your advertising on message? Is your sales force in lock step? Does your collateral speak with one voice? Here are five essential tips for getting your brand on message:

1. Brand Benefits. Not Brand Attributes.
Craft a message that resonates with your market. Harley-Davidson has a powerful line of motorcycles. The chrome gleams and the performance specs will blow your hair back, but, at the end of the day, lifestyle is what they are selling. Not shiny bits of hardware. Not curvaceous sheet metal. Adventure.

2. It’s Not About You.
Talk less about “we” and “our” in your marketing and more about “you” and “your.” Nike doesn’t say: our shoes are better engineered. They say: “It’s your game; it’s your aerobic health; You get out there and do it.” Make your message outer-directed. Make it scream “you!”

3. Heart and soul. Not facts and figures.
Make sure the essence of your brand is what people see. The statistics and the details play a supporting role. Everything must work together in service of the brand insight and the brand personality.

4. Relationships. Not Transactions.
Branding is a multi-channel commitment to your customers. It’s easier to sell more to the customer you have than to make the first sale to the customer you don’t. Mind these relationships with e-mail, newsletters and loyalty programs.

5. Be Relentlessly Consistent.
If your website looks nothing like your storefront, you have a problem. If your business cards look nothing like you packaging, you are sending mixed signals.
Look at the Apple store. Now look at their products. Now check out their website. Look at their packaging. There is cohesion and simplicity from start to finish. Now look at the line around the block.

No matter if you are a mega brand or a start up, these principles will ensure that your brand is always on message.

We are a Dallas Branding Agency specializing in developing unique, powerful brand insights.

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