You can’t “fix” a brand over night. It’s an ongo­ing process! Man­ag­ing your brand requires com­mit­ment, pas­sion and a long-term strategy.

If imple­ment­ed effec­tive­ly, your brand will grow stronger and devel­op with your com­pa­ny. It will pos­si­bly evolve as you become more and more com­fort­able with your brand as a mar­ket­ing tool.

Part V: Managing your brand

You may find you will lose some clients along the way. If this is the case, do they fit in with your brand val­ues and where your busi­ness is going? Odd as it may sound, a cus­tomer that does­n’t fit may harm your brand. If these cus­tomers do fit with your per­ceived brand val­ues, you need to find out why the ‘fit’ isn’t work­ing the way you planned and how you can improve your brand com­mu­ni­ca­tions. How­ev­er, don’t let a client dic­tate your brand val­ues as this may harm the long-term vision. This is one of the key things to remem­ber, as you don’t want to lose some­thing you have spent time build­ing. Con­stant­ly remind your­self, and your team, of your brand values.

Your brand will also evolve based on your cus­tomer inter­ac­tion. Utilise feed­back as often as pos­si­ble, so you know you are on the right track.

• Assess your com­peti­tors and see what they are doing right
• Ask unhap­py cus­tomers why they are unhap­py and resolve the issues as quick­ly and effi­cient­ly as possible
• Reg­u­lar­ly review your products/services and all com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Make sure they fit in with your brand val­ues and your client base

An impor­tant part of man­ag­ing your brand is being con­sis­tent. It includes con­sis­ten­cy through­out price, qual­i­ty and mes­sage with your inter­ac­tions and com­mu­ni­ca­tions. McDon­alds have this per­fect­ed. You can walk into any one of their restau­rants, any­where in the world, and know exact­ly what to expect when you ask for a Big Mac. There is a lev­el of con­sis­ten­cy there – on a glob­al lev­el. You can also see that they have had to change their core brand val­ues as gen­er­al social val­ues change towards health issues.

The heart and soul of your business

You need to be real­is­tic on what you can achieve with your own resources. Both, finan­cial­ly and with the human resources you have. From a busi­ness per­spec­tive, a brand is the very core of your busi­ness – the heart and soul of what the com­pa­ny is about. Think about the big brands and the way they deliv­er. Obvi­ous­ly, they have big bud­gets, but they have also devel­oped their brands over time. There is no rea­son why you can’t begin to devel­op your com­pa­ny brand now.

In an increased world of com­pe­ti­tion, it is essen­tial to find a posi­tion and direc­tion for your com­pa­ny mov­ing for­ward and to estab­lish a way to engage people.

It is amaz­ing how many SMEs do not pay atten­tion to devel­op­ing a cohe­sive brand for their busi­ness as they grow. This can cre­ate prob­lems as a com­pa­ny begins to move away from the ini­tial busi­ness own­er being seen as the brand.

Cre­ate a dis­tinc­tive brand for your busi­ness now and you can devel­op a com­pa­ny that gets recog­nised for all the right rea­sons, and by all the right people.

Good luck!