does your brand have a title?

Visual communication is often what people think of for telling their story and communicating their brand attributes to their audience. Let’s step back and look at some key positions within a company that are potentially, highly-effective and important, yet often overlooked for communicating a brand.

If you’re at all familiar with our branding philosophy, you already know that a brand is built on clarity, distinction, trust and impact. When you boil it down, your brand is the relationship you have with your customers. Therefore, communicating consistently through all channels of communication is of utmost importance. This means everyone who comes in contact with your brand should receive the APPROPRIATE impression and message – this can differ in order to communicate effectively to a specific audience. We’ll take a look at how a few commonly overlooked positions within a company can be great assets to your brand.

Director of First Impressions
Through technology and convenience, automated phone systems have been put in place. Due to economic hardships, staff has been down-sized. Yet the role of receptionist remains necessary. A customer or prospect has to come in contact with SOMEONE at your company initially – whether it’s over the phone or in person. Is that person representing your brand correctly?

Think about it. Does the person (or people) handling reception have the necessary information about your brand to deliver it correctly? Is their personality and demeanor representative of your brand attributes as well? If you’re selling energy drinks, you wouldn’t want your receptionist to be better suited to play a patient in an anti-depressant commercial. Attitude, tonality, posture, hospitality, etc. all come into play when a person comes through your front door or calls the front desk.

I’m not trying to say who should be hired for your receptionist position. My point is that the person in this role can be a huge asset to your brand as a first impression if you leverage it properly and arm them with the appropriate and adequate information and messaging.

Liaison to External Resources
How many different people come in the back door of your company for shipping and deliveries? From the overnight shipping person to suppliers and venders, stop to count them in a day’s or week’s time. Inevitably, those people are interacting with other people and companies who might need your products and services. Is the mailroom staff capable of communicating your brand attributes to your suppliers and vendors?

Often times, the mailroom staff has a personal connection with the people they interact with regularly – in essence, a relationship. A brand is the relationship you have with your customers and prospects. So, by informing your mailroom staff with the appropriate information about your brand, products and services, you’re helping them to extend your brand to your suppliers and vendors. Potentially, helping keep you top-of-mind with them should an opportunity arise.

Department of Internal Morale
Whether your HR department consists of one person or an entire staff, it should be looked upon as your brand amplifier. Communication, attitude, delivery, etc. are all funneled through the HR department to the rest of the company.

It seems all to often, HR is left on their own to communicate to employees. Internal communication might be at the mercy of someone who is deemed the expert in Microsoft Word, OR it’s left on the back burner of the in-house marketing department behind client work. But how do the materials and correspondence look compared to your external communication? I’m not saying HR should be producing four-color, glossy brochures, but if it’s not upholding the brand standards, there is a breakdown in the consistency. What example does that send to employees about the overall brand of your company? This is where our favorite saying, “a brand is built from the top down, and the inside out” comes into play. If brand communication is not delivered consistently and at an appropriate level of sophistication from the decision-makers and brand champions throughout the organization, chances are your brand message and image is being compromised as it reaches the outside world.

How tech-savvy is your company? Is communication delivered via an intranet? Are you using that intranet to it’s full potential? Smaller companies don’t necessarily need an intranet, that’s true. It’s just as easy to communicate at the lunch table or across the hall. However, for companies of a larger size and/or with multiple offices, an intranet can play a huge role for internal brand and morale building – not to mention efficiency and consistency for internal communications.

CBO (Chief Brand Officer)
As a company owner, president, department head or brand champion, part of effective leadership is rallying the troops around initiatives and the brand itself. By arming them with the proper information, messages and consistency, they too, can become brand champions to their respective external points of contact. Sometimes we are too close to see potential opportunities within our own organization. Step out of your shoes, take an outsider’s perspective at your company, and try to identify some new brand-related titles for members of your team. When your staff is on-brand, the communication to external touchpoints should come fluently and naturally – making it genuine and more effective.

The underlying point to this is to provide yet another cost-effective way to increase brand awareness for your organization. Through our years of expertise, Acceler8 Creative can help you find new, efficient and effective ways to tell your story and communicate your brand to your customers and prospects.

Visit Acceler8 Creative’s website.

Phone 847-909-4569

Email Acceler8 Creative.

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