brand and Related Posts

What Is a Branding Guide & Why Do You Need It?

September 23, 2019 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

In the world of small business, there are plenty of details to attend to – so much in fact, that when another “to do” is suggested, the first questions are “what” and “why.” Recently, I’ve seen the issue of the branding guide pop up several times in this very context.

For many in small business, a branding guide seems like a luxury or something that only bigger businesses really need. The truth is both smaller and bigger businesses need it. But, for different reasons.

First, What Is a Branding Guide?

Think of a branding guide as a gift that keeps giving, regardless of the season.

In short, a branding guide is a document that houses in a single file all the particulars of what it is to be “you” as a business. The guide can be as detailed as you like, but the most important details include mission, vision, information about your logo and colors as well as suggested language – from taglines to corporate summaries.

I have a basic formula I like to use in most brand building and brand strategy cases, but I often find that formula changing based on the business and its evolution.

. . And Why Do You Need One?

It seems simple right? Most believe that they’ve already got all of those details here and there. So when a need arises, it’s all easy to track down. After all, it’s a small shop right?

Wrong.

I have seen, repeatedly, small businesses and organizations spin their wheels searching – and searching again – for branding details and materials. Worse, I’ve seen them correct costly mistakes: The wrong file. The wrong color. The wrong words.

Maybe it happens with some new signage. Maybe it happens in that big pitch.

And small shops especially don’t need this pressure. They have limited staff and resources to solve and clean up those problems.

It is worth the upfront time and investment to get it right once – avoiding mistakes but also saving time and resources by developing easily accessible and reusable assets.

OK, So When Do You Need It?

The good news is there are plenty of opportunities that come up when a branding guide can be assembled. While working on a proposal, maybe it starts with a few details collected in a shared folder. At least it’s a start.

If it’s a marketing project or a specific deliverable, I can leverage that work to develop the guide and get more mileage out of the cost of the project.

But, whatever you do, don’t wait until it’s too late. Success and luck in business both favor the prepared.

Rebranding Strategy? Maybe You Need a Brand Renewal.

April 11, 2016 By Matthew White

It took me a while to process the phrase brand renewal. The first time it sunk in was sometime a number of years ago. An owner at one of my favorite local restaurants used the term while discussing their new menu and signage. I had noticed and asked what was behind their rebranding strategy (yes, my brain works that way).

What was most interesting was that there was a distinct effort to avoid the phrase “rebranding” instead opting for “brand renewal.”

The Blessing and Curse of Implementing a Rebranding Strategy

Ever seen this logo? Does it look weird? Gap ran with a rebranding strategy once, and it didn’t go well.

The need to rebrand is sometimes justifiable. Think about Philip Morris and the move to Altria for example.

However, more often than not, rebranding is a term you hear when there is a need to deflect – while feeling like you’re doing something about – underlying and more serious business problems.

Think about it: Sales down? Blame the brand strategy. Attendance down? The community must not be connecting with your brand. There are a multitude of sins that can be hidden by blaming the brand. And, brand building isn’t one single person’s responsibility. Therefore, blame is conveniently diffused.

There are a host of factors that impact how brand is communicated and digested. Failure in those areas can easily be confused with failure of brand. The devil will always be in the details.

Putting together and taking on a rebranding strategy feels like a productive decision. A worthy goal. But, it may in fact prove counter-productive.

So, Rebranding Or Brand Renewal?

This and other logo fails are a good reminder that implementing a rebranding strategy might not always mean improvement.

In our restaurant example, there really hadn’t been anything “wrong.” Business was good. The product was good. Honestly, I’m not sure what signals they saw that indicated the need for a brand renewal.

In hindsight, I can see several areas of the business that benefited. The beauty of their decision is that didn’t wait for the signs of catastrophe before having that inevitable “rebranding strategy” discussion.

Many wait until that last minute when the writing is clearly on the wall. That also happens to be when human and capital resources are most stressed.

Ways You Can Decide Between Rebranding or a Brand Renewal

It might not be as tough as you think to decide if your organization needs to implement a rebranding strategy or look at it as a brand renewal. Here are some factors to consider:

Has there been a high profile event that impacted your audience’s perception of your organization negatively?
Are you planning – or in need of – a change to your core mission? That doesn’t mean a change to the wording of your mission statement but fundamentally changing what you do.
Is your core offering or product changing entirely?

If you answered no (or even “kind of”) to all of the above, stop thinking about a rebranding strategy – you probably need to think in terms of brand renewal.

Rebranding or Brand Renewal . . . Does It Matter What We Call It?

Brand blunders happen even among the best and brightest . . . try not to recreate these.

Brands are the combined result of years of effort and resources. True rebranding is a major undertaking – almost a reinvention – that should touch every aspect of your business. It may free you of baggage, but you may jeopardize all your gains in goodwill as well.

The motivations and investments required in designing a proper rebranding strategy are dramatically different than refocusing your message and retooling the channels by which it is communicated.

As a result, you owe it to everyone involved to approach the problem with the right mindset, tools, and timeline.

Have you had a rebranding strategy experience you’d like to share? Need help with your brand? Reach out or comment below.

Updated April 11, 2016.

How To Not Only Expose, But Engage

July 27, 2015 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

Feel like your marketing efforts just aren’t getting the desired results? Think you could engage prospects and customers more effectively?

As discussed in a previous blog post, part of the reason is so much marketing gets exposure but doesn’t accomplish much with regard to engagement. And, as mentioned in that post, there is so much more noise now than ever before.

Focusing on email, and MailChimp campaigns specifically, here is a look at real world illustrations of what exposure versus engagement looks like . . . and some tips on how to move that needle from “expose” to “engage.”

A Compelling Message

So your customer gets the mailing. Do they preview, open, actually read, and/or click? At what point do they engage?

Think about the way you scan through the subject lines of email. You probably do this differently than you did a few years ago. And, you are probably looking for something different now.

One thing we know for sure is that how people read their email has changed dramatically and quickly. For example, according to Experian’s “Quarterly Email Benchmark Report” for Q3 of 2014, for the first time, over half of email was being opened on a phone or tablet. It stands to reason that this shift alone impacts what information is being consumed and how it is acted upon.

Now think about how quickly you delete email on your phone or tablet as you scan through those subject lines. We all know subject line construction is important, but I continue to be surprised by the number of campaigns that arrive in this fashion:

<Widget, Inc Newsletter> Weekly Update from Widget Inc! 7/27/15

As a customer, I don’t need to know that this is from Widget twice (you only get one point for brand name exposure before the email gets deleted) or that I get it weekly. And, I can figure out on my own that this is a “newsletter.”

A concise call to action in the subject line would be just as easy to use, more effective, and would likely move this effort from exposure to engagement.

The Difference Between an Open and a Click

MailChimp, a great (and usually free for most) email campaign management tool, provides two key metrics in measuring campaign success: Opens and clicks.

Recently, I grew skeptical on what constitutes an “open.” After all, does the use of a preview pane – whether on a phone, tablet or desktop – constitute a true “open?” Is that really an action that the user took in response to your marketing effort?

I decided to look into it. And, after some study of both MailChimp’s documentation and some real-world results, I’m satisfied with how MailChimp handles and tracks opens. It turns out that the “open” metric is fairly reliable in fact.

However, the major takeaway is understanding the nature of an open versus a click. The difference has applicability in other areas of marketing and advertising efforts. “Open” should not be considered engagement. It should be considered, at best, exposure. It can often be a simple preview of the mail message. And, after all, few companies generate revenue or succeed at their mission based on people opening their emails. A “click” is a more solid measure of engagement and more likely to get customers and prospects closer to that action you want them to take.

A click is farther into the funnel. (I’ll definitely use that again later)

Real World Results

Getting back to those real world MailChimp email campaigns: Across two different organizations, I made some interesting discoveries that can impact not only email campaigns directly but can inform wider marketing efforts:

The number of opens can easily double when the list goes through some level of qualification.
Button-style links in emails are indeed effective and can help focus your audience’s attention.
However, it doesn’t just have to be an email with a button. Providing the audience enough hyperlinks in text is surprisingly important too – many actually are reading that content and looking to click (engage).
Links placed earlier in the email consistently perform better than those placed later in email. Get to the higher value calls to action early.
Segmenting your lists based on interests, motivations, or demographics and better tailoring content to those groups can easily double your results.

Yes, it seems obvious. But, sending the same message to one large group of people and hoping the right people find the right content is actually how most organizations manage their campaigns.

They also tend to approach exposure versus engagement in the same way. In reality, it all takes time, effort, and some experimentation.

Need help implementing any of the above? Need ideas on moving your email campaign from exposure-only to engagement? Reach out.

Exposure vs. Engagement (With Five Calls to Action)

July 13, 2015 By Matthew White 2 Comments

Just within the realm of web and mobile marketing, there are so many vehicles for “getting the word out” that it can get awfully overwhelming.

In fact, it’s easy to lose sight of the entire purpose of it all. You may have experienced this moment before: You’re in the middle of a direct mail project or managing your Twitter account and you ask, why am I doing all of this anyway?

The big picture answer is an easy one: You want to get someone to do something. And that’s why it is important to understand the difference between exposure and engagement.

First, There’s Exposure

Exposure is like dressing for success . . .

Exposure is getting you or your offering in front of people that might be interested. Exposure alone is rarely a bad thing. In the past, one rule of thumb was that potential customers must encounter your brand seven times before it “sticks” in their minds. This “stickiness” factor is much like what has been referred to more recently as “top of mind awareness.” (See also Made to Stick and The Tipping Point for more.)

For several reasons, I don’t know how true the Rule of Seven is anymore. The good news is there are a lot ways to get that exposure now – far more than in the past. The bad news: There is far more noise than ever before.

Then, There’s Engagement

One of the goals with exposure is to make your message stand out from the noise. But, remember your ultimate goal? To actually get someone to do something?

. . . and engagement is more like “wanna do coffee sometime?”

A call to action is one of the first steps toward engagement – a level of interaction that brings that special someone closer to doing that special something. Your call to action doesn’t have to be a direct plea to buy your widget immediately. It can be. But, more often, it will be something free or something that will benefit your audience and build real trust.

Five Sample Calls to Action

Sample calls to action might involve:

A simple question to get your audience thinking.
An invitation to connect with questions.
A contest.
A helpful blog article.
A discount code.

There are, of course, many more possibilities. In the next installment, we’ll look at a real nuts and bolts example of what exposure vs. engagement looks like.

Meanwhile, do you have questions? Ideas? I want to hear from you, and I’m happy to give free advice based on your questions below.