When might you need a brand strategy firm? Your business is an intricate machine that leverages people and processes to generate profits. Until now, your way of doing this has been satisfactory to both you and your shareholders. But obviously there is something in the wind telling you that some changes are needed. This has you thinking about how to best deal with this situation, and to determine what partners, if any, you need to make these necessary changes.
What drives your need to change?
There are many reasons why a company would need to change what it’s doing. Maybe competition and disruption are inhibiting the growth potential of your business. Attached to this, your business may be having a difficult time creating growth through innovation.
Perhaps your business is insufficiently differentiated in the marketplace. Behind this can be the impact of product and communications commoditization within your industry.
It could be that your company simply cannot attract the quality talent it needs to grow and prosper. This is often the result of a non-distinct and lackluster company culture.
It may be that you have the most brilliantly crafted business strategies, yet your organization simply isn’t embracing them or fulfilling on their promises. This often points to issues centered around employee engagement and motivation.
Finally, it may be that you’re just starting out, and you’re trying to find the best and fastest way to crack into a market. As such, your focus has been on product development, not mastering the market.
One thing lies behind all these drivers
Whatever the underlying reasons for the need to focus on the role your brand plays, it is helpful to look at the prevailing attitudes, beliefs, and drivers of all the people related to the success of your company. This includes everyone from your leadership team, to your management team, to your workers, and to your customers and prospects.
Think in terms of the energy that it takes to make your intricate organization do what it needs to do. Now think about the amount and quality of the energy that is running through your business now. The creation of positive energy around what your company is all about and what it’s trying to do, made real through your business strategies, can move your company forward in very interesting and rewarding ways.
Understanding the value of branding, and the benefit of working with a brand strategy agency
It is increasingly recognized that effective brand strategies can transform business results. This is because branding now goes well beyond the superficial world of logos and taglines and dives deep into the psychology of the relationships between people and business.
Modern branding succeeds because it marries the business’s tangible goals and objectives with the intangible and deep-rooted needs, interests, and aspirations of people important to the company, both internally and externally.
Insights only an outsider can bring
The challenges and pressures of running an enterprise invariably mean that leaders tend to be inwardly focused. As such, it can be difficult for them to get distance from the situation, and to derive clear insights into the often subtle, yet important, human nuances at play.
By definition, an outside brand strategy agency has the needed outsider’s perspective, but there’s more to consider when choosing a partner. If you are looking to leverage your brand in significant and enduring ways, your agency partner needs to understand how to forge meaningful and purposeful connections between your business and people.
This requires the agency to be as interested in the people you serve and work with, as in your business goals and strategies. It also requires the courage and resilience to challenge you and your organization in fundamental ways. This is because organizations do not naturally gravitate toward purpose and meaning. To bring everyone involved along requires that long-held attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors be modified.
Making a purposeful and meaningful brand strategy a core driver of your organization
The pursuit of meaningful and purposeful connections between your business and others, cannot be seen as simply a tactical layering of icing on the cake. It needs to be seen as the injection of a powerful strategic yeast that will transform your business and your brand.
A brand strategy partner that understands this, and slavishly works toward this end, can help you and your organization transform in the ways that matter. They can help you identify a promise that will generate the purpose and energy your organization needs to move forward. They can help you define the behavior that reshapes your culture so that it inspires people in new and more meaningful ways. They can show you how your promise can be integrated into your business strategies to make them more purposeful and meaningful. They can help your leaders and managers embrace that promise and show them how to make it come to life for themselves, and for everyone with whom they interact.
Should you hire a brand strategy firm?
Consider this: There is a set of universal challenges that all businesses face today – including yours. These issues flow from the plethora of information that people are exposed to and consume every day, the “court of public opinion” that takes brand messaging into new realms that aren’t always friendly, and the diminishing attention spans that result.
All these factors are putting pressure on people to navigate the world in new ways. In light of this onslaught, many people are, in a sense, actually regressing and choosing to tend to their most innate and deeply rooted human needs.
The strongest businesses of the future will be the ones to tie their brands directly to those human needs through meaningful connections that are designed to help build their businesses at the same time.
To close, we believe you would no doubt benefit from the outsider’s perspective and expertise that a brand strategy agency can bring to your business. And, as an agency that is passionate about building your business through meaning and purpose, we are confident we are a brand strategy agency you will consider.
For additional reading: Mattering to Everyone: /blog/2014/04/09/-a-more-effective-brand-strategy-mattering-to-everyone
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Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy firm.
