You’ve decided to pull the trigger and invest in your brand, setting aside the budget and time needed to get things rolling. Your workshop is scheduled and you’re getting excited about the future. Or maybe you’re nervous about the investment and the process. Here are a few things to keep in mind to ensure you have a smooth and successful branding experience.
Pick a Point of Contact
Communication is difficult. When you work with an outside agency many communication questions naturally arise. How do we communicate? With what frequency? On which platforms? But perhaps the most important question you need to answer to have a smooth branding experience is, “who is the primary communicator for your organization?”
This person must take on the responsibility of collecting and communicating detailed information and questions your organization has about the various branding elements you create with your branding agency.
By having one communicator for your organization you streamline communication and drastically reduce the amount of potential miscommunication internally and externally. At Resound, our project manager & account manager aim to work directly with that person, taking direction exclusively from that person. Of course, we include all stakeholders in important meetings and communication, but by focusing on one communicator we avoid many communication issues.
Miscommunication often leads to scope creep, double work, or delayed timelines. By designating a key communicator, you can avoid these pitfalls.
Detailed Feedback
It’s no secret that creatives often struggle to receive strong critiques of their work. Because of this organizations can be hesitant to provide strong, detailed feedback. They don’t want to rock the boat or delay the process too much. However, I’ve found that our best clients are those who care deeply about what things look/sound/feel like. In other words, heavy critique is a sign of strong buy-in. While the feedback itself can be difficult to receive at times, the amount of concern invested in a brand far outweighs the critique of creative for us.
Very detailed feedback also empowers the creatives working on the project as they learn what “success” looks like in the rounds of revision. Your brand is taking shape before their eyes. Once they have a clear picture of what you’re aiming at, they can hone and refine their words and imagery to better fit what you’re aiming for with less frustration or guesswork. Everybody loves to hit a grand slam and your feedback helps them do just that!
Detailed responses remove the guesswork, allowing the creative team to focus on what they do best — writing, designing, and developing the components that will form your brand. Clear feedback also helps a project move quickly. The more precise the feedback, the fewer rounds of revisions and meetings are needed to deliver remarkable brand assets!
A Strong Rollout Plan
The final big mistake people make when developing their brand is not having a strong marketing plan for the launch. Launching your brand is a big deal. It’s a great opportunity to tell the world: ”We’re here to uniquely serve you in just this way!” This is true whether you’re launching a new brand identity or rebranding to better fit the authentic identity of your organization.
A strong rollout plan enables you to begin building the foundations of your brand in your current and soon-to-be-acquired customer base. Whether you’re climbing the rankings in the SEO spaces your brand will operate under online, or planning to make a big splash at the next industry expo, you’ll need a well-integrated and thoughtful brand roll-out plan.
Ideally, your branding agency can also provide you with a strong brand rollout plan to move forward with confidence. At Resound, we like to end every project with a checklist of potential outlets for communicating with your ideal customers. What’s the point of having a remarkable brand if no one knows about it?
A Smooth Branding Experience
Making the most of your branding project isn’t difficult. It just takes some intentionality at the forefront, consistency throughout, and a strong exit strategy. A little additional effort along the way creates a much larger impact in the long run.
By defining a specific communicator who communicates the detailed and specific comments of the team back to the agency and implementing a solid rollout plan, you can amplify the impact of your branding project and set your organization up for clear messaging that resonates with your ideal customers.
Our process at Resound aims at equipping our clients with all the tools they need to succeed and make the most of their branding experience, from our initial day-long workshops to our detailed list of potential roll-out opportunities at the end. We aim to help remarkable brands resonate with their ideal customers and build lasting relationships and hone our process towards that vision.
If you’d like to see some of our previous work, you can check out some of our favorite case studies, or read more about our branding services.Or if you’re still new to this branding thing, consider picking up our 5-starred book “You Are Remarkable” where we build a case for branding and explain why it matters. You could also check out our other written branding content or tune into our podcast where we explore branding in-depth, with real and relevant examples.
Happy Branding!
