How to supercharge your brand with no marketing spend!

In an ever-competitive marketplace across all industries, the advent of digitisation and the constantly evolving World Wide Web (remember when it was called that?), it’s sometimes forgotten how important building a strong and attractive brand is.

Everyday, businesses are investing huge amounts of time and money into driving digital marketing strategies and so they should.?Getting the attention of the smart-phone-toting, Tik Tok consuming generation to prevent them from swiping up or moving to the next web page is not as easy as it sounds!

Digital marketing is finite and it drives trackable return. Defining it is easy, clear and succinct. The definition of Brand Marketing is far “greyer”; Above-The-Line, Outdoor, TV, Sponsorship – big, flashy, EXPENSIVE, non-trackable stuff!

I can’t help but feel that the definition of “Brand” has been lost in translation a little. Any marketer will tell you it is important to include brand awareness activity in your overall plan. However, with the proportion of spend allocated to this facet of marketing shrinking with bottom line pressures, I’d like to present some ways to supercharge your brand activity with minimal extra spend. Yep – read on!

Start with your Vision

Businesses don’t exist to create sunshine and lollipops. It’s about servicing a customer need to create revenue, turn a profit and generate a return to shareholders.

Getting the Vision of your business right is critical – it’s been discussed at leading management schools for decades ad nauseum. A Vision should be compelling, easy to articulate and link to the most important outcomes required by your business. Don’t mistake this with profit and shareholder return! Your Vision is the internal catch-cry that will chart your course towards those outcomes.

But does your Vision link to your Brand and its external facing identity? If not, why not? I’m not suggesting putting buzz words in your Vision, but is there a tangible link that can be articulated to your staff, suppliers, partners, service providers and customers?

A Brand’s job is to evoke emotion amongst your target market. It makes an unspoken promise to your potential customers that drives their consideration, allegiance, and likelihood to spread the good word after signing up.

Your Vision on the other hand, should evoke emotion and drive activity INSIDE your business. If your Vision isn’t aligned to your Brand, do you think that these external promises can being fulfilled in your operation? You can have the best marketing agency on your side, but if your business cannot fulfil these Brand promises then you’re leaving money on the table – in sales and in wasted marketing spend.

The damage that detractors do to a business is significant. It can be tempting to ignore them in the hope that more leads coming in from your trackable digital activity will fill the gap. That’s head in the sand stuff. Unfortunately, the misalignment becomes apparent when the train of destruction is already a few stations down the track. It’s not the end of the world, but Brand remediation is hard work! ?

Let it guide your decisions!

So you agree with the above and your Brand is now linked to your Vision and you believe you can deliver on the brand promises. We’re set to go, right?

This isn’t a one-off activity!

Often Visions get shelved once you’ve spent a few thousand dollars at an offsite with your leadership team and made some pretty posters. Wheeling it out for annual company presentations or comms isn’t enough. Remember – your brand goes outwards to the market, but with a linked Vision, your internal operation is working towards fulfilling those external promises. Because your Vision should be integrated into your business, right?

I recall being in a workgroup when completing an MBA many years ago for a HR related topic. A team member working for one of the big tech companies bragged about the number of unsolicited resume’s the business would receive. People WANTED to work for this business so badly that they would simply send resume’s in. In their thousands!

Yes, tech is exciting. Yes tech pays well, but do you think that’s the only reason why this phenomenon occurs?

Picture a business that is creating a buzz in its chosen market, delivering fantastic customer outcomes with strong products and service that is generating rave reviews and positivity online.

Picture a business that has highly engaged employees who would scream from the rooftops with love for the business they work for, because they feel part of something that is authentic, special, different. Would you want to be a part of that brand?

Now, the above picture isn’t created by just linking a Brand with a Vision, that would be way too easy!

But what if the decisions you made everyday were guided by your Brand promises to your target market? All the while utilising authentic, in-depth knowledge and care. What if the promises your brand made were executed whilst being driven by an internal Vision that lined up clearly to your Brand?

If you’re using your Vision correctly, where it cascades through your business at multiple levels, then it should be relatively easy to implement a way to cross check your decisions with it.

What decisions you say? Well, all of them! Think recruitment and selection criteria, think KRA’s, think office location layout and activities, think language internally and externally, think websites and service offerings.

It’s not easy, but every decision you make should relentlessly consider your Vision, and you should do it with confidence, because you linked it up to your Brand and vice-versa.

Example: Let’s use Recruitment and Selection as an example. If you’re running a sporting goods store and need sales staff, you will likely use retail sales experience as one of your key selection criteria. Not a bad choice at all – because most retail is the same – right? But what if you added a criteria with the same weighting that required candidates to have some interest in sport or fitness? These people live and breath your product, they look and speak the part (and are likely a customer!). This sort of candidate may be a little more excited about selling sneakers and activewear or basketballs than someone that worked at a auto-parts store. Makes sense right? It’s not always easy, but think of staff retention, think of the authenticity in the customer interaction and consequent sales? I’m pretty sure you will agree a lot of these benefits can also improve your bottom line – can’t they?

Be proud and talk about it!

Nothing unites a group of people better than shared pride. Be proud of your Brand and Vision – celebrate when you get things right and champion those who wear that pride in what they do and how they do it.

You need to believe it and live it! This is basic leader-follower stuff. If you’re reading this, you likely already know this, so work it! But remember, it MUST be authentic, and you MUST follow through with consistency. The advocacy it creates really is contagious when you get it right.

People increasingly want to be a part of something special rather than just going to a job. Believing in and loving what you do can make the difference between leaving when things get tough (or worse, staying and doing a poor job), versus knuckling down and giving your heart and soul for the greater good not just a pay check.

By the same token, don’t tolerate those who don’t champion the shared goal. If you know you’ve got the link between your Vision and Brand right (and you will know it, the market, your sales results and retention/repeat custom will tell you) the risk of having misaligned people in the business is too large a risk to wear. Don’t procrastinate!

Example: How often does the leadership team at your business communicate to the broader organisation? How is it done? Email? Town Hall? Why not create an award for 1 or more of the team that gets announced in this setting rewarding them meaningfully for something they did in support of the Vision and the Brand? Everyone gets measured on performance, so why not implement a performance measure that talks to the “how” in affecting the Vision and Brand in the business. Lastly, be the champion – how often are you talking about the Vision and how your business is tracking against it? Are you enforcing a decision-making circuit breaker with your leadership team that considers alignment to the Vision and Brand?

Watch the “repeater” effect

By setting a Vision that is linked to the outward proposition your Brand projects, then embedding that Vision throughout the business to align your operation, you really bring your brand to life and ensure every cent you spend telling the world about yourself is deployed wisely.

Your product is tailored and your promise is being met, which will increase market consideration and conversion. Your ongoing effort to interact with your customer with authenticity will reap repeat custom and retention - this bit is trackable!

Finally, you will grow a loyal team of people who are advocates for your brand. These people are bringing your Brand to life by servicing your customers authentically and with heart. They may even be living the same life as and interacting with them.

You will find a happy employee will radiate as a repeater for your Brand when they are at work or not!

Thinking of the sporting goods store earlier in the article. Let's say a customer purchased a set of basketball shoes from one of your team members who also plays a team sport. Your team member provides your customer with an amazing interaction, even giving them first hand advice and thoughts about how to select the right shoe. At the next training session or game, if someone asked about their fancy new shoes - do you think they would tell their friends about the experience they had at your store?

Imagine this happening multiple times. Every, single, day.

I'll let you do the math.