Spring, a Time of New Brand Beginnings.
Of men wearing shorts way earlier than they should. Of flip flops, BBQs and Baseball. It’s also a time for Spring Cleaning your Brand.
A few weeks ago, it seemed like Winter in Ottawa would never end. Survival mode along with our furnaces kicked in daily. But now that the warmer weather is here with some encouraging regularity, it's time to put some spring back in our steps and our brands.
While we believe that your brand is something that requires daily care, let's look at three areas of your brand that may need freshening up before the hot sticky days summer roll around.
Brand Messaging
The words that drive your brand
If it's been a while since you examined your brand messaging platform, Spring is the perfect time to do so. Do your positioning, value proposition and brand promise still make sense? Do they still resonate with your audiences? Or maybe the focus of your messaging and storytelling has started to drift ever so slightly off course. Take the time to review all your brand messaging and content used in the past six months and don't be afraid to tweak, if necessary. Consider a mini focus group to test your messaging. Stay away from group wordsmithing and writing by committee. Please!
Brand Experience
The way your brand makes people feel
Brand experience can be a make or break element for many brands. Focusing on experience has been critical to building the Starbucks brand. Not paying attention to brand experience has been the downfall of more than a few brands. Do you have a sense of the brand experience you're delivering? Have you listed all your brand touchpoints? Do you have a written brand experience document? No? Best get to it then! An easy and often eye-opening way to understand the brand experience you're delivering is to really read your online reviews. Mystery shoppers and website visitors work too.
Brand Audiences
the ultimate brand builders
If we see one area that regularly gets the short shrift in terms of attention by brands, it is the core audiences that brands need to focus on. Take the time to look at your audiences with fresh eyes and look for trends that may be having an impact on how they view your brand. Revisit your brand personas. Dig deep to find new niche markets, trends and audience segments. Consider an online survey. We did one recently and it provided some fascinating insights into our brand.
