Professionals looking at documents in an office environment to represent brand management

8 brand management tips you NEED to implement in 2023

If you’ve made it this far, you likely already know that your brand management is crucial to securing the results you want – including driving revenue, creating awareness and delivering positive customer experiences.

When it takes just seven seconds for a customer to decide if they like your brand or not, it’s vital that your brand leaves a favourable impression. Brand management ensures every interaction is on-brand and delivers the right message.

Professionals looking at documents in an office environment to represent brand management

If you aren’t already on top of your brand management, it must be your goal for 2023. We list eight top tips to help you get there.

1. Know your brand first

Before you can manage your brand effectively, you need to define it. Your brand should reflect who you are, while also being visually engaging.

There are several elements to consider as part of your brand, including colours, imagery, fonts and so on. Each of these will impact brand awareness. For example, a signature colour alone boosts brand recognition by up to 80%.

It is important to understand, however, that a brand isn’t only visual. It ties into your reputation, the values you represent and what differentiates you from your competitors. Getting it right is therefore crucial.

Make mindful choices when crafting your brand, with constant consideration of how you want people to feel when they come across you. Don’t fall into the trap of being everything to everyone. Focus on your target audience and what will appeal to them most.

This will leave you with a brand that truly represents you, which you can focus on managing and growing.

2. Create clear brand guidelines

Once you’ve set out your brand, you need to cement it with clear brand guidelines.

These outline how your brand should be used, including across channels, documentation and marketing materials. They should cover everything from the colours and fonts used, how to incorporate your logo and any other dos and don’ts pertaining to your brand.

If you don’t already have guidelines, you’re leaving your brand execution to chance. People across the organisation will need to create branded materials, from your marketing and sales teams to technical and administrative departments. Your guidelines ensure everyone works to the same vision.

However, even when you have a strong set of guidelines, the challenge lies in enforcing them. Most guidelines sit in the marketing files, never touched by anyone.

A tool like RightMarket ensures nobody can ignore your brand guidelines. We work with you to create templates, tailored to your brand, which make them easy to follow. We also alert users when they’ve gone wrong, so there’s no risk of deviation.

4. Emphasise authenticity

88% of consumers cite authenticity as a key factor in whether they like a brand. Authenticity is key to trust, and you need trust to secure sales.

The mission to be authentic begins when you create your brand and your ability to accurately represent your values visually. These values should be mirrored in every part of your organisation, from your operations and products to marketing and customer service.

Brand management will prove essential in reinforcing authenticity. By being consistent with branding, people will recognise and understand who you are. This creates a stable presence that sets expectations, builds trust and promotes customer loyalty.

One brand that does this well is Innocent. The brand is described as making ‘natural, delicious drinks that do good for the planet’. However, they don’t just say they do good for the planet. They do things as a brand that benefits the planet and showcase it on their marketing channels.

Take their current website. Rather than blurb about how great their products are, their homepage promotes the ‘Big Rewild’, a project they’ve created to tackle climate change.

Innocent's website homepage, showing the Big Rewild project, highlighting a good example of brand management

While it may not show off their drinks, it shows that they abide by their brand values and are authentic. This does wonders for customer trust, meaning that people will continue to loyally buy their products.

5. Everyone should be a brand advocate

Your brand shouldn’t be down to just the marketing team. Everyone that works in your organisation has a part to play in protecting the brand. It’s especially significant if other team members will be creating content for your customers or stakeholders.

Aim to turn every colleague into a brand advocate. Doing so will ensure everyone is bought into what you’re trying to achieve. It will also lead to consistent experiences that showcase who you are, improve recognition and increases trust.

Circulating your brand guidelines is a great start to this. However, extra work will be needed to ensure everyone follows them and they’re not left gathering dust.

RightMarket helps you here. It allows you to set templates that empower anyone to automatically create an on-brand design regardless of skill level. It means consistent communications across your organisation, whether it’s franchisees, fundraising teams or distributors.

6. Don’t forget tone of voice

While many fall into the trap of thinking ‘brand’ is synonymous with ‘logo’, those of us in the know understand it extends much further. One crucial element is how you speak to your customers.

Your tone of voice must reflect who are you and how you want your customers to feel. If you get it wrong, you risk alienating or even irritating your audience.

Tone of voice also comprises the words you use to describe yourself, your products and customers. Imagine a brand describes itself as a ‘vintage boutique’ but someone sends out a communication calling it a ‘second-hand shop’. The two phrases deliver very distinctive connotations. Mixing them therefore makes it hard for a customer to tell whether you’re the right fit for their needs.

This is why tone of voice is an integral part of your brand guidelines. They should clearly set out how you expect everyone to communicate with customers. Your voice should be an extension of your values, while allowing for positive interactions that make people feel valued.

Tone of voice guidelines should receive the same buy-in as you expect from your visual branding. However, it’s not always easy to achieve with so much risk of someone accidentally using the wrong word or phrase. Often without realising it.

This is another area where RightMarket helps, allowing you to dictate the words and phrases you want to be used. It highlights instances where the wrong words have been used and suggests brand-friendly alternatives. You’ll avoid the rookie errors that could chip away at your brand efforts. These include incorrect terminology, misuse of brand and product names or phrases that simply do not match your brand personality.

By ensuring everyone is communicating in the same way, you’ll strengthen your brand and deliver consistent experiences that protect customer trust.

7. Align your customer experiences

Inconsistencies lead to confusion – and you don’t want people to be confused about your brand. If they are, it’s unlikely they’ll recognise you in the crowded market and even less likely that they’ll trust you.

As we’ve already mentioned, consistency is key to trust. It’s also integral if you want to clearly position your brand. By being consistent, you tell your customer what they should expect from you. This makes it much easier for them to decide if you’re the right for their needs.

By getting buy-in from the entire organisation and enforcing guidelines (with a tool like RightMarket), you’ll ensure you are portraying the same values at every customer touchpoint. When we say every, we mean every – not just your marketing channels.

With harmonious experiences, customers walk away with a positive impression, feeling certain they know and trust your brand. Consistency may also drive revenue as much as 33% showing the clear value in it.

8. Always be prepared to adapt

Brands, just like people, change over time. As your customers and organisation adapt, your branding will too. That’s why it’s crucial to always be open to evolution and learn from past mistakes to create a resilient brand.

Adjusting your branding could include anything from adapting templates and correcting common errors to revamping designs and entire
rebrands.

A large part of your brand management will involve staying on top of the instances where your brand is used. You must monitor results in the ongoing bid to be consistent, clear and engaging. This will help you to find room for improvement and educate your team members to bring everyone into the mission.

How RightMarket helps

Getting your brand right matters. As we navigate a cost-of-living crisis, your customers will be more selective than ever with who they choose to purchase from. They’ll also be more loyal to the brands they know and trust.

If you fail to manage your brand, you risk losing that trust and recognition through confusing experiences and inauthenticity. This will undoubtedly translate into lost sales and revenue.

Fortunately, RightMarket makes brand management simple. With features that enforce your unique visual and tone of voice guidelines, it’s impossible for users to create communications that do not align with your brand vision. Our easy-to-use, brand-friendly templates also empower everyone in your organisation to create impactful, visually-pleasing designs that make them feel great about their work too.

We even provide analysis of your team’s usage so you can understand the common mistakes people make when it comes to your brand.  You can then focus on educating them and turning them into advocates.

The rewards are a better-protected brand that delivers consistent, positive experiences. You’ll also give your marketing team their time back, so they can focus on the strategic moves that grow your brand reach and drive that all-important bottom-line.

If your goal is to master brand management in 2023, you need RightMarket. Book a demo today to find out more.