Publications & Resources

March/April 2008
Focus: Building Franchise Value

Steps to the ROI of a Successful Brand

By Deborah Dent

A strong brand helps influence customer behavior, improves business success, creates a competitive advantage and provides a clear direction for employees. However, branding efforts can be time-consuming and expensive, so how do you go about the process to ensure a great return on the investment? Here are four steps to consider as you head down the branding path.

Step 1: Audit Your Current Brand

Determining the role of the brand is essential in establishing whether the current brand meets your overall business objectives. You may discover that your brand is stuck in the past while the competition is passing you by. Or, that your target markets have changed. Do you know the equity of your current brand? If you aren’t sure, ask your customers and employees because it’s their experiences and beliefs that help define the current brand. And, speak with former customers and employees who will provide even more insight. Gather information to evaluate your competition’s brand also. This understanding will help guide your position and points of differentiation in the marketplace.

Step 2: Set Your Brand Promise, Position and Messaging

The brand promise, position and messaging should be incorporated into every aspect of your business, including customer perception and experience, quality, look and feel, customer care, retail and web environments, tone and voice of communications and more.

A brand promise is defined as the expression of continuing important and specific benefits that clients connect with a company, service or product. It goes beyond a mission or vision statement. It creates value and influence.

The brand position is a specific, differentiating niche that a brand chooses to occupy in a competitive environment to ensure that customers can tell your brand apart from others. When you own a distinct and clear position, it has a higher likelihood to be remembered by your audience.

Messaging is the translation of your brand promise and position into a system of statements and main points used to communicate your promise to the public. Each market segment or group should have messaging specific to them for use in the marketing activities.

Step 3: Communicate with Your Key Stakeholders

Leadership
Once you have a brand developed, if it isn’t managed, it will not be successful. This responsibility starts at the top. The CEO must set and lead the vision of your brand, aligning the employees, products, services and resources, in order to deliver on the brand promise. The CEO drives the change and monitors the results.

Customers
Your customers are the brand’s number one audience and understanding their needs and mindset will help direct the messaging, tone and look. Be sensitive in rolling out brand changes to your customers. Include them in the branding process to get their opinion on the new direction before it goes live. The customer experience, whether it’s on-location or virtual, has to be authentic.

Employees
Your brand must be believable, with consistency in how it’s delivered and acted on everyday. If your employees don’t understand it, believe in it or weren’t involved in its development, the brand loses credibility internally. Without their support you lose your brand’s strongest delivery mechanism. And, if your employees don’t support your brand, your customers won’t either.

Community
Your brand is seen by the general public through your marketing efforts, signage, environment, advertising, sponsorships, etc. If polled, the community at large has an impression of your brand. Focusing on the consistency of your brand and messages makes it easier for the community to understand your brand promise. At the moment that they consider reaching out for a product or service, thinking of you becomes more likely.

Step 4: Measuring the Success

Before you launch any branding efforts, it’s important to capture where you have been and what did and didn’t work from an ROI perspective. This historical information will provide the comparison of how the new efforts change the ROI. If tracking isn’t currently part of your company’s internal behavior, it’s time to start. Track the changes in attitude of your employees and customers, track response rates from promotions and compare these changes against the bottom line.

A successful brand has to be believable and acted upon in a consistent manner. Otherwise, new branding efforts will come across as a facelift and nothing more. In addition to the economic benefit of a successful brand driving more business, the other “ROIs” that it impacts are gaining employee loyalty, attracting customers and employees, strengthening existing relationships and creating memorable, positive experiences.

Deborah Dent is brand strategist for DEI, a design/build firm for the banking industry and president of Willow Creative Group, a brand and marketing communications firm – both located in Cincinnati, Ohio. She can be reached at 513-665-9559 or at debbie@willowcreativegroup.com.