I recently wrote about “Ten Ways to Get Better at Marketing.” Let’s take the same approach with branding.
Of course, you might be asking: “what’s the difference between branding and marketing?” Tom Pestridge wrote a fantastic post on LinkedIn about that very question. In a nutshell, he mentioned branding is why and marketing is how; branding is emotional and marketing is promotional; branding is macro and marketing is micro.
When you improve your brand, you also improve your marketing.
So, how do you improve your credit union and bank branding? As we said in the previous post about marketing, it takes intentionality. It takes time. It takes focus.
Here are ten practical ways to get better at branding:
- Ask and answer hard questions – Branding is not easy. It takes hard work. It takes diving into deep issues like: “why do we exist?” “who do we want to reach?” and “what are we really good at?” Spend time doing the deep thinking and bring honesty to your answers.
- Operationalize your brand – No matter what your brand is, you have to systemize it. That means linking employee behavior to brand standards. How do you want employees to live your brand? If your brand says “friendly,” what does that really mean? Set expectations like return call times, smiles, opening the door and more. Don’t assume your employees know how to live your brand.
- Train your people on your brand – Speaking of employees, remember this tenet: your brand is only as strong as your weakest link. You must teach staff your brand principles, history and values. Brand training can take many forms, such as onboarding, Brand Days and ongoing consumer experience training.
- Tell stories – Think of your favorite brand. Your answer probably has a story attached to it. People may not remember your brand values, but they remember a great story about your brand. In one of our brand presentations, I tell the story about my daughter losing her beloved blanket at Disney World and all Disney did to recover it. People may not remember the brand principles I shared, but they always remember that story.
- Involve key players – Great brands are built by people. But which people? There are three important groups you must involve: the leaders, the employees and the consumers you are trying to reach. In our trademarked brand process, we use a brand triangle. Your executives/board lead the brand, your employees live the brand and then consumers will love your brand.
- Update your look – Your brand is certainly more than your visuals, but your overall look does indeed matter. Yet, your logo often gets outdated. According to 99Firms.com, the average logo lifespan is around ten years. Unless your logo is iconic (think Amazon, Nike, Coke), your logo could probably use a refresh. This is especially important if you’re trying to attract a younger audience.
- Clarify your messaging – When it comes to your brand, clarity wins. As Donald Miller says: “If you confuse, you lose.” You should communicate what your brand is about in six words or less. Watch out for the “too many messages” trap hindering many financial institution brands.
- Consistently talk about your credit union or bank branding – One of the three “Cs” to a strong brand is consistency. That means talking about your brand at every opportunity, especially internally. It’s easy to stop talking about the brand after employee orientation. However, you must keep the brand on the forefront of your employees’ minds.
- Make your brand unique – When working with organizations all across the country, we often ask “what makes you different?” The answers we most often hear are service, people or community. But here’s the deal: if everyone is using those words, then your brand is really not different. So, answer that differentiation question without using canned or cliché words.
- Use a graphic standards guide– From a visual standpoint, every organization needs a graphic standards guide: a stylebook that illustrates your colors, logo usage, fonts and so on. Failure to have this key element means you are far more likely to have inconsistency in your look (think stretched out logo, misused logo on vendor printing items and other mishaps).
Branding touches everything…from the boardroom to the breakroom to the bathroom. When you improve your brand, you improve your entire organization. Take these ten steps for quick brand improvement.
And if you need help with credit union and bank branding, service training and more, book a free consultation.
