Five Steps to getting your Brand revitalized

1. Form a team within the organization. The team must have direct access to the CEO. Having objective third party partners on the team ensures an honest approach to brand building. We have formed brand counsels including key contributors on larger enterprise brand development assignments.

2. The team’s first task will involve making guidelines that set criteria. This step begins by defining the core constructs today of what your organization is, or aspires to become in the months ahead. You’ll need to facilitate sessions that involve inputs from stakeholders and others who can provide you genuine honest observations about the nature of your organization. Competencies for setting criteria that belong on your team include two skills. a.)You require someone with strong research and analytical skills. b.)You require brilliant creative writing, specifically writing with a strong business/design thinking bent.    

                                    

3. Develop the story make it persuasive. Use carefully chosen words and establish an identity framework. The intent here is to create with words a foundation or “vessel” that can be used to properly sustain your organizations brand. Your team will eventually launch this upon the organization as a whole and beyond to your external market channels. The story “vessel” once crafted can be fitted with visual treatments including word marks, symbol design or other visual language. Design competency today is a minimum imperative for organization's serious about brand management.

4. Take the new identity to market. Launch into a sustained outreach campaign. Assess what response the new brand triggers. Judge the robust nature of your new identity's impact on various communities of interest. The organization will have to establish a plan on sustaining the brand through both paid media and investment in business media online. Brand Management involves a concerted effort to ensure the organization brand remains vital and engaged. This step includes opportunities to extend into your unique stratospheres of influence. Choose what those areas of influence are and pursue them leveraging innovation and design thinking. Social media is an obvious opportunity, trade fairs, networking opportunities, internal functions among the organizations staff. This step is only limited by the organizations budget allocation for brand building and perhaps the lack of willingness to take risk trying new techniques.                               

                                         

5. Analytics and measurement along the way will ensure a degree of reliability about the new brand's position in the market. Surveys, conversations with clients and a myriad of useful tools and tactics exist that will assist you building the brand's presence in the market. Course corrections may be required while you’re underway. Auditing the brand's impact at different touch points will provide an understanding of the organization's investment. Make a corporate commitment to measurement. Focus on how your identity is yielding response's and increasing brand equity. These activities will indicate you're on the proper course. Proactive measurement is essential while navigating toward your organization’s goals for growth and prosperity