In General…

We usually tell clients it will take 5-10 business days to see things like logo, ad or web design concepts once the creative brief is decided upon. We say 10–15 days for bigger projects (like large brochures that also require a lot of copywriting. Then, depending again on the size of the project and nature of revisions (we generally include three rounds) we say 2–5 business days.

Identify Major Deadlines

Some of the projects we take on have hard deadlines like a commitment, an upcoming event, or a due date at a publication. If this is true for you, the first question should be ‘can the firm meet it at all?’ If they can’t you should discuss why with them. There’s a difference between they can’t because of other work and commitments (in which case you could go elsewhere) and it’s just not feasible due to the laws of science (plan b?).

If you have no hard deadline to meet, I strongly recommend creating one. If you keep telling your firm ‘no rush’, they will naturally back-burner it for the hard deadlines that come through and so will you. Meanwhile, the project loses momentum, everyone forgets the creative brief and neither side gets what they need (for you the tools to market and build your business, for us a sense of accomplishment and something we can bill).

Creating a Critical Path

Once you determine the hard or soft due date for the project, it’s really helpful to work backwards and set all main milestones. How long does the printer need to work comfortably? How many people need to test the website client-side and what’s a reasonable amount of time to give them to do that, provide feedback and have it implemented? I always try to give a little buffer. From there you can work backwards in terms of rounds of revisions and feedback, meeting on the other end how long the firm needs to generate creative concepts.

You Will Have Deadlines Too

Then there’s your side. The timeline also needs to include when the firm needs to hear back from you or receive needed materials in order to meet their deadlines. If you know when your attention will be needed, and how much of it, you can schedule it in.  If you’ve never been through a website project for example, you may not realize how much time it takes to get information together early on, or test it thoroughly just before launch. Where picking an ad layout may seem simpler, if you need to get the input from hard-to-pin-down higher-ups or a committee, that needs to be worked in.

Ideally, the firm you work with has a process for keeping track of your timelines and holding you accountable, as opposed to just lobbing it into your court and forgetting about it. If not, things can fall through the cracks.

There’s Always a Workaround

Going back to the laws of time and space; occasionally timing just won’t allow for the ideal, but there’s always something that can be done. For example, instead of rushing through a branding process, we may print a very small run of temporary business cards for clients to take to an event. Can the website be up in a reduced form and called a ‘soft-launch’?

We work really hard to meet clients’ tighter deadlines and will not let them down by telling them we can do something we can’t and have pulled off some great creative under pressure. However, we do a much better job when not rushed, and build much better Rapport for them and for us.

Best Planning Practices

Sometimes unexpected opportunities pop up and your firm should do their best to help clients take advantage of them. But, if you involve your firm in everything related to your marketing efforts and discuss upcoming commitments, events, etc. in advance, they can help you not only plan better, but maybe recognize additional opportunities too. A one-year action plan can be a great tool for both sides.

Fast forward to summer, 2007 – she has a good reputation, four employees, many clients and a lot of experience under her belt. But, prospects and new colleagues still get the impression she’s a freelancer renting a desk. Her salesperson has trouble explaining that Faith Seekings is someone’s name and the firm is not a religious cult. She’s embarrassed by her brand and it’s time to change – new name and all.

Skip ahead again to December 2008 when the business has doubled, due partly to buying another, and the brand needed to mature again in look and messaging, to reflect the growth. No new name this time, but there’s an entirely different dog on the website.

I tell you this story because I not only re-brand clients regularly, but I’ve done it myself. Once you’ve decided to rebrand (see past post The Right Time to Re-brand), what would the steps involved be?

First, choose the right firm to do it.

If you are rebranding, at this stage you need more than a designer, you need a brand strategist and copywriter as well. A brand is more than a pretty logo, it’s how you tell your ideal clients who you are and why you’re different. That takes strategy and words, especially if there’s a renaming involved as well.

This doesn’t mean you have to go to a large firm, just one that offers this depth of service and experience. Ask for recommendations from colleagues, meet with at least three, make sure you look at their work and see diversity, yet evidence they can work with your kind of company (size, industry, etc). Don’t discount the importance of liking them and feeling good about communication style.

Our re-brand project plan

All design firms will have their own processes and approach, but would likely include the same basic principles as ours.

Step One: Look backward, look forward.

This would likely be covered initially in the discovery meeting, then in more detail – after we decide to work together. Look back at where you started and why you made the brand/design decisions you did. Review where you are now and what has changed in the interim – with your company, the competition, the marketplace, technology, etc. Then, look at where you want to be in three to five years. I give that time-frame because it’s not unusual to do at least a brand tweak every few years as things continually change. It also reduces the pressure of thinking you’re making decisions that have to work forever.

Step Two: Research, research, research.

Depending what you sign up for with us we may do a complete competitive analysis of your industry. At the least we use one of the best ways to gage how your company is seen: by asking existing ideal clients what they think about your firm, why they keep coming back and refer you. So they’re encouraged to be candid, I recommend having an outside (branding) team do it and explain that all results will be reported back anonymously. Once you’ve got your client’s permission, they set up calls and go. This may show things you need to change, but most often reveals strengths that the company didn’t realize they had, and what competitive advantage is most meaningful to your ideal client. See our May newsletter for more on this.

Step Three: Essential Message Session

This half day session uses the essential message, a method for uncovering your best competitive advantage, articulating it and generating a brand brief. It includes the closer look at your past and future goals from step one. There are interactive exercises to dig deeper into what core challenge your company really solves for your clients and all the ways you do it better than the competition. The research previously done plays a role by throwing new ideas into the discussion. It’s ideal for us not to have preconceived notions, so sometimes we swap step two and three.

From this session, both sides should have a rough positioning statement and a really good idea how the brand character is shaping up, with consensus. If a second session is needed, we book it. We should have enough of a creative brief to begin work on the tagline and brief for the logo.

Step Four: You won’t hear from us for a while

We then take everything we learned and results of the session away to work on. We may do further research or call with further questions. What we’ll come back with is a refined positioning statement and tag line options. The positioning statement is an internal statement meant to guide us in the rest of the branding, but can also turn into content for the website, your LinkedIn profile, or even your verbal introduction.

We also send a long list of tagline options with instructions like eliminating the ones that are definitely a no, highlighting the ones you like best and how to ask for feedback.

We consider both documents iterative. However, clear guidelines on rounds of revisions should be outlined at the outset. We gladly discuss and incorporate your feedback on what works, what doesn’t, and why for the next round.

I believe the positioning statement should never be ‘written in stone’ as the world changes and companies grow, it should do so with you. Ideally after a couple rounds we have a tagline direction nailed down if not the exact words, because then we can start the fun part.

Step Five: The fun part – my favourite book is the Pantone colour book.

I’m a designer at heart, this is the best part for me. With the brand character defined and a tagline selected, the design studio begins generating logo ideas. We present the first round in black and white because personal colour preferences and dislikes are strong, and can adversely effect the impression of a great design. We hate to see a good concept rejected because someone hates orange. We present two to three concepts (or more) including the tagline, with our recommendation and rationale. The same suggestions for getting feedback apply.

The client provides feedback with change requests, mix n’ matches, but definitely narrows down options. Next round or so we show colour options for the favourite logo (or two if it helps with decisions). Again, there may be alteration requests. Seeing it in context also helps finalize the wording of the tagline, if not yet final.

Step Six: A brand is born.

With a strong brand base of positioning statement, tagline and logo finalized, we deliver a package of logos in all formats, colours and file types you’d need. Perhaps a brand guidelines document, and anything you may need to trademark it. We can also then begin design and writing all the support elements the brand needs to be taken public, i.e. stationery, business card, website, brochures, marketing materials, etc. There’s more that needs updating with the new brand than you think (what about company cheques?), so it can be an ongoing process.

Please remember that a brand is much more than a logo. It’s every way your company interacts with the outside world – your website and marketing tools, how your team talks about the company, to how your receptionist answers the phone. This is where your strong, well-defined positioning and tagline really come in to play.

This is one of the top things other entrepreneurs ask me for advice on. My top tips are:

• Try prospects out on a project or two before committing.
• Define the need/position first, then find the right person.
• Personality and ‘fit’ into culture is as important as skill.
• Be open to them doing things differently then you and let them shine.

Try People as Freelancers Before Hiring

My very first hire was Art Director Lisa, who is still with me today. I absolutely could not have built the company without her. I was fortunate to work on a project with her old boss and friend of mine Mondo Lulu, and got to know her through him. Then, as he started scaling back she began freelancing for me. I knew her design style, her work ethic, that her strengths complemented mine, and that we got along like old friends. My only hesitation hiring her full-time was sustaining her pay. When I had the need with a large project and knew I could keep her busy for three months I asked her to come full time – that was six years ago.

Since then I’ve been fortunate enough to try most people out on a contract basis before making a commitment. Not just to see the quality of their work, but to get a taste of their working style and personality. If it doesn’t work out, it’s tough on both sides, so this is a really great way to try each other on for size.

What Kind of Help Do You Really Need?

My second hire was a newborn designer, and a big mistake. I was still doing all the admin work myself and felt I didn’t have enough time to do all that and my design work. I thought I needed another designer and the recent grad was cheap. I found I still didn’t have time to get anything done and was also now babysitting this kid. So, I let him go and hired an administrative person. Pamela was a God-send. This was my first pure overhead employee – unlike Lisa who generated revenue. But, Pamela took the work I liked least off my shoulders, did it better than me and freed me up to do what I was really good at and made good money for.

Besides hiring for the wrong role, it’s also a mistake to hammer a job around someone you ‘like’. I now determine what roles we really need to fill against goals for the company, then create detailed job descriptions around them to use in my search.

Don’t Underestimate the Power of the Culture You’ve Built

Our team recently did a colours test with our business consultants, Your Planning Partners. Seven out of 10 came in as blue or the ‘Relationship Way’ first. We varied on what came second (Action, Organized, Logical), and that was reflected in skills and roles. What it told me was the team strongly embodied the Rapport values of being laid-back, friendly, relationship-oriented, client-focussed and a close family that got us our name. This culture started with me, gained momentum with early people like Lisa, and continues today in the people we attract. Skills in relation to the role you’re filling are incredibly important, but if a really talented person doesn’t fit our friendly, collaborative culture they don’t belong at Rapport.

It’s important to have more than one of you meet with prospects. From a practical standpoint, I had Senior Web Developer Noel, do initial interviews with junior web developer prospects to make sure he had the skills needed. Then I met the recommended finalists to make sure they fit in and talk money. We added the ‘social interview’ with new guy Nick, where he joined the crew for drinks to get everyone’s feel for him. We are a very social bunch, and it’s a very big deal day after day if someone just doesn’t fit in socially. I think I’ll continue that tradition.

Define Your Values, Be Open to New Things

There is always more than one way to skin a cat. I find this most evident with web developers as their logical nature means they always question the way the other guy did it. But, it’s the same with design, processes and which way the toilet paper goes on. It’s important to define the standards expected for the end result as well as the practical processes that run the business, than make these consistent across the board. However, you’ve hired people to complement what you do, let them. This may mean everything from different journeys to great design, to suggestions that improve workflow.

We’ve defined our vision, mission and values, which I share with the company repeatedly. Resulting details include things like design and web standards, or the project management process we’ve developed. The key is sharing it with the whole team, getting their input, then giving them flexibility within to do their thing.

This makes for a much stronger and more dedicated team than if I insisted everything was done my way.

However, a more advanced way to help keep them separate is to go in with a plan and share it with all company participants. Give them the tools and training they need to be successful in this new arena.

Don’t Just Dive-in – Social Media is a Marketing Tool

I’m often heard to say that using a social media platform is just like any other marketing tool. Before jumping in you should figure out who your target is, where to find them (Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn?) and what they’re looking for from a company like you. You would use this information to strategize on the best way to communicate with them and use your marketing tools effectively.

Are you using social media to raise awareness, educate about your service or industry or stay in touch with existing customers? What are they doing there? What’s their pain?

Social Media and Your Brand

Also like any other marketing tool, you’d need to hold it up to your brand and consider it in relation to everything else you use, like your website, brochures, etc. Chances are you’ve developed a look, a voice, a style, and specific marketing objectives. Though social media is often more of a personal approach, corporate brand should apply here too.

Your Social Media Marketing Plan

Your plans for social media should include:

1. Where you should focus efforts (Twitter?)
2. What you should do there (ie: discussions on LinkedIn)
3. What you should talk about, your angle
4. How it fits in with other efforts
5. What are the objectives and guidelines for our participants (ie: no personal political comments)
   

   

With this basic plan in place it will be much easier to keep business separate from personal.

Educate Your Team

Just as you provide brochures and help prepare presentations, give your people the guidance they need to represent your company using social media. Remember that if you’re asking your professionals to be active like blogging, they may not be aware of brand guidelines at all and need briefing. It doesn’t hurt to do a little awareness education with other employees as well so they know what you’re doing and a little guidance as to what you’d prefer they did or didn’t do with their personal accounts. You can’t control their personal accounts but it doesn’t hurt to say ‘because our message is ____, we’d prefer if you didn’t mention ____.’

In recent years many clients have come to us with search engine optimization (SEO) as an item in RFP for websites. Once they see what it takes to really make a go of it, to compete for first page, they’re turned off. They think it is not important or relevant to their business after-all, or at least not enough to pay so much. ‘We’re B2b, we provide a professional service, not sell products. People find us through word-of-mouth, not Google.’ I used to feel that way myself, but now I’m a convert.

Social media has created reasons to care about SEO from both ends of the spectrum.

First, because we all know how much user generated content, blogs, review sites are out there, more and more people are using search to find information or do research. When you search you are most likely to land on a blog or such like. If you generate content, people will find it.

Second and from the other end, social media has made it easy for companies to create opportunities for their brilliant content to be found in search, by writing blogs, participating in other blogs or discussions, having key people involved and hopefully active on sites like LinkedIn and Twitter – which all leads back to your company site.

Two sides to Social Media

There’s the literal driving people to your site, but those link-backs to your site also tell Google you’re important and socially active.

There are a number of things Google evaluates to rank your site; like in-bound links, conversion forms, alt text for images, blogs, meta descriptions, etc. They change the algorithms all the time but recently made a higher than usual significant change placing importance on social relevancy. Do you have an active Twitter account associated with your domain? Etcetera.
So what this means is, it’s not hard to build a website with good search-ability right from the start, like conversion forms, alt text for images, meta descriptions, etc. but then why not use social media to generate the content to be found? Google is a hungry beast, give it something to gorge on.

By the way, I learned a lot of this stuff from brilliant Smojoe, who we hire to help Rapport clients learn to make that content more findable and use social media for search with really different and interesting campaigns.

We encourage clients to run their creative by an advisory board or, even better, ideal clients at exactly the stage our client did. However, if you simply say “what do you think,” the question is too open-ended. Here are some tips on how to get the most useful input.

This applies to anything from logos, to web design to any kind of content.

Give Them Some Background

Tell them who the audience is, how it will be used and what you were trying to achieve. For example, it’s going to a specific audience like financial controllers in large corporations (very different than the head of HR at a smaller company). It will be handed out at a tradeshow and you’re hoping to get meetings out of it. Also, tell them what specific result you are after, if applicable, like getting them to call directly versus sign-up through your website.

It helps to give a bit of background on your discussions with the creative team involved as well, like what led to the format or approach taken This may eliminate a lot of questions that can have you second-guessing yourself. Like ‘why didn’t you just do a tri-fold brochure’? You could pre-empt it by saying ‘we discussed doing a tri-fold brochure but realized it would be inserted into large folders and we also wanted to email it so…’

Consider sharing some of the market research that was done to help put it in context, like ‘client interviews indicated what’s most important to them is ______’

Create a List of Specific Questions

What about the piece is important to you – that a certain message get across? That people take a specific action at the end? That it builds a feeling of trust and stability or makes people feel warm and fuzzy? Use this as a guideline to come up with specific questions. Like, ‘did it make you feel warm and fuzzy?’ Same goes for concerns you have – ‘or did it seem too corporate’.

Also think about what you are sure of and don’t intend to change when framing questions. If you definitely like the design but are not sure about the colour, ask them specifically ‘what do you think of the colour?’ Tell them what message you are trying to convey and ask them if they get that from the design or copy. If not what did they get from it?

Broad Questions Are Okay

‘If you had one impression from this piece what was it?’

However, you may want to have follow-up questions ready. If you want it to convey that your services are delivered quickly because of the technology you’ve developed, and they got that, you could ask something like ‘but does it make our service sound cheap because it’s so fast?’

Make the Most of Your Community

Asking for feedback from people who represent your ideal clients or peers you trust for business advice is a great idea. Just prepare for it and know you may get some conflicting input. Don’t be reluctant to ask – most people feel privileged that you value their opinion.

Social media provides additional ways to get objective, anonymous and/or professional feedback. You can ask for feedback via the major channels like Twitter and LinkedIn, but there are also great places, both free, like Get Satisfaction or User Voice and professional/paid like EntreBahn (full version coming soon)

PS. It’s a great way to get a little social media exposure too.

Then What?

The best thing to do is gather the feedback and go over it with your creative team, who should be completely open to that. We’d discuss each bit, hold it against the creative brief and objectives, decide what’s important and what’s not, and make some executive decisions.

I needed to find them

I literally stepped out into the sunlight and went back to the office where I Googled things like ‘business development’ and eventually ‘networking’. I didn’t even know what networking was, but I found some great options and started participating. I think a CAWEE breakfast was the first. I also tried Wired Women’s Network and Small Business Meet-up where I met my very good friend Richard. He introduced me to another group and on it went. In very short order I was co-hosting a Toronto event, met tons of new people online and offline. Not only actual clients, but great referral sources and like-minded business people I could identify with and learn from. They were positive and driven, like – as it turned out – me.

Payback is not instant

I don’t know the typical length of time it takes to start seeing results from networking efforts, I’ve heard six months. However, just know you are unlikely to meet a million dollar client your first time out. It takes time to build  trust and a proper understanding of what you do. The key is to keep at it, find a group or two you like and go regularly to build relationships, while also trying new places – online and offline.

For me, I started networking in May 2003, got my first related client in early July, then my business exploded in September that year. The rest, is history.

The small business community is, well, small.

I built my business through word-of-mouth. I did meet the occasional direct client at events, but for the most part I was referred by people I met at networking events, and then later by happy clients.

When you are out there meeting a lot of people they grow to know, like and trust you, and understand what you do. Then you are top of mind when their friends, colleagues or clients are looking for your services. I often saw the the same people over and over at events – building great relationships. I also looked for opportunities to speak at some and began to build my reputation as an expert in the field.

People talk. The community is small and I soon found that a surprising number of people in the small business community knew who I was. I was being introduced to people as ‘great designer’ or ‘the one who gets things done’ which was an early favourite and became an important differentiator for Rapport.

The best fuel for sales momentum: deliver a great experience

I didn’t find I was up against a lot of competition, but was certainly up against negative stereotypes of flakey freelancers and difficult divas. When Scott Stratten of Un-Marketing called me for the first time he said something like ‘I advise people to get professional logos and websites… I need someone to send them to. I’ve been burned by designers who couldn’t deliver before, so you have one chance and one chance only.’ He referred me to one client, I took great care of her and he referred me many more after that.

Unfair as it is, referrals that don’t work out reflect badly on the referrer. On the flip-side, great referrals make them look good and turns them into your biggest fan.

For clients, a great experience is essential to keep them coming back and prompting them to refer you to others. This is where it’s great to understand how they feel about your services. See our newsletter on how to do this. When we had clients interviewed as part of our own re-branding and saw that good design and competitive rates were just table-stakes. What they loved about us was the relationship, how easy it was to work with us and how well taken care of they were. That may sound soft, but remember the negative stereotypes I was up against – it was huge and wonderful to have that reputation.

Now we work extra hard to ensure work is done well and delivered on time, to create a professional but friendly experience from start to finish. This has been a mandate of mine since my solo days, but has developed into a strong culture and internal processes that work just as well for the ten of us.

I showed my book to anyone who’d see me, and one day someone who liked what he saw but didn’t need help referred me to a friend of his called Neil. I called Neil, he asked me to come right away and stay the afternoon if he liked me. He liked me, I stayed, he had me back a couple more days. Then he made a proposal – if I was there and available to him (and only paid) as he needed me I could use the space and equipment for free to start my own business. I actually said no and did a short stint at a large agency, but left after only a week because I just didn’t fit there.

I went back to Neil and never looked back.

It was an awakening. I discovered a whole other side to myself. I was completely addicted to being independent and in control. It didn’t make me feel free to sleep in and work when I wanted like one might think, it made me wake up even earlier with no alarm clock. Although I really struggled financially my first year, I felt like I had more than when fully employed. May sound a little odd, but I was just happier.

It started with freelance work for Neil, then also some for a former colleague who’d started her own shop, then I got my first client. I was very lucky to have Neil’s advice and guidance early on. The value of learning from others’ experience is something I recognized and have used throughout my years in business.

Unfortunately Neil’s work started falling off and he didn’t know how to get more. We both became frustrated and spent too much time in dark booth at Betty’s (145 King St E).

The folks at Betty’s knew we were great but…

Then, I had my second awakening – no one was going to find us at Betty’s. I literally stepped out into the sunshine and looked for places to meet prospects. I discovered networking with CAWEE (member for five years and serial board member) amongst others. I even started co-hosting a networking event which I found I loved. I had no idea that I was such an extrovert and loved meeting people. I had also discovered a great new peer group, who were not only in the same boat as I, but had the same underlying drive and guts that made us entrepreneurs.

The rest is history.

As Neil’s business faded away I began getting more and more of my own clients. Networking and relationship-building was a natural for me and soon momentum took over. As far as making the leap from worker bee to running a business, I was lucky to be eased into everything. I eventually had to lease a computer, then start paying for a phone, then some internet, then some rent. Eventually Neil left and I took over the whole space. I didn’t take out any loans, write a business plan or invest in swanky office space, I just leapt and figured it out. I didn’t set out to build what I have today, but I took the opportunities I recognized, was compelled to move forward, to build. I learned as I went. Life had thrown me a detour and I found something even better.

Stay tuned for lesson 1: Hiring.

BTW, Neil is doing much better, is much happier now running the studio at a large organization.

What are points of contact?

Any time or way in which someone comes into contact with your company. Including: business card, networking, call from your office, newsletter, website, they see you speak, an ad, blog posts, articles you write, Twitter messages, etc.

The reason I say the more kinds the merrier is because, for example: if they met you once and only continue to receive your company newsletter, it gets monotonous and they start ignoring it. Meanwhile, if they also see an ad, an update pops-up on LinkedIn, then notice you’re speaking as an expert, or spot your brochure on a colleagues desk, then get the newsletter again; suddenly you are top of mind for whatever you do. Plus, you provide more opportunities for them to sell you to decision makers and more ways to refer you (ex: send your newsletter to a peer). You provide more opportunities for them to see your brilliance and understand all of what you do.

I want to do something bold!

This is what a very action-oriented and adventurous client said to me. Doing a specific campaign, something one-time and flashy is great for bringing people into your funnel – the most fun projects for Rapport actually. However, if you succeed in bringing people in, then what? You need to have other points of contact ready to go to keep them engaged and coming back, or leading them to your pre-sale action step. For this particular client once she brings them in en masse, she needs to build trust with them to move to the next step in the buying cycle, so we have to make sure mechanisms for doing that are there to support the initial big effort.

Sounds like a lot of money and effort.

This is also why variety is good. The best thing to make it easier is include items that happen more automatically and can impact a large number of people at once, like a newsletter. The second thing is to decide what marketing things you’re going to do and then plan and budget for them over a quarter, if not a year. An action plan really makes things much less daunting.

Remember, if you don’t plan for and support one effort with other points of contact, you’re probably wasting time and money on the first one anyway.

Bring all that marketing together.

Be strategic and smart. Spend your time and money wisely by planning, making sure you’re talking to ideal clients in the right way, but also by ensuring all your points of contact are leading prospects on a consistent and compelling path towards your pre-sale action step. Rapport has developed a great tool for helping you do this: the Rapport Marketing Map.

‘So where do I start’ he asks. I said besides hiring us to develop a concise brand positioning + character, then creating logos, taglines and a few initial pieces around which we can write guidelines….

Start by looking at what’s working now and what isn’t.

You can start by looking literally at metrics – ex: this email got much more response than the other version. However, I also recommend asking members or the target audience to review different pieces and share which item’s design and language resonates most with them and why. The why is important so you can start to identify specific characteristics. Maybe the graphics are really impactful, the headlines are compelling, etc.

Then, ask them to tell you the opposite – which they were least attracted to and why. Perhaps the colours remind them of something negative and the copy is too long-winded and technical.

Use this as a checklist.

Review all your pieces with a checklist of these basic characteristics and note opportunities to make changes more towards the well-received characteristics and recognize use of the disliked ones. It may be simple changes to copy, or adding small elements like ‘we always have a watermark of the logo icon in the background.’ These things are the start of proper guidelines what you can write up and encourage or insist your own team follows. Good branding gets to the root of the values and culture of the company, so encourage all your people to become the company’s brand stewards.

How do you maintain brand character once you’ve defined it?

Of course, this was the next question. I showed him how we use our Rapport Marketing Map as a tool to help us do that for ourselves and our clients.

You plot out all your marketing tools around a central goal (your pre-sale action step), then imagine someone who’s not familiar with your company enters at any point, say they’ve been forwarded your newsletter. This probably has at least one link to your website. If they go from the newsletter to the website, what is the experience like, is it consistent? Is it the same kind of language? The same logo, colours and other brand elements? Where might they go from there? Maybe there’s brochures or sell sheets to download. Do they carry the brand character, the look and language?

When you look at your existing tools this way you will spot big and small things to change that can really strengthen that path, but also have a guideline or reminder when you add in something new.

Allow for brand evolution.

Companies are constantly evolving, and therefore so must your brand. Just keep it under control. Look at it regularly, you may need to make small changes, or one day a giant paradigm shift. However, use the Rapport Marketing Map to ensure you aren’t making changes on a whim, or because it fits the need of the day better.