When you think of spring—you think spring cleaning. But have you thought about spring cleaning your brand?
Spring Cleaning Your Brand? Why?
Spring cleaning is a time to spruce up and declutter the things that are not providing value or aren’t relevant to you. Why keep around things that you don’t need, you don’t want or you don’t use anymore? The same is true for your brand, you wouldn’t want to keep a logo or messaging that doesn’t reflect your brand or help you reach your business goals.
Here are four steps to “clean up” your brand
- Recognize You Need To
Here are a few signs:
- Your logo, messaging or social media feels dated
- Your brand no longer feels like it accurately defines your business
- You have lost sight of what you stand for, your purpose or how you stand out as a business
- Your brand’s messaging is inconsistent or unclear
- You are having trouble attracting your ideal leads
- Take a Look Around
Is Your Brand Cluttered?
When you look at your brand, does it appear consistent or does it seem cluttered? Does your brand clearly reflect who you and how you stand out as a business or are there certain elements that are unnecessary? If your brand is cluttered, it won't stand out and you'll have a difficult time attracting your ideal leads. If you are confusing, you are losing.
Is Your Messaging Clear?
Is your brand’s messaging cohesive or is it trying to say too much all at once? Are you accurately communicating how you solve your ideal lead’s problems or are you just saying what everyone else is? If your messaging is not clear, not consistent or doesn’t align with what your ideal leads are looking for then you’ll need to do some tidying up.
- Prioritize and Strategize
Which aspect of your brand is the most important for you to tackle? Do you need new messaging? A different brand image? Does your brand’s visual identity need to be updated?
Make a list of the goals and objectives you would like to achieve. Once you have it all written down, you'll notice that there are something that you can't do until other aspects of the brand clean up are done. You'll also notice that there are some little things, like updating your social media profiles, that can be done quickly, while other things, like creating cohesive messaging, require more time.
Once you have determined your needs, develop a strategy. Your strategy involves a commitment by you and your entire team to an integrated set of goals and actions. A strategy will help to clarify your objectives and priorities so you can focus all of your efforts towards the same goal. In your written plan you are going to want to define the specific steps and actions needed to clean your brand. Make sure you assign roles and accountability and set up interim check-ins to ensure you stay on track.
- How You Keep it Clean
The best way to ensure your brand remains consistent is to develop brand standards and stick to them. Use your original plan as a baseline to measure your progress towards achieving your goals, and make adjustments when you seem to be veering off track.
Like the idea of sprucing up your brand, but need a little more structure? Check out our monthly GROW2019 eBook series which is designed to be a structured approach to growing your brand. Each eBook covers a particular topic and contains different content and tools to help you translate your insights into actionable steps. Click here to get started.