Think of your company’s brand similar to how you think about the curb appeal of your home. When you want to increase the market value of your home, you have to improve first impressions of your property—update the landscaping, apply fresh coats of paint, choose new porch furniture, and so on. It’s the same with your company. How people perceive you in the marketplace impacts brand equity. Much like working on a landscape, if you don’t take time throughout the year to weed and care for your garden, it will soon look unkept, disorganized and outdated.
Keep in mind that your brand is not something you can forget about. You set it up, but you must be dedicated to continuously improve and evolve it. Here are five areas to remain relevant and continuously improve upon:
- Mission, vision, values, and purpose statements (MVVP) must be updated to reflect your business objectives. The mission may be exactly the same as the day it was created, but do all of your employees know and believe in them? Has your vision or goals for the future altered slightly? Have you adopted new influential values? Ask yourself these important questions when evaluating your MVVP.
- Is your website up to date? Is it mobile friendly? It should utilize the latest technology, SEO, inbound marketing tactics, pop-ups, chat boxes, online resources and maintain a modern design.
- Is your marketing collateral relevant? Brochures, catalogs, white papers, advertisements, social media, etc. should be updated with ever-evolving messaging and design based on relevance to your target audience. What makes your company unique and how does it benefit the end-user? Can you graphically display your company’s message in an enticing way to your audience? Is your design style still from the 90’s? Little graphic improvements of trending design elements and high quality photos can go a long way.
- Does your logo need a refresh? While you don’t want to constantly be changing your organization’s logo for that can hurt brand equity, sometimes a rebrand towards a more modern, innovative look can catapult your brand equity.
- Social media Platforms are a highly effective, cost-friendly tool to build brand awareness among your audience. How often are you posting?You should post often and relevant information to your audience. Ensure to keep your profile picture and cover photo swapped out frequently to show activity and relevance. Cross-promote other events or articles and they will likely do the same for you. If your profiles are stale with months to years-old content, and you have a hard time regularly posting, consider either removing your social presence or hiring an expert to keep your business on top of social trends.
Challenge: Moving forward, carve out time each month to evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing, branding and company’s curb appeal. Make improvements regularly—doing so will not only increase brand equity or perception but it will motivate and excite your employees and attract new prospects.