Building a successful organisational brand

VERY often when we talk of brands we think of big corporates like Google, Coca Cola etc. In one of my previous instalments, I explored branding even at a personal level. For many small-to-medium-scale enterprises building a successful brand is not a walk in the park.

With today’s marketplace being a very wide variety of different companies, organisations and institutions, making your company/business known to many is becoming more and more of a daunting task.

Sticking out from the cluster

Despite this haunting fact that is obvious whenever we watch television, surf the web, social media or read magazines some companies end up using certain marketing plans that don’t focus that much resources on advertising and hence strengthening the brand name of the business, making it lost in the cluster of other business names that are struggling to get head way in the business world.

Building a successful brand

Building a successful brand name involves some procedures that can be phased down into five steps: differentiation, positioning, personality, vision, and added value. Each step can be further expanded to better understand the procedures and concepts behind them.

e main aim of getting a brand name recognised is to enable the business to grow more, develop more and if possible branch out into other sectors of the marketplace. Comprehending the change a brand name’s value undergoes over a period of time is essential in the success of its build-up.

Differentiation

With everything new and upcoming, there has to be a certain appeal to it; that’s where differentiation comes in. A brand name has to be linked to something advantageous that would grab the attention of potential customers and get their minds off other competitions of said brand name. Positioning follows after differentiation has been successfully executed.

Positioning

Positioning is all about convincing customers and even employers that the products/ services rendered are better than the others available. When a brand has been successfully positioned, the next logical step is to establish a personality for the brand.

Personality

Personality deals with how the new brand's message is communicated, both internally and externally. To fully establish a great personality, employee’s of a brand should be living representations of the brand they are trying to set up. Communicating the brand’s vision will then come into play. Notwithstanding the efficacy and cost effectiveness that the digitalised modus operandi has brought, it is still very necessary for companies to adopt a two-pronged approach by also making sure the human capital is also integral in brand engagement.

Vision

Vision has to do with passing across the brand’s values and morals to consumers; donation of a partial amount of the brand's profits is a great example of communicating vision to everyday consumers because it will build good will for the brand and reassure the consumer about their investment in the brand. With the above successfully executed, the most important step must be taken for the brand; value or benefit.

Creating loyalty

e brand must be able to show the consumer that loyalty to the brand will improve the consumers life; this builds a certain level of respect for the brand in the consumers mindset and creates a strong, positive, long lasting impression.

e Malaysian-based event management company known as Inspired Events is known to be the centre of excellence in Malaysian event planning. e company has built itself a loyal brand and is well known for its efficiency when it comes to event planning. Inspired Events contemporary approach delivers high quality events solutions for any Malaysian-based clients; it is because of this that they are able to build a positive and reliable brand.

Communication

Communication is the lifeline of an organisation. In any organisation, it is vital for members of the organisation, also referred to as internal publics, to show the linkage between their use of communication resources and the work they do. Communication in an organisation acts as the linkage that connects the subsystems to the whole system — the organisation. As with any system, a weakness in any subsystem affects the whole system. us, poor communication affects an organisation’s operations and hinders it from achieving its goals.

Management must ensure effective development of staff communications skills and behaviour through recruitment practice, induction, training and appraisal management systems.

Communication is not only strategic but is a crucial tool in support and promotion of organisational objectives. e ultimate goal of communication is to facilitate change in attitudes and behaviour rather than merely to disseminate information. e internal and external “messaging” should be consistent with the internal and external interaction of the human capital.

Mandeya is a certified executive leadership coach, corporate education trainer and management consultant and founder of Leadership Institute of Research and Development (LiRD). — robert@ lird.co.zw/ or info@lird.co.zw, Facebook: @lirdzim and Mobile/WhatsApp: +263 719 466 925.