8 Questions to Build a Stronger Brand Connection (+ Customer Relationship Worksheet!)
Fill it out. Print it out. Review it every quarter. Whatever you need to do to stay client-focused.
If you’ve been following our blog or reading our newsletter content over the past few months, you may have noticed we’ve been on a bit of a branding streak. This whole series came from a core belief we hold as a company, and one which we follow when developing brand strategies for our clients. Simply stated, that belief is: Brands succeed when they keep their focus on the customer.
That idea formed a strong starting place, but we realized that we had more to say about it than could be contained in one article. So we planned a story arc around that statement.
Ian got us off to a provocative start with his piece “No One Cares about Your Brand But You (until you give them a reason).” He covered the concepts of brand narcissism vs. brand altruism, and why so many well-meaning businesses unintentionally communicate the former with their brand. He of course followed it up with “Your Brand Really Does Matter (but not for the reasons you think),” which was all about finding your brand values and communicating them with authenticity.
At this point, Eric chimed in with his article, “A Good Brand’s Work Is Never Finished,” in which he discussed the importance of staying invested in your client relationships. He covered a number of pain points brands face (the need to allocate budget for brand work, the need to get leadership and marketing on the same page, etc.), and offered solutions for companies who want to stay proactive with their brand.
In the meantime, I had my own pair of articles: “4 Strategies to Raise Your Brand Visibility,” where I identified four brand objectives and discussed ways of achieving them, and “4 Ways to Build Brand Trust (without saying “trust me!”)”—which I guess is pretty self-explanatory.
It’s been a big project, one in which we’ve pulled together a lot of pieces. To cap it all off, Ian and I recently got together and recorded a video on this topic called “Aligning Your Brand with Your Audience.”
We wanted to close out this subject with something actionable that those of you who followed us this far could use as a guide for your own brand strategy planning, so we took the questions from the video and turned them into a simple downloadable PDF.
Thinking through these questions can help you find direction in how you approach your brand, and how you communicate it to clients. It can also help bridge gaps in understanding between leadership and your marketing team and contribute to more internal alignment. You can also consider this a touch point, or a reminder to re-evaluate your brand connection with your audience on an annual basis.
However you use it, my recommendation is to treat this as a brand exercise. Print it out, take an hour away from the computer, and fill it out by hand. If you think this would be useful for more members of your team, you can whiteboard it as a group, or talk it over in a company video chat. We hope it brings you clarity!