Six Ways to Build a Stronger Brand

Where do you think your greatest opportunities exist to build the awareness of your brand exist? Think about this for a moment. Where do you need to be? My guess is that your answer will depend on whom you’ve been speaking to (or listening to) recently.

• A social media marketer will tell you that you have to be active in social media.
• A marketing consultant will advise you to build awareness through publication, advertising and testimonials.
• A sales expert will advise you to work your pipeline, build leads and dominate the phone.
• A web designer will tell you that your SEO is weak, your website stinks and your email campaign is insufficient.

Now I’m not suggesting that this feedback might be wrong, although I’ve never met anyone who has been told his or her SEO was great! But all of this stuff costs money and to be truthful it’s hard to know where and when to invest.

Here’s my bias. All of this stuff is secondary in building a powerful brand that costs you next to nothing.

That’s right. A strong brand, one that will help you grow your business quickly and effectively relies less on platforms and publications then it does on one specific area – your employees.

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Consider this for a moment.

I would guess that regardless of the type of business you have, be it in manufacturing, distribution, services or even not-for-profit, you have employees that interact with your customers each and every day. Your employees are your brand.

Take a moment to reflect on these questions:

1. Do our employees represent the company well?
2. Have we educated our employees on how we would like the brand represented?
3. Do employees speak positively of the company when around family and friends?
4. Are we outfitting employees with clothing and other swag that they could (and would!) wear in public?
5. Are we soliciting information from our employees as to the buzz (or lack thereof) around our brand?
6. Do we act on employee ideas to increase the strength and awareness of our brand?

Here’s the good news. It’s never too late to build a stronger brand through your employees. So review these questions with your leadership team and come up with a plan. Nothing complex, but you have to start somewhere.

Once you adapt a mindset that employees are your brand, you will experience growth like you’ve never experienced before.

Have you already adapted this mindset? Leave your comments below and share what you’ve found has worked the best to build your brand through your employees.

© Shawn Casemore 2013. All rights reserved.