Best Practices in Maintaining Your Brand with Your Internal Team

Maintaining your brand is the epitome of storytelling in business, and it begins within your company. While so much of today’s branding focuses on external elements — how customers and other people outside your company view your brand — it is easy to forget that it all begins with your internal team. If your team doesn’t establish and subsequently value your brand, those outside your company certainly won’t do so either. Here are some best practices to help you maintain your brand with your internal team.

Communicate Your Internal and External Brand

Whether internally or externally, communication is vital for your brand. If you can’t communicate what your brand is, then no one will be able to recognize it and share it with others. The goal is to express your brand within your company so your team can communicate your brand externally.

Establish Your Brand Guidelines

When maintaining your brand, the last thing you want is someone on your team taking liberties with it. Therefore, you must establish your brand guidelines, make sure everyone on your team has access to them, and actively see that they follow them. This will ensure that everyone is on the same page and that the integrity of your brand is upheld.

Enforce Your Brand Guidelines

Governance starts from within. As mentioned, enforcing your brand guidelines is crucial. And not just to your initial brand design. It is necessary for the success of your brand. It would help if you watched for any diverging from the guidelines, whether through a lack of internal communication or someone on your team going rogue and trying to take your brand in a different direction.

Keep Your Messaging Consistent

Consistency is another vital part of maintaining your brand. Your brand will stray from its core guidelines without it, making it confusing, even unrecognizable. The best way to combat confusion is to keep your brand messaging on-point and consistent. It may seem monotonous at times, but your brand will be better off in the long run.

Value Your Brand

While branding to outsiders is important, it is just as crucial to brand internally. After all, your team is called a team for a reason — you all work together to maintain your brand. Perhaps the most pivotal aspect of that is valuing the brand. There are examples of companies in which everyone but the head of the company values the brand. This can easily cause frustration, disappointment, and feeling undervalued and unappreciated as a team. Your entire team, including the executives and head of the company, must value the brand the same as entry-level employees.

Conclusion

Using the branding best practices, your team will be able to maintain your brand effectively. In doing so, you must establish your brand guidelines and enforce them. You must also keep your brand messaging consistent, and everyone on your team needs to value your brand, from the top executives to entry-level employees. If you follow these best practices, your brand will be better.