Building a brand starts with your employees — here’s how.

Businesses operate in crowded environments, both physically and digitally. Needless to say, it’s a fight for survival for small and medium-sized businesses. In this struggle, entrepreneurs are always looking for any way they and their teams can increase their chances of surviving and thriving.

Capturing a customer’s attention is part of the customer experience, and perhaps the most important. After all, a sale is a sale. But maintaining their continued patronage and loyalty in this struggle to achieve sustainable operations requires something much more than that.

Related: 3 Ways a Strong Brand Identity Can Lead to More Success for Small Businesses

Brand Identity: What makes a company truly unique?

Establishing a consistent brand identity is an essential part of establishing a strong foundation. Amazing products and impeccable service, combined with streamlined operations and prudent finances, all come together to guarantee a company a place on the commercial merry-go-round.

The final piece of the puzzle is your company’s brand. This aspect of an organization’s existence comes to define it. As experts dissect and break down concepts, terminology can begin to blur. You can sift through the haze and focus on the most important core concepts and core elements woven into this DNA.

A business’s brand is its own essence. The core elements of brand identity can be defined as:

• A defined purpose, mission, values ​​or principles.
• A trusted reputation is achieved through customer experience and visibility within the community.
• Clear messaging in all customer interactions, marketing efforts, and employee engagement.
• Consistent content in your marketing with high-quality written, audio, and visual elements across all platforms, locations, and formats (both digital and physical).

And what is the linchpin, the binding force, woven throughout this process? employee. Comprehensively establishing, communicating, and understanding what defines a company directly impacts its long-term survival and growth potential.

Consistent brand management and interaction between internal operations and external recognition

A company’s identity is manifested in its strategy, culture, and operations that make up its daily reality. A clearly defined mission statement, established principles, and expected attitudes and behaviors from all employees. All of this combines into the soul of your small business, a soul that needs to be combined with recognizable graphics and messaging.

Establishing and maintaining this ethos and these characteristics across all aspects of a company’s internal operations and external perception is called consistent brand management.

In order to establish strong roots and establish an unwavering “personality,” not only employees but also customers need to support the brand. All experiences, interactions, and impressions must match. This brand alignment is experienced by the customer throughout his journey, across all media and engagement platforms. When leveraged properly, this process strengthens customer loyalty and fosters exponential growth in reputation.

Related: Branding is more than just an accessory: It’s the foundation of any business

Employees: The backbone of authentic brand expression

Employee engagement is essential to achieving significant brand alignment. For a brand’s identity to be inclusive, employees must feel ownership of the company’s image and ethos. The specific details of achieving this participation will vary from company to company, influenced by where your small business lands on the scale of its business, as well as the industry and location in which it operates. What’s more, as organizations grow and scale, the scope and nature of employee engagement will naturally evolve. Despite this evolution, there is a need to persist in an impactful way.

Clear communication from leaders and effective employee training are central tools for ensuring comprehensive understanding and ownership of a company’s brand identity. Customer experience is a complex process that starts with a company’s logo and marketing content, and extends to images, language, and overall design. This first impression can occur across a company’s website, social media presence, and associated physical locations. It continues through the products and services offered and the various interactions with employees.

The customer journey is a streamlined operation made up of everything from website performance and social media management to accounts payable and receivable, manufacturing and fulfillment, and everything else that impacts a smooth, positive customer experience. depends on.

Six key factors influencing brand management and employee engagement

1. Consistent customer experience: Having your employees embody your brand identity ensures a consistent customer experience with every interaction.
2. employee engagement: When employees connect with your brand identity, they feel a greater sense of purpose, which increases motivation and commitment.
3. word of mouth marketing: A consistent small business brand makes it easier for both employees and customers to describe the business and recommend it to others.
4. stand out in the crowd: A well-established and fully accepted brand identity distinguishes your business from its competitors. This can prove important in a saturated market.
5. Talent acquisition and retention: Good employees want to work for a company they can trust, a company with a reputation for trust and values. A clear, positive brand identity can help you attract and retain this talent.
6. Influence on decision making: Making business decisions with brand identity in mind ensures commitment to the company’s mission and values ​​and enables strategic and consistent decision-making.

Related: If you don’t approach your brand this way, you’ll lose customers.

The inseparable relationship between small and medium-sized enterprises, branding, and labor

Brand alignment and consistent brand management are two sides of the branding coin. Brand alignment focuses on synchronizing internal operations with an established ethos, the process of creating a brand identity. Unlike that process, comprehensive brand management focuses on delivering a consistent experience, such as service and messaging, across all touchpoints.

These separate but equally important parts of the branding experience are intrinsically connected to an organization’s employees. By prioritizing brand identity development and communication and investing the effort necessary to achieve and maintain brand integrity, SMB leaders directly contribute to a positive environment for all stakeholders.