Establishing values is an integral part of the creation of
any successful brand.
But
why are brand values, something which can seem so insignificant, so vital to
the success of your brand?
Well,
when you promote brand values, it allows you to establish an emotional
connection with current customers and potential patrons, giving you the
opportunity to build much-needed trust, loyalty, and familiarity.
And
if potential customers identify with the values of your brand, they’ll be more
likely to choose you over the competition, as their connection with your brand
goes deeper than just wanting your products and/or services.
If
you don’t have a solid set of values, and you’re just sort of winging it, the
process of building that emotional connection, and the trust, loyalty, and
familiarity that go along with it, will be much more difficult, if not
impossible.
At
the same time, it’s also going to be way harder to maintain any sort of
consistency in your branding and marketing, which will make your business less
recognizable and could make you seem less trustworthy, as it may look like
you’re not really sure what your brand stands for.
Now,
if you’re reading this article, I think it’s safe to assume that you already
know what brand values are, and you’ve probably already established some or are
in the process of doing so.
That
being said, in this article, I’m not going to bother to define brand values or
explain how to come up with them.
For
those of you who haven’t defined the values of your brand, or don’t even know what
brand values are, you should start by reading our previous article, which
explains Why Creating Brand Values Is Vital to the Success of Your Business.
It’ll
tell you everything you need to know about what brand values are, why they’re
so important, and how to start creating brand values of your own.
But
if you’ve already defined your brand values, or you’re in the process of
creating them, then you’re going to want to keep reading.
Because
in this article, I’m going to discuss the crucial next step of promoting brand
values in your marketing, explaining how to go about doing it, and offering
some examples of how we’ve done this for our clients, so you can have a better
idea of what’s involved.
How
to Promote Brand Values in Your Marketing So, you’ve finally figured out
exactly what your brand stands for, turned that into a solid set of values, and
you’re ready to convey them to the world.
Or
perhaps you’re in the process of defining those values, and you’re wondering
what you’re going to end up doing with all those lofty ideals.
Either
way, at this point, you need to know how to actually communicate these values
to your audience, and the world at large, by injecting them into your
marketing.
From
my perspective, there’s no better way to explain things than by example, so
below, I’ve detailed a few of the tactics we’ve used to help our clients
promote brand values in their marketing, so you can have a better understanding
of how to go about doing this.
READ:
Why Brand Consistency (or Lack Thereof) Can Make or Break the Success of Your
Business
When
you’re presenting your brand to the world, you’ve got to make sure to maintain
consistency.
Without
that consistency, you could confuse your customers, make yourself less
recognizable, and erode any familiarity and trust people already have with your
brand.
So,
if you’re working on your branding, and you want to learn more about how to
ensure it’s consistent, then you’re going to want to read this article.
It
explains what brand consistency is, why consistent branding is so important,
how you can maintain consistency in your branding, and highlights some of the
most epic failures of inconsistent branding.
Keep
reading here.
Blogging
One of the best ways to promote brand values in your marketing is by blogging.
There
are a number of ways you can go about doing this, with some being more
effective than others.
You
could be completely direct and actually publish blogs about your brand values
and why they’re important to you, or be more subtle about it by making your values
known through the voice you use in your writing, what information you choose to
offer, how you provide that information, and what you have to say about
subjects that are relevant to what you do.
Typically,
we go with the latter approach, instead of beating the reader over the head
with a heap of virtue signaling.
If I
had to choose the best example of this in terms of what we’ve done for our
clients, I’d have to go with the work we’ve done for Dr. Dheshnie Thangavelu,
owner of a Vancouver-based medical spa named Deez Skin Rejù & Pain Clinic.
Dr.
Dheshnie’s brand values include things like honesty, integrity, and trust, and
we keep that in mind when helping her to create her monthly blogs.
Within
these blogs, Dr. Dheshnie is not afraid to be completely honest about the
questionable behaviour of some of the people in her industry.
For
example, Dr. Dheshnie has called out other medical spas for doing things like
diluting their dermal fillers.
Some
marketers may have called this a particularly risky move, as it reflects poorly
on Dr. Dheshnie’s industry as a whole, but from our perspective, it was the
perfect way to differentiate her from the competition, while effectively
conveying her brand values by showing that she’s honest and a woman of
integrity who can be trusted.
Dr.
Dheshnie is also not the least bit shy about divulging everything her
treatments entail, both good and bad, and this also helps her to promote brand
values in her marketing. She gets straight to the point and doesn’t try to
sugar-coat anything.
The
first paragraph under this heading warns the reader that this is a “painful
procedure” before detailing a long list of complications associated with it.
Sure,
she could try to downplay this stuff, or not even talk about it at all, but at
the end of the day, that would erode Dr. Dheshnie’s credibility because it
doesn’t align with her brand values.
So,
if you want to use blogs to promote brand values, then you should follow Dr.
Dheshnie’s example and make sure the content of your blogs aligns with your
brand values at all times.
Website
In today’s world, the most important marketing tool you’ll ever have is your
website, and it also offers some of the best ways to promote brand values.
A
website will act as your brand’s main touchpoint, helping you to gain qualified
leads, increase your customer base, and present your brand to the world in a
way that showcases its values in the best possible light, ensuring you make a
good first impression when people find you online.
Any
website that’s worth its salt should do a bang-up job of promoting brand
values, but if I had to think of a client’s website that’s most relevant to
this, it would have to be Rose Marie Swanson’s site.
Rose
Marie is what’s known as a spiritual coach, which means that she helps people
get through issues in their spiritual life, similar to how a clinical
counsellor would help a client with their mental health.
We
created her first website back in 2015, and it looks pretty dated.
Then,
earlier this year, she asked us to redo her website as part of a complete
revamp of her personal brand, and as you can see, it looks a heck of a lot
better than her old one.
Rose
Marie’s new website does an amazing job of conveying the values of her brand,
both through the imagery and the copy.
But
I’m not going to go into all that here because there’s something more important
that I want to show using this example.
At
this point, many of you are probably wondering why I’m comparing iterations of
Rose Marie’s website in a blog about how to promote brand values, but bear with
me here.
You
see, something that’s often overlooked when it comes to websites is the fact
that people will make judgments about your credibility, and by association,
your values, based solely on the look of your website, without even reading any
of the copy.
This
has even been shown in at least one scientific study, but it’s already
blatantly obvious anyway.
So,
how does this relate to promoting brand values?
Well,
let’s face it – it’s going to be pretty hard for people to take the values of
your brand seriously when they’re being communicated through a website that
looks like it was designed by a high school kid or made 20 years ago.
So,
if you want to ensure you can effectively promote brand values using your
website, you’ve got to make sure that it looks professional.
Because
if it doesn’t, you can promote whatever brand values you want, and people are
still going to judge you harshly, regardless of what those values might be.
If
you want to learn more about what we’ve done for Rose Marie over the years, you
should check out our article on Why Building Trust is So Important for a
Successful Rebrand.
Email
Marketing Another great opportunity to promote the values of your brand comes
in the form of email marketing.
Whether
it’s a newsletter, auto-responder series, or some kind of promotional message,
email marketing allows you to consistently convey your brand values to
potential clients on a regular basis and maintain familiarity with those who
have an interest in what you have to offer.
That
being said, it was really tough for me to choose a client to showcase for this
marketing tactic, as we do a lot of email marketing for clients, and there are
so many great examples.
But
if I had to choose a client we’ve worked with whom I feel best conveys their
brand values in the email marketing we do for them, it would have to be Kali
Dayton of Dayton ICU Consulting.
Kali
offers consulting services to help hospitals implement evidence-based practices
for patients on mechanical ventilation. The values of her brand include things
like compassion and dedication, along with her overarching mission of improving
care for ICU patients and working conditions for ICU staff.
She
is extremely vocal about the positive effect these practices can have on both
outcomes for patients and working conditions for clinicians, and this shines
through in every aspect of her marketing.
At
the same time, she’s also not afraid to call out the negative effect that a
lack of evidence-based practices can have on both clinicians and patients,
despite the fact that this is a very controversial topic in the medical field,
not least because it has the potential to make hospitals look bad.
With
that in mind, one of the most important aspects of conveying Kali’s brand
values is to ensure she looks and sounds professional, while putting a focus on
her expertise when it comes to this topic.
Right
off the bat, the image of Kali in her newsletter header helps to show that
expertise. As you can see, she made sure to have her photo taken wearing a
white lab coat because this alludes to the fact that she is a clinician and
therefore knows what she’s talking about on this subject.
Then,
directly below the header, she’s speaking quite frankly about the brutal
reality of ICU care for patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome, so
as you can see, she doesn’t hold back, and the passion she has for this issue
is obvious.
Kali’s
newsletter also includes her monthly article as a feature, which typically
documents some of the best and the worst examples of the care patients receive
when they’re on mechanical ventilation.
She
doesn’t shy away from controversy here either, refusing to mince words about
how things are for ARDS patients in the ICU.
Kali’s
brutal honesty on these kinds of topics, which could make her a pariah in the
medical field, offers more than enough evidence that she’s genuinely passionate
about this issue, has great compassion for these ICU patients, and is dedicated
to improving ICU practices.
So,
if you want to promote brand values with a newsletter, or any other kind of
email marketing, take a hint from Kali and don’t hold back. Be yourself, convey
your brand values in an uninhibited way, and let the authenticity of those
values shine through.
Are
you feeling overwhelmed about how to promote brand values in your marketing?
We’ve been helping business owners build their brands for more than 20 years. Contact
us today to find out more about what we can do for you.
To
your business success, Susan Friesen
Source: https://www.amazines.com/article_detail.cfm/6264566?articleid=6264566
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