You know your brand is more than your logo or slogan—it’s the essence or promise of the experience your company delivers. But do your employees enjoy the same brand experience as your customers and shareholders?
For a brand to thrive in the market, it must be embraced by a company’s employees. Brand-savvy companies work to demonstrate their brand consistently and in equally compelling ways between internal and external audiences.
Aligning your outward-facing brand vehicles and those inside your walls can cultivate brand loyalty with employees, right along with your customers. And employee brand loyalty can:
- Strengthen your brand: Employees live the brand and become best possible brand ambassadors, internally and externally.
- Increase employee pride and retention: Employee loyalty to the brand means loyalty to the company, which may equate to increased job satisfaction and retention.
- Add strength and credibility to recruiting: Sharp job candidates can spot a company that doesn’t walk the talk of its external brand, and they’ll be inclined to walk too.
As part of the consulting and coaching work BECAUZ does with large companies, we’re often asked to develop internal branding and communications programs that reflect the shifts in business strategy or culture the company is working to achieve. This isn’t shifting the brand. It’s applying the brand in strategic, creative ways to get employees’ attention and deliver messaging on evolution in the organization.
For example, BECAUZ recently created an internal marketing campaign for a client to support key themes in their business strategy. We worked to convey imagining and shaping the organization’s future and designed posters, physical displays and presentation materials with futuristic, space travel-themed imagery. Everything aligned to the corporate brand and messaging, but we expressed messages in eye-popping, imaginative ways for the internal audience.
Creating a consistent external and internal-facing brand means creating a brand experience for your employees across all touch points, just like you do for customers. Applying your visual identity with the same precision and creativity that you use in external-facing materials. Using a similar “voice” in communications. Does your intranet site reflect your brand? How about signage in the halls? Do employee events have the same pizzazz that your external events do?
Sometimes an external, objective branding eye can help pull it all together. To explore the possibilities, give BECAUZ a shout.