Brush off Your Brand: 12 Steps for the New Decade

When you look back at the last year, you evaluate many aspects of your life and your business, but one overlooked and critically important component is brand.  Your brand in a word is your “promise.”  How well have you kept your promise and what can you do to polish your promise for next year?

1. Review the Past

To brush up your brand, you need to review your customers shifting wants and needs, your offerings and how the two can be presented within your brand to attract new and keep existing customers and clients. Your brand is the basis for accomplishing this challenge.

 2. Clear the Decks

Look outside. The trees have dropped their leaves to make room for new growth. Birds have migrated for the winter and will return to build new nests.  With the new year and decade approaching, you need to be ready. The first step, even before planning, is to clean out what you no longer need.

3. Share Your Passion

Many of us do what we love and love what we do. This should come across in all your branding—your messages, your advertising, your face-to-face encounters and in your electronic presence. Find a way to promote this passion.

4. Refine your Message

Following your review of the past, you may need to craft a new message or at least update your previous one. Stay within your brand when you compose the new and don’t be afraid to use some of the old message if it is still relevant. You may not change your logo, name or tagline but be sure your message targets your audience.

5. Re-broadcast Your Message

Get the word out with your new message.  Determine where your clients and customers go and what they watch to assure that they will get the message and find a way to place it there. Is it on the web or in print or in person? Carefully consider these and other options.

6. Review Your Use of Social Media

What social media do you use?  Inside919, Facebook, Twitter, My Space, others?  Be sure your brand is considered each time you type. To improve your reputation as an expert, communicate about subjects that reinforce your brand.

7. Reload Advertising

Where do you need to be seen to be successful?  Based on your reviews in Step 1 and Step 4, seek out sources your audience will see.  What do they read? Where do they go? What do they watch?

8. Cast a Critical Eye on Your Web Presence

Look at your website again. Consider how people find it. Once theydo, is there anything to make them want to stay and then return (is it sticky)? Does it reflect your new message?  Does it talk to your customers?  Is it a site people want to visit?  Do you offer value or is it just another brochure copied  to the web? What resources do you offer?  If the value is not there, no one’s coming back.

9. Consider Video and Audio

With the web as an expanded tool, many are offering both audio and video for their sites. People prefer to listen to you or watch you on a video rather than read a lot of your words. Have you considered video testimonials?

10. Blogging in the Avalanche

With the proliferation of blogging, the net is filled with entries about everything from business and health advice to journals of young and old. So if you want to create and maintain a blog, plan to do so in a way that is consistent with your brand. Blogging about a concert may let your friends know where you were last night but will not promote you in your area of expertise. Have a clear direction for your blog and keep your blog entries on track and people will maintain interest.

11. What Are Your Give-aways?

Whether on-line of in person, people have become accustomed to getting something for free. What will you give away?  Whether it is just your business card, an e-book on your website or a promotional item, be certain it promotes your brand and be sure it has value. Will your audience take it home and discard it now or at the end of next year?  Can it be used? Consider these questions before investing time and money.

12. Re-assess Your Alliances

Everything changes. Businesses are no exception. Some have vanished in the last year; new ones are sprouting up. Others are morphing to offer new services and products. Check your alliances and links on your website to be sure these businesses still exist and are still in alignment with your brand and direction for the new year. Re-affirm your connections with those you have been working with and break relations with those where you don’t have mutual benefit.

Follow these 12 steps and your brand will be shiny and ready for the new decade. Since this is just an overview of the steps, a series of entries will follow with more details. Although these will not be completed by the new year, continued refinement of your brand is a year-round activity; so please watch for successive postings with more in-depth information about completing these steps.

Welcome to the new decade and may you find great prosperity and joy for your life and business.