Who you are and what you stand for should be the backbone of your company’s branding strategy. Both consumers and job seekers take more than just product offerings into consideration when evaluating brands, especially in today’s climate.
Given this fact, your branding efforts shouldn’t be done in silos. Rather than dividing your brand into consumer- and candidate-facing categories, enhance your efforts by combining marketing and talent acquisition strategies. Doing so will make your branding twice as effective and half as expensive.
We sat down with a group of experts to find out how your company can build a collaborative branding strategy.
ON-DEMAND WEBINAR: THE POWER OF TEAMWORK. DOWNLOAD NOW.
About the On-Demand Webinar
Leaders from ServiceNow, Indigo and ServiceTitan joined Built In to discuss how to make your brand strategy more effective. The conversation spanned from topics of why marketing and people teams should join forces, tactical ways for these two teams to effectively collaborate and how to get buy-in from leaders for merging two branding strategies.
Below is a recap of the five things you should know from the discussion. However, there are many other insights that were shared during the live discussion. To hear everything these experts had to say, download the full, on-demand webinar below.
5 Webinar Takeaways
Your Company Needs One Voice
While your company will have different messages to share with different audiences across different channels, there should be a thread of consistency in how you talk about your company. A consistent voice and tone in your branding will help people recognize your brand no matter why or how you are speaking with them. Having tight alignment for how to communicate when speaking about your company will help your overall brand be more successful.
Build Brand Guidelines For All
One way to ensure consistency is by building a brand book that outlines how everyone internally should speak about your brand externally. It is the foundation for what to say and what not to say.
It also empowers every member of your workforce, especially those in a brand-centric department, to amplify your culture, mission and values. These are the things that bring your brand to life and should be shared with the world.
A great brand book typically consists of four sections: traits, voice, assets and visuals. These elements provide your company with everything from messaging to imagery and more. It should highlight examples of how to share your brand effectively and what mishaps to avoid.
Talent professionals and marketers can use a brand book to quickly assess whether their messaging is aligned or what they should and should not say to be consistent with the company’s foundational brand. It’s key to effectively collaborate on branding efforts.
Alignment and Resources Is Critical
Once a branding foundation is built, talent and marketing departments need to get aligned and allocate resources accordingly. Committing to a unified vision of shared goals and being accountable for them is what helps your brand go from good to great. This unified vision should really drive home the mission of a company.
To be fully aligned, talent and marketing teams need to share what’s important to each of them and their audience. This develops a trusting and productive branding relationship. It creates an environment where building a unified message is that much easier because it’s fulfilling both marketing and talent’s needs.
Tap Into Each Other’s Knowledge
Every organization is going to have different strengths and weaknesses, and the same goes for each department. Finding out the knowledge gaps you have within your own department will help you identify what you should tap into other branding departments for.
For example, it may not make sense for a talent team to have a dedicated resource for content creation but your marketing team may have a talented person who could help you out. Being able to tap into your internal ecosystem of talent to bridge the gap of your branding needs is a great solution.
This knowledge-sharing offers the ability to tell better stories, get your company in front of more people and create high-impact brand awareness.
Invest In Authentic Messaging
Every company is working to get their brand in front of consumers and candidates so you must stand out. So what will help you do that? Being authentic to your brand.
Great talent specifically hear from companies all of the time so they have a good eye for what’s organic and what’s forced. Find a way for your company to stand out with your audience by doubling down on who you are as a brand. Investing in yourself as a company and showcasing that in your messaging draws in more engagement than you realize.
Talent and marketing departments will always have commonality through branding. By actively working to build a more consistent commonalities in your company’s brand, your audience — both candidates and customers — will take notice. Use the tactics from our webinar to collaborate more effectively on your company’s brand.
ON-DEMAND WEBINAR: THE POWER OF TEAMWORK. DOWNLOAD NOW.
