Measuring a strong, consistent and successful business brand is not just about the sales numbers and the number of Facebook Fans you have, it’s about how your employees feel about their job. Do your employees love where they work? Were they Fans before they got the job? Are they brand advocates now? Here are some very important questions that you should be asking yourself as a business owner as we get closer to a new year.
Do I have a Brand that Elicits Emotion?
Coming into the New Year, take a step back and have a marketing team evaluate your brand. Consider getting a brand audit to determine how effective your brand truly is at creating an experience, eliciting emotion, maintaining consistency, and communicating an effective brand message.
Do I have a Brand the People want to Work With?
If you’re brand excels at everything mentioned above, then the simply answer is yes. If you have a powerful brand that has grown a following, you no doubt have many individuals who want to be a part of what your brand has become. And these employees are the best kind to have.
Who Should I Look To Hire?
If you’re brand is strong, you shouldn’t be hiring people who are unfamiliar or need training on what your brand represents. You should be seeking out talent in established brand advocates, individuals who already have an emotional connection to your brand. This connection to your brand will push them through any ‘bad days’ or ‘slumps’ and help to alleviate any poor customer service issues.
Too many brands risk having the beneficial effects of their brilliant product development, branding, advertising, publicity, packaging and distribution vaporized in a single moment by a surly employee. (emotivebrand.posterous.com)
If you’re not sure how to effectively run an interview and select the right people for the job, get an expert HR company to help you out.
How Can I Keep Employees Engaged in the Brand Message?
The most successful businesses are those that can actively keep their employees engaged. Take Google, for example, that routinely hands out $1,000 bonuses to every single employee during the holidays. Or the small mom-and-pop down the street that treats every employee to a fancy dinner for Christmas. However, if you start with an employee that already has a connection to your brand, these additions are just icing on the cake.
Take Disney, for example, as a brand that has grown so incredibly huge that every single person who works for them has an emotional connection to that brand. They get ‘cast member training’ to help them understand the ins-and-outs of their position, as any other job holder would, but they also get park entrance perks, resort perks, restaurant perks, even cruise perks. Not only that, Disney employees are some of the few employees in the world that can actually work at a place where they made lasting childhood memories at. The emotional brand connection is so strong that even on a ‘bad day’ they forge ahead and maintain brand consistency. Disney would not be what it is today if it were not for the uniformity of its brand message through its ‘cast members.’
How can you motivate your employees to improve your audience brand experience? Need help coming up with ideas? Give us a call.