BRAND IDENTITY

Every strong brand has a strong identity. The four key components to building and maintaining a brand identity are:

• Audit – Every brand has an identity. The key in transforming and advancing your brand begins with understanding what it is now through a thorough marketing audit. The audit examines existing marketing efforts, including external and internal communications as well as a review of perceptions among employees, clients and prospects. Through a 360-degree view, the audit identifies the good, the bad, and the ugly of your brand.

• Message + Story – What’s special about your brand? Your people? Your products? Maybe, but your competitors are saying the same thing. To differentiate, brands need to dig deeper into their essence to determine what makes them unique. With a differentiated mission-vision-values, message and story, you can ensure your teams are aligned as they connect with clients and prospects to tell them who you are, what you do and why you’re special. 

• Guidelines – Successful brands share a similar trait. It isn’t a color, a word or even a value to guide its employees. It's consistency. The best brands create an identity and adhere to it in a “flexibly rigid” manner. A brand guideline is your company’s constitution, a document to guide your actions, behaviors, principles and values. And, yes, your colors, fonts and logo.

• Roadmap – Every good brand has a plan. But even the best-laid plans need to be revised at times. That’s why at Hencove, our guiding document is a roadmap, which starts with the end goal that answers the question -- where are we going? Next the roadmap identifies how we’ll get there. Like any good plan, it is only as good as it is current. Frequent check-ins to review the goals, progress and direction leads to success. 

Build your brand identity with Hencove Marketing.