Translate Your Brand Archetypes Into a Communications Platform

The final and most essential part of developing a brand archetype is translating it into a communications platform. Once you know how your customers feel about your brand, and you’ve selected a powerful archetype to help you reach a deeper connection with them, it’s time to tell your story in a way that resonates fully.
 

Let Your Brand Permeate

Before working on specific communications to support your brand, let your brand permeate your company’s culture. This exercise in developing a brand archetype will only truly work if you are thorough, authentic and consistent. Every aspect of how you do business should reflect and be consistent with how you project your brand externally.
 
For example, if you convey a sense of fun to your customers and prospects, it falls flat if your employees aren’t enjoying their jobs. If their morale is low or they are just punching time in, the message will hit a false note. If they don’t reflect the brand in their interactions with customers, prospects and with each other, the brand promise won’t ring true, causing your branding efforts to be in vain.
 
Or, if you project the image of a Rebel externally, it doesn’t work if you have a hierarchical, old-school culture in your organization. Monitor what is happening at all customer touch-points to make sure that brand behavior is consistent throughout your company.
 

Tell Your Story

Be passionate. Once you are ready to communicate in support of your brand, tell your story with as much passion as you want your audience to feel when they receive that message. Consider your employees equally as important an audience as your external customers. Employee understanding and buy-in are critical.

Be authentic. Be sure that what you have to say is real in the eyes, ears and minds of your customers based on their actual experience with your company. If you’re telling stories to promote your brand, they need to be in synch with the customer experience. Otherwise, you could be doing more harm than good. Don’t stretch the truth or it will snap back and hurt your efforts to connect with customers.

Be consistent. This gets back to the need for your brand to permeate your organization. Every touch-point for customers has to support the story and the promise of your brand.

Differentiate yourself. Be able to articulate the distinction between your company and other competitors clearly, authentically and consistently.

Inspire your customers. Your customers are very important to your brand building effort. Help them move from customers to fans and brand ambassadors. Understand the emotional connection they have and give them opportunities to reinforce that feeling and then to share it with others. Enlist them as brand spokespeople or ambassadors.

Give customers a key role in your communications platform. Word of mouth from fellow consumers carries more weight these days than companies speaking on behalf of themselves. Third-party and customer endorsements can be much more powerful, credible and effective.

With the dispersion and democratization of media today, via popular social media websites, it would be a waste of a precious resource not to enlist the aid of these natural brand ambassadors to tell their stories and experiences with your brand effectively and with credibility.
 

Game Plan

Creating a communications platform for your brand begins with building on and tapping into the emotional bond your customers have with you. Your communications should be authentic, thorough and consistent internally and externally.
 
Next steps:
 
  • Let your brand permeate throughout your organization. Find ways to engage all employees in embracing “their” brand.
  • Work on your key brand archetype message. This should form the core of your communications and back up the customer connection and resonate with them emotionally.
  • Spread your message via as many channels and touch points as you can.
  • Involve your customers as brand ambassadors. Make it easy for them to provide you with feedback and testimonials, and to be connected more closely with the brand. This includes through social media as well as at promotional and community events.
  • Keep working to learn more from your customers and enhance their connection with your company.
  • For more information and ideas, read relevant articles, such as this these:
     
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