As we look forward to 2016, it is a good time to think about your marketing and branding. Branding is something that needs to be constantly reviewed since culture and people’s attitudes to products and services are always changing.
Take some time now or over the next few weeks to sharpen up your brand. Most chapters have an expert in this area – go to them for advice about your brand.
One of our members, Marcjon (Marc) Nimmo of Nim Creative, is a brand developer and member of BNI Business People in central Auckland. He has recently finished a project working on rebranding a member’s accountancy firm: NexGen whose Director is Niran Iswar. It was a true collaborative effort with many members being involved and provides food for thought for chapters around the country.
Marc notes that branding and rebranding isn’t just about a superficial redesign of a logo. It’s an in-depth exploration of the psychology of the business and businesspeople involved.
In order to undertake this exploration it is necessary to ask certain questions of the business, for example:
- What are your core values?
- Why did you get into business in the first place?
- How do you want people using your service/products to feel?
- What are your business’s key concepts?
Once you have answered these questions and have a strong foundation in place, you can build the aesthetics on top of this.
Building these aesthetics will require the services of other businesses who are involved in design and creation. In this case these businesses included: A printer, copywriter, sign writer, web developer and social media expert.
Marc recommends sitting down with each of the businesses you are collaborating with in your rebranding and talking through with them what it is you hope to achieve. For example with the web developer discuss what you want your customers to be able to do and how you expect them to engage with your operation online. Develop your brand values and then use these to underpin all of the decisions you make relating to the design changes you undertake.
Rebranding is a great opportunity to get a deeper understanding of your business and values. It’s not just about a superficial redesign of your logo.
It’s also a collaborative process that is perfectly suited to BNI. Draw on the experts in your chapter that can help you out with this process and give your business a design makeover for 2016. Your customers will appreciate it and your business will be the stronger for it.
