How to Brand the Entire Company

Get all your departments on the same page using a company-wide branding strategy to maximize positive sentiment and increase conversions.

There is a way to associate a dollar value to your brand instead of just your products. But before you can calculate your brand equity, you have to identify what a brand is and what branding is - and how it is used across your company. A brand is more than a logo or a tagline. It’s what people say about it with their friends and how they post about it on social media. it’s what they are willing to pay for it and how they asses its value. So, before you lock in your style guides, it’s best to look at what others (including your employees and vendors) are saying about your brand. 

The Big Picture 

The brand sits at the top of a company, like an umbrella, protecting (or not) everything under it. Good brands have a memorable story behind them and can have unique personalities behind them as well. Some brands are even tied to the person who started them and are named after them, like Famous Amos cookies, which kept the founder’s name long after he sold the company because the brand had equity and loyalty in the market. 

The brand is the entire experience of interacting with the company, even if a person has yet to purchase the product or service, because the social media posts, ads, media coverage, and online reviews are public. This is why only marketing to people who will buy your product is short-sighted. Your true audience reach is way beyond your customers/clients. Your branding even impacts your competitors, who may seek to copy or imitate you. 

If you only have one product, you still have a brand. Your reputation, your customer service, your salespeople, even your accounting department - basically everyone involved in interacting with your customer - represents your brand. Their interactions leave an impression on buyers and potential customers. Think about the last time you had to return something or cancel something. 

Brand In Play

Once your branding is identified and clearly captured in a style guide (like this one from Compass), it should be communicated to the entire company. Even the customer service team should get a copy of it so they can see the tone and ethos of your brand. They should incorporate it into their word choice and service level agreements so the experience is consistent regardless of which department their customers interact with. 

Marketing will find ways to make the brand relevant to your audience and customers in everything from digital marketing to events. This relationship building through two-way communication will increase the value and awareness of your brand. They will make sure the messaging is consistent but adapted for the platform and audience appropriately. This means creating a version of the logo that is identifiable in a small social media icon or thumbnail for the handle or keeping the tone of the brand light in commercials or offers if the tone of the brand is light. Think of the Chick-fil-A cows painting signs that say eat more chicken. 

Sales will also echo the branding in their messaging, emails, voicemails, pitch decks, email signatures, and value propositions. They will have a clear understanding of the value the brand has to each of their ideal customer personas (ICPs). While they might take liberties with their sales deck, they should keep the tone and style the same. After all, they are selling what others already know and love, so there shouldn’t be a need to change it. 

By the time the branding is set, anybody in the company, or even social media followers, should be able to look at an advertisement or mailer and say whether or not it is consistent with that brand. Brands evolve, however, and should be a living, breathing organism that alters slightly to remain relevant but keeps its core values the same. Mission and vision statements should be updated every three to five years. The branding should be looked at through the lens of the vision statement - and vice versa - to make sure they support each other and do not contradict each other. 

Now that you have this understanding, you can find a formula that makes sense for calculating your brand’s true equity. It’s a common misconception that marketing is in charge of branding. They might be the best department to find an agency to design a logo or create a brand style guide, but the brand belongs to the entire organization. They are two different disciplines. Marketing is the savvy outreach of the brand and its products/services. But the brand is ultimately what they are marketing.