When I’m getting down to fundamental marketing issues with a client, we often find we need to look at the business’ brand values to define what the business stands for.
The first stab at this will typically throw up the usually suspects: honesty, loyalty, integrity, professionalism, friendliness and so on. They’re difficult to argue with, after all, who wouldn’t want to be associated with values like those? But therein lies a problem. If those values could suit any and every business, how do you use them to differentiate YOUR business?
The Brandchannel glossary defines brand values as “the code by which the brand lives” and this gives us a clear steer as to how we can develop these somewhat generic words into meaningful brand values and communicate them to our clients and customers.
Firstly, put together your list of values, agreed as representing your business by all your board or management team.
Then dig a bit deeper. Consider how these are manifested in your day-to-day running of the business. How do – or should – your customers experience these values in practice? Does your customers’ experience meet with or exceed their expectations? Will they recognise your values in the way you interact with them?
For example, “friendliness” as a value of an accountancy firm might appear very differently to the way it would for, say, a children’s play centre, and nothing wrong with that. For the accountants it might mean avoiding jargon, equipping clients to make dealing with them easy, and putting a human face to their web site. The play centre will need to ensure that its paying customers (parents) experience their friendly approach as reassuring and its consumers (the children) as fun.
If “integrity” is one of your values, does that mean sending a clear message that confidentiality will be maintained at all times or that your environmental and ethical credentials are demonstrated in practical ways? Or something else entirely?
Once you’ve done this deeper digging into your values you get double the benefit than you would from a simple listing of words. You get insights into the way your business should operate to demonstrate the authenticity of your claims. And you get great ways to communicate about them in ways that offer clear proof.
Related post
What do you stand for? Differentiation Part 1
