How brands can benefit your business
Branding is often misinterpreted as little more than a corporate logo backed by some marketing puff. In this classic 2005 contribution to the AccountingWEB archive, Anne Fairpo explains how branding helps organisations to define their purpose and how they are known and remembered.
All businesses want improved results. All too often, they want them this quarter or, as a long-stop, in the next six months, no matter what.
This attitude encourages an undue focus on efficiency and cost-cutting that have an immediate impact on a company's figures. But this is not a sustainable long-term approach, and can even undermine the fundamental value of the business.
Improving efficiency can contribute to a leaner and more responsive organisation. Reducing costs improves the bottom line, but there is a finite limit to how much efficiency and cost-cutting a business can sustain without damaging the core reason why customers deal with it.
In the longer term, a focus on efficiency and cost-cutting won't differentiate any company from the competition. Firstly, rationalisation is invisible to your customers (or should be) and, secondly, everyone else is trying to do exactly the same thing.
Companies need to think longer term to stay in balance. The requirement for results now is compelling, but that insatiable demand will still be there next quarter, and the quarter after, regardless of this quarter's results. If results this quarter are good, the demand for the next quarter to be better will probably only increase.
The only way to deliver value to shareholders is to create it.
Continued...
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Branding
As an ex-accountant turned marketing academic I can say that this article is a well balanced introduction to the concept of branding. Quite rightly the author makes the point that brands are fundamentally not really about logos advertising and cute strap lines - these are merely aid-memoirs. A brand is about achieving consistency in positive customer experience, and this involves all areas of the organisation working together to effectively achieve that. Peter Drucker, the American management guru, made the observation decades ago, that everybody in an organisation is involved in marketing, in one way or another. Good marketing, and successful brand development, are inextricably linked to long-term positive customer experiences. However, the danger is always, that one or more parts of the organisation will devalue the efforts of others, in delivering value to customers.
For the accountancy practice building a successful brand is as much about understanding what your customers value, as it is about managing your staff and systems, in a way that will deliver that value. Whether they like it or not, from the partners to the receptionist, they are all critical to brand building. One negative customer experience , even with junior office, staff can have a lasting effect on customer loyalty. Marketing departments are not always necessary for practices: what is more important is to establish and nurture a culture of customer orientation (identifying customer needs and satisfying them), which may mean biasing staff selection towards those with soft skills, rather than just selecting on technical potential. Top management understanding, and commitment, to the 'whole organisation' concept of marketing is crucial.
Beware the consultants who come offering to improve your results by changing your logo and doing some slick advertising. You should not advertise what you cannot deliver. Having a distinctive brand image may have a negative effect on profitability, if the value you deliver is not up to customer expectations. Successful brands are build on understanding what customers value, and aligning your whole organisation do deliver that value. It takes time, commitment, and attention to detail. There are no short cuts, but the longer-term dividends can be enormous.