Oftentimes, marketers trying to develop their company’s brand are confronted with challenges from their leadership, who see the brand as a costly intangible asset, with difficult-to-quantify impact, and would rather have the time & resources spent on “direct response” marketing.
Of course, with a digital marketing campaign, the impact can be measured immediately and with a great level of details. But is the brand really that unquantifiable?
Our webinar addressed the multiple ways a brand can be leveraged not only to be “made profitable”, but how it can serve as a growth accelerator far beyond the sole scope of marketing & communications.
BrandZ, a Kantar brand valuation metric that measures the absolute dollar contribution of a brand to the total valuation of their parent companies, has actually measured that the average share of a brand in its parent company’s valuation is 18%. It has also measured that the companies with the strongest brands consistently outperform both the S&P 500 and the MSCI World Index, in both prosperous and crisis times.
So, how can you leverage your brand to make it an asset for your startup?
First, make sure you incorporate it into your thought process as soon as your activity starts – not just when you’re about to launch your first significant advertisement or communication campaign. A startup brand encapsulates the company’s story, culture, values, and founders, and is built gradually, through daily little details that consolidate into a strong and durable brand personality. The earlier you start nurturing and being aware of your brand (let alone developing it), the more depth it will have, and the more impact you’ll be able to generate from it.
Second, by considering your brand as an element of your business strategy – not just your MarComms strategy – and identifying how to percolate your brand through all business units, and which functional KPIs, within each of your teams, are being impacted by your brand.
Besides Marketing-focused KPIs such as top-of-mind awareness or brand recognition, your brand can have an immense impact on other areas of your activity. For instance, leveraging your brand as part of your Customer Support approach will have an immediate impact on your NPS, but also long-lasting impact on Repeat Business and Retention Rate, as well as internal metrics such as eNPS, with companies like Zappos being great examples of how to successfully enmesh their brand into their customer support.
From NPS, to lifetime value, to employee retention or even company valuation in times of exit, the brand can and should be leveraged at 360° throughout the company to maximize its value and impact on even traditional business metrics.