A brand is what people think of when they hear the name of your company. It’s made up of your reputation, strengths, weaknesses and the experiences they have with it. It’s the most valuable intangible asset your company owns.
Ideally, audience perceptions of your financial brand align with what you intended.
But sometimes a gap exists between how your mortgage or fintech company’s brand is perceived and how you meant for it to be perceived.
This gap started with a lack of communication about your brand with your employees to help them understand it and “live” it. The result of this is off-brand interactions with your target audiences and off-brand marketing.
A contributing factor could also be a lack of “guardrails” in place during the hiring process. It’s important to make sure new hires are a good cultural fit and truly believe in and will “live” your brand.
In any case, if a gap exists, you need to close it by taking control of your brand. If you don’t, everybody else will! It will show up in your origination volume or product sales, market share, employee turnover, client satisfaction ratings, job satisfaction and much more. And that’s the last thing you want for your company.
How do you take control of your Brand?
The first step is to articulate the unique set of distinctions that you own that make a positive difference in the lives of your customers. This is what makes up the brand you need to convey. If you don’t know what those distinctions are, then they need to be developed.
A professional facilitator that understands how to develop a brand will need to take you through the process.
The process includes internal and external research, and then a discovery session with leadership. The goal of the discovery session is to understand your “why” and also what differentiates you. This can be challenging, but the facilitator will know what questions to ask to get the intel they need to create your market positioning.
Next, all the research and results of the discovery session need to be studied to determine how to best position your company.
Your positioning includes your unique selling points (USP’s), key messages, a tagline and a brand essence statement.
Also, don’t forget about the importance of your culture.
To ensure cultural integration, a brand acculturation strategy should be developed so that employees “live” your brand at all touch points. This is the only way your brand can truly deliver on its promise.
Remember this…the high cost of selling is the tax on poor branding.
If you need help developing your brand, contact us today for a free consultation.
