Your employees are your brand’s biggest cheerleaders behind-the-scenes, so why not let them come out from backstage? There are plenty of ways you can encourage your team to be brand builders, from tapping into their creative abilities to simply asking them to spread the word.
That’s why we asked 13 successful entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question:
Q. What’s one specific way my employees can help contribute to my branding efforts? How can I encourage them to do so?
1. Invest in Brand Apparel
The best technique I have found to expand my brand is to get awesome looking shirts, hats, pens, and other awesome gear. Never buy the cheapest option and get a great designer. To do this properly, think outside the box and make things that your employees will wear outside of work, do not be cheap, and buy better quality materials. It will pay off in the long run. —Tommy Mello, A1 Garage Door Repair
2. Create and Share Social Media Graphics
When your marketing or design team creates new social media headers or promotional videos, email them to your employees. While you shouldn’t require it, many employees may want to share these materials with their friends or have a branded LinkedIn header image. If you’re crafting a solid company culture and dedicated team, your employees will want to show off their company pride online. —Chuck Cohn, Varsity Tutors
3. Set Up a Co-Op Purchasing Program
Make it easy for your employees to buy the products you sell and live the lifestyle your brand portraits. By assisting your employees with a purchasing program, whether through terms or deep discounts, not only will they be more willing to purchase your products, but it will give them a sense of belonging that will eventually lead to them being loud about your brand. —Billy Ono, Kami Speed
4. All Communication Touchpoints Should Maintain Branding Guidelines
Branding guidelines should not only be applied to advertising efforts. Communications among current customers, suppliers, investors, and even employees should have a consistent voice, tone, font, and look. This provides a consistent message throughout the organization. This also means that even a simple email should have a consistent signature with the organization’s branding included. —Carly Fink, Provoke Insights
5. Attend Conferences and Networking Events
Your employees are the face of your brand, and face-to-face interactions have become few and far between in this increasingly digital world. One of the best ways for an employee to contribute to his or her company’s branding efforts is to engage with prospects, customers, vendors, and other industry stakeholders at conferences and networking events. There’s no substitute for real-life connections. —Brian Lischer, Ignyte
6. Involve Them in Your Outgoing Media
If you feature your employees in a social media video in a way that they can be proud of, they’ll share that video. The same is true for pictures and written pieces featuring a quote from them. —Andrew Namminga, Andesign
7. Find Your ‘Mini-Mes’
The key to having good PR with less effort is to find a “mini-me” in the company. These mini-mes will effortlessly carry out tasks because they think, act, and make decisions like you. When your team is aligned with your mission, you don’t use the word branding—you call it “bragging” because they’re proud to do it. —Daisy Jing, Banish
8. Create Subcommittees Within Your Company
Management will make most decisions at your company, but culture is owned by your people. Creating subcommittees focused on various initiatives, such as company party planning or social branding, gives team members ownership in your brand and the ability to make recommendations for how others can best contribute. —Ryan Stoner, Phenomenon
9. Make Employees Part of Your Brand
As an agency, our employees are our brand. We’ve built a company culture where employees are not just contributors but part of our overall message. This requires our company and brand to include the values that everyone in the company wants to live by, so everyone feels a part of it. —Dan Golden, BFO (Be Found Online)
10. Encourage Brand Awareness and Hold a ‘Branding 101’ Crash Course
Before adopting cool marketing strategies that your employees can use when it comes to branding efforts, make sure they are 100% familiar with your brand. You’d be surprised how many people work for businesses where they don’t know what the company stands for or what sets them apart from the rest. Conduct a “Branding 101” crash course where your team can learn about the brand and why it’s unique. —Jared Brown, Hubstaff Talent
11. Turn Them Into Content Creators
Because we’re known as “marketing experts” at Hawke Media, we have every one of our 70 team members/marketing experts blog to share their knowledge and new discoveries on a monthly basis. This not only demonstrates their competence, but also helps our teammates learn to articulate their own expertise. —Erik Huberman, Hawke Media
12. Employees Should Develop Their Own Brands
Encourage them to invest time in their own brand. Give them the tools, resources, and time to have blogs as thought leaders, or teach them effective ways to use social media professionally. By building their individual brands, they gain credibility within your industry. That credibility creates credibility for your company brand. —Aviva Leebow Wolmer, Pacesetter
13. Find Your Creatives
Your business is bursting with creative energy, yet oftentimes that creative energy is untapped, hiding behind the guise of an employee occupying a completely non-creative position, such as the project manager who is also a designer or the web designer who writes beautiful prose. Tap into your team’s creativity and allow them to offer you their ideas; you never know what you’ll find. —Blair Thomas, First American Merchant
The post 13 Ways You Can Encourage Your Employees to Be Brand Builders appeared first on AllBusiness.com
The post 13 Ways You Can Encourage Your Employees to Be Brand Builders appeared first on AllBusiness.com. Click for more information about YEC.
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