Brand Shimming – How to adjust your brand digitally
Brands need to constantly evolve and change according to their environment, competitors, and their audience. Remaining static is not an option. Brands should be fluid to be able to flex with the times. Understanding how social media intersects and affects brand reputation keeps many CEOs awake at night. Embarking on wholesale change can be terrifying. Business leaders need to accept that their brand is owned by their stakeholders, and their marketing is a moving target. It’s a bit like being a parent; you can provide the guidance and foundation for your view of life, but ultimately your kids will make their own decisions. Your audience is in charge and there is not a demographic or an omnichannel approach that will work for everyone.
A brand should express your values and vision. It has to be compelling and has enough personality and flexibility so it can expand and morph while being authentic to who you are and what you stand for. Failure is a certain thing when it comes to branding – it is how you react to failure and how you define it, that makes the difference. If your brand is solid, small glitches and failures are learning experiences, not epic failures that require PR help. Understanding your brand and your audiences can allow you to choose approaches that allow both flexibility and reaction. Most importantly, it can provide proactive planning that can help to avoid missteps.
A shim is a slim piece of wood that carpenters use to raise or level a surface gradually until they find the perfect fit. Using multiple pieces until the level is achieved, is a way to finesse, rather than bludgeon a way into a solution. A brand shim can provide that ability to feel out the market – a small series of strategic approaches that can create a different ‘level’, filling a space without huge disruption until you determine if it is the right way to fill the gap.
But before you embrace this heuristic approach, make sure you do your homework to both identify and understand your various audiences. This will allow some possible nuanced approaches within a brand voice. There should be a strong USP or brand position, but it can be communicated in a variety of ways and also simply be a jumping off point for some more customized messaging to specific audience groups. What is valuable to one audience may not be of interest to another group. Brands should be fluent in their personas but consistent in context.
Creating personas based on research is fundamental to communications planning. Being methodical about whom you are talking to is important, but also adapting your content to these audiences in an authentic way is necessary. Brands have to be emotionally connected to their audiences and yet be functional in how they speak to the individual’s tastes and expectations. And they have to be able to pivot and adapt to tell their story in an evolving way.
This means starting with a solid brand position, supporting it with audience research to identify personas and then translating this into a marketing and communications strategy. If this sounds complicated – it is. Digital agencies with brand expertise are able to provide what used to be called ‘full service.’ Truly evolved agencies have a research arm or association that can provide clients with the peace-of-mind that cements both brand and message development, and sometimes even business decisions. Having research, creative and digital strategy all in-house is more than full-service, it makes your marketing partner a true business partner.
Are You Agile Enough?
Almost everything online is measurable. Google has what it calls the ZMOT - Zero Moment of Truth to explain and measure online decision-making. Google Analytics can be a powerful research tool to examine when your audience is engaging – or disengaging. You can then do something about it if it is the latter. Being criticized for being too corporate? Try two different approaches in social media; one more casual or humorous to see what your audience engages with.
You can also flex according to the medium. Search can indicate high intent, and so brevity and being specific with a call-to-action often works best, whereas social media can have more latitude. Change your Google paid search ad approach without discarding keywords, but adding specific differentiation. Create A/B or multivariant testing with different online approaches. Try different posts on Facebook to see what works best. Continuing to adjust – or ‘shim’ will keep your brand on track and generating ROI.