Let Employees Be the Brand
By: Paul Byrne
To enjoy business success, companies must prepare for both the challenges and opportunities within their market. Branding for businesses that rely heavily on person-to-person sales and outreach requires both traditional branding rigor (i.e. identifying consumer segments, formulating research to understand their needs, and properly communicating your brand promise) and appreciation of the emotional needs of sales staff and other team members. First and foremost, remember that the agency’s message is carried by your producers far more than through marketing materials, the Web site or any other media. Thus, depending on the type of offering and sales structure in place, producers or consumers should take the front seat in all branding considerations.
Your agency’s branding elements must serve your team members in two ways. They should: 1) create a badge of honor that they are proud to wear and, 2) help them clearly and easily communicate the brand essence to customers. Finding a core message for your brand can be especially challenging when your team members and consumers are demographically distinct. Finding a compelling middle ground that speaks to both may be difficult, but will prove fruitful in the long term.
While touching the hearts and minds of consumers should be the goal of every branding exercise, it is critical to consider internal players in this equation. The benefits to the end consumer may differ greatly from the benefits of being a staffer. Therefore, make sure your branding elements speak to both:
1. Why your team members got involved with your business, and
2. Why consumers prefer your offering.
While inconsistency in the treatment of the brand is an easily avoidable yet known killer of brand equity, it is also one of the most common mistakes companies make. Once the brand elements are defined, put them in writing, preach them throughout the organization and insist that all materials follow these guidelines whether developed by the company.
After defining our brand standards, we appointed a brand guardian who reviews all communications to the field and consumers. All of our outside communications resources have been trained in the brand essence and standards, and we re-emphasize it frequently to our field.
Everyone that uses your logo or brand name, from your business card printer to your CSR, must be grounded in your brand essence, its meaning and imagery. Creating a brand that truly resonates in the minds of all audiences, internally and externally, should be a continuous and evolving process. Following a disciplined marketing approach and investing some of your precious seed capital to make sure you get it right, will pay numerous dividends over the life of your brand.
Paul Byrne is CMO of Smart Circle International.
One Brand, Multiple Locations
EMC Insurance Companies, one of the largest property-casualty insurers in Iowa, has come a long way since 1911when the insurer opened the doors of its first location.
Today, EMC has expanded to include 21 offices and does business with approximately 3,000independent agents across 41 states. Over the last 90years, the insurer has relied on these offices and agents as the key components in developing and strengthening its brand, according to EMC President & CEO Bruce Kelley.
“We prefer to drive the brand home through our actions and over a long period of time,” Kelley says. “We’ve developed relationship with our agents who we’ve counted on for many years. We have some advertising, but it’s done through agents and through choice programs that we handle nationwide. You can count on us as company because we are reliable and stable. Many of these branches, like Wichita (Kanasas), have been open since 1932.”
EMC has been a supporter of the independent agency system since its inception and because its branding efforts rely almost exclusively on independent agents, the insurer decided to partner with Trusted Choice® in July 2007. A year later, Kelley says the collaboration has been a perfect compliment to EMC’s branding message, “Count on EMC,” which stands for reliability, stability and excellent customer service.“
Because our exclusive marketing is the independent agency system, we recognize that the policyholders or the insurance-buying public has a choice on what agent they want to go with,” he says. “And the Trusted Choice® message is quite consistent with our ‘Count on EMC’ message because we want the policyholders and consumers to think of an independent agency as someone they can trust their business with and at the same time count on EMC for that business.”
Your agency’s branding elements must serve your team members in two ways. They should: 1) create a badge of honor that they are proud to wear and, 2) help them clearly and easily communicate the brand essence to customers. Finding a core message for your brand can be especially challenging when your team members and consumers are demographically distinct. Finding a compelling middle ground that speaks to both may be difficult, but will prove fruitful in the long term.
While touching the hearts and minds of consumers should be the goal of every branding exercise, it is critical to consider internal players in this equation. The benefits to the end consumer may differ greatly from the benefits of being a staffer. Therefore, make sure your branding elements speak to both:
1. Why your team members got involved with your business, and
2. Why consumers prefer your offering.
While inconsistency in the treatment of the brand is an easily avoidable yet known killer of brand equity, it is also one of the most common mistakes companies make. Once the brand elements are defined, put them in writing, preach them throughout the organization and insist that all materials follow these guidelines whether developed by the company.
After defining our brand standards, we appointed a brand guardian who reviews all communications to the field and consumers. All of our outside communications resources have been trained in the brand essence and standards, and we re-emphasize it frequently to our field.
Everyone that uses your logo or brand name, from your business card printer to your CSR, must be grounded in your brand essence, its meaning and imagery. Creating a brand that truly resonates in the minds of all audiences, internally and externally, should be a continuous and evolving process. Following a disciplined marketing approach and investing some of your precious seed capital to make sure you get it right, will pay numerous dividends over the life of your brand.
Paul Byrne is CMO of Smart Circle International.
One Brand, Multiple Locations
EMC Insurance Companies, one of the largest property-casualty insurers in Iowa, has come a long way since 1911when the insurer opened the doors of its first location.
Today, EMC has expanded to include 21 offices and does business with approximately 3,000independent agents across 41 states. Over the last 90years, the insurer has relied on these offices and agents as the key components in developing and strengthening its brand, according to EMC President & CEO Bruce Kelley.
“We prefer to drive the brand home through our actions and over a long period of time,” Kelley says. “We’ve developed relationship with our agents who we’ve counted on for many years. We have some advertising, but it’s done through agents and through choice programs that we handle nationwide. You can count on us as company because we are reliable and stable. Many of these branches, like Wichita (Kanasas), have been open since 1932.”
EMC has been a supporter of the independent agency system since its inception and because its branding efforts rely almost exclusively on independent agents, the insurer decided to partner with Trusted Choice® in July 2007. A year later, Kelley says the collaboration has been a perfect compliment to EMC’s branding message, “Count on EMC,” which stands for reliability, stability and excellent customer service.“
Because our exclusive marketing is the independent agency system, we recognize that the policyholders or the insurance-buying public has a choice on what agent they want to go with,” he says. “And the Trusted Choice® message is quite consistent with our ‘Count on EMC’ message because we want the policyholders and consumers to think of an independent agency as someone they can trust their business with and at the same time count on EMC for that business.”
—Michelle Payne
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