How to implement brand values in your company 

Branding

We all want to be known for something whether we like it or not. I have a reputation in my house for spending way too long on DIY projects (Rome wasn’t built in a day and as it turns out neither is my house renovation!). I would hope though that I have a reputation for being a loyal friend, caring parent and loving spouse. 

Organisations are no different. Companies spend a lot of time trying to win over customers by bigging up their reputation, explaining what they’re known for and what makes them special. This is what we call “brand values” in the digital marketing world. 

It’s very easy to dismiss the idea of brand values. Words like “dynamic”, “fun” and “exciting” have been so overused (and under delivered) that they are little more than cliches that cause business owners to roll their eyes when a well-meaning marketing agency mentions the word “branding”.

We agree to an extent, our industry is guilty of many bad-branding crimes.

But, far from being marketing mumbo-jumbo, brand values can really supercharge your company. Fair warning though, these should be authentic and run through the DNA of the organisation. It’s no good slapping an adjective on your website’s homepage if this is not reflected throughout your company.

Before we get to implementing brand values though, let’s define them and explain how they can help your business. Afterall, if it doesn’t impact your bottom line positively, there’s no point in doing it.

What are brand values?

A big part of our work involves sitting down with companies and figuring out who they are. This cannot be limited to “we want to make money” or “we’re here to provide service X”. It has to be a collection of values that sets you out apart from the rest. You have to be delivering something more than just your service; a quality that really appeals to your target market.

One of the easiest ways to think about what your brand values might be is to pose the question “if your business was a superhero, what evil would you be fighting against?”. Once you know what you’re fighting it’s easy to think of what value would be the antidote to that particular evil. Those qualities become your brand values.

Brand values vs company values

Some may be wondering at this point: I’ve heard of company values, and this “brand value” malarkey seems to be very similar. What’s the difference? And if we have company values, surely we don’t need brand values too.

Company values refer to the set of values that a company practices internally, whereas your brand values are those that clients associate with your company (whether you want them to or not!). When done properly, brand values and company values should align. Your company’s values should be reflected so well and implemented so well, that your clients come to understand this and associate your company with your values. 

When there is no alignment, the brand becomes associated with values that the company does not reflect. There is a disconnect between the two. 

When we talk about brand values, we are talking about the values that your clients and employees should both experience equally. An employee should feel the impact of your values, just like a client does. There should be consistency. 

In some ways, this article is borne out of the fact that many companies forget to explain their values on their website, or ignore their values when dealing with their employees. We want to address that disconnect in this article.

How do they help your company?

Answering this question properly could be a whole blog post. But, as that’s not the main reason I’ve written this post, so I’ll keep it brief!

In short, brand values present your prospects with a reason to choose you over one of your competitors. When faced with a marketplace chock full of similar companies, how can you stand out from the crowd? Brand values present you with an opportunity to define and describe yourself. From this, you are able to present your prospects with a reason why you will impact them positively.

Brand Values: an example

It’s easier to see this work out in an example. So, let’s try and give you a worked example.

Let’s say you are a corporate catering company and you specialise in providing canape receptions. What are things that you really hate other corporate catering companies doing to their clients? It might be providing poor-quality canapes. It could be turning up late. It might even be subcontracting poor quality agency staff to act as servers in order to maximise costs.

Therefore, the evils you may want to fight against are:

1.      Poor quality products

2.      Poor service (in terms of staff attitude)

3.      Being late

Then work backwards to the personal values that these behaviours are revealing about the caterer’s competitors. The values are greed and lack of consideration for others – they don’t care about how important your event might be to you. They certainly don’t care about whether you look good in front of your guests, and they’re not bothered about causing stress by turning up late.

Once you know the evil that you’re fighting against, it becomes really easy to say what you want to be; simply write down the opposite qualities.

So, our imaginary catering company’s values would be:

1.      Generous

2.      Considerate

Our imaginary catering company would see these values working themselves out in particular ways. So, as a company that embodies the value of generosity, they would aim to always build their canapes out of a high-quality products, not the cheapest ingredients. They would also be considerate in the way they approached working with their client; they would recognise that the event is of significance to them, and ensure they reduced their stress as much as possible by turning up on time. If their digital marketing company was any good (ahem!) they would ensure these values and practices were explained on their website so that prospects could read about how our catering company would impact their business.  

Clients who have been let down by late catering companies in the past, or who have been disappointed with the quality of a catering company’s product in the past would seek out companies that promised to fight these particular evils and promised to be generous and considerate in their service.

How to implement brand values externally

For your company, think about the following:

1.     Your service

How are your clients going to feel the impact of your brand values in terms of the service you are providing?

2.     Your online presence

As a digital marketing company, we would encourage this company to communicate those values in the copy they include on their website and any marketing content created. You would want new leads to knowing that you operate a generous, considerate company and give examples of how they would feel the impact.

3.     Your premises/assets

If your clients visit your premises, can they say that there has been an attempt to care for your staff? If you claim to be a generous company, and the premises are dirty and the staff wearing a mish-mash of patched-together corporate clothing, it’s going to undermine your claim that you are a generous company. Think about how your brand values work their way out in the practical assets that you own.

Essentially, your values should result in certain actions; actions that will deliver a real impact to your client. Your values should impact your client tangibly; they should be able to feel this difference in you.

But values should not just characterise your behaviour towards your client. They should flow through every part of your company.

Your employees, contractors and suppliers should also feel the impact of those values for you to truly embody them.

How to ensure your brand values are embodied internally.

1.     Workshop

After you have identified your brand values, it is important that you map out how you are going to implement them at every level. We always recommend you do this in the form of a workshop. It’s important that you involve key workers from each area of your business. So, someone from Sales, someone from Admin, Technicians, Operatives or Staff Members; make sure that you have a representative from every key area.

Take each brand value and ask them how they could imagine that value being worked out in practical ways in their department/area.

I would say that at the start of this process, make sure you reassure them that all their ideas will be respected (even if you disagree with them), but also make clear that not every idea can be implemented.  

These ideas can then be discussed at a higher level and those with real potential put into practice.

2.     Get buy-in

It is impossible to implement brand value throughout a company if you do not have buy-in from each area of your company. If you include those who are involved in the day-to-day running of the business, you instantly give them ownership of the outcome. They’re invested in seeing through the outworking of their ideas and passing on that enthusiasm to their colleagues. You may always get the vocal minority that is derogatory towards any changes that you try to implement but involving those who you feel really care about the company will go a long way to getting those who are sitting on the fence on your side.

3.     Embody them

I think though, that one of the best ways to help your brand values feed throughout your whole company is to ensure that you embody them yourself. How can you claim that your company is generous and considerate if you do not practice those qualities yourself as a leader? A leader should set an example for others to follow, otherwise, the brand is undermined by hypocrisy.

A worked example

We’ll carry on working out this thought experiment using our lovely corporate catering company of choice, La Canape de Excellence. We are going to imagine that they took their values of generosity and consideration and ran a workshop with their chief cook, office manager and a member of the front-of-house staff.

Based on their ideas they decided to do the following:

1.     Value One: Generosity

• Their generosity results in them offering a Christmas bonus every year, even if it means the Directors get less than they want.
• They decide to provide some generous employee benefits, in terms of private health insurance and tech benefits.
• To the best of their ability, they are determined to pay contractors and suppliers ahead of time.
• They decide to write Google reviews for all the suppliers and contractors so that they may be able to grow their own businesses.

2.     Value Two: Consideration

• In terms of being considerate, our corporate catering company decide to renovate the staff’s break room facilities, as they were basic, but not comfortable.
• On a personal level, the Managing Director decides to send birthday cards and Christmas cards to employees to show his gratitude for their contribution to his company.  

Brand values need to be consistent

If I was to sum up how to implement brand values throughout your business, both internally and externally, I would use the phrase: be consistent. Clients can tell when you’re not practising what you preach. Strong brand values can supercharge a company, helping mark them out against their competitors and generate leads from clients that you really want. Hypocrisy will only damage your business in the long-term.