10 Essential Branding Activities You HAVE to Do Every Day!

What are you and the members of your firm doing to brand your firm on a day-to-day basis? Consider these tips to add to your quiver of marketing and branding techniques:

1. Make sure that EVERYONE in your company knows: a) what branding is and b) what branding is for your firm. An annual primer on branding and how your firm builds your brand can be accomplished during your regularly scheduled company meetings.
   
2. Honor and respect your company brand. Your company brand means something to you, your clients and the marketplace. Treat it with respect and show people that you are proud of your firm and what it stands for as reinforced with your brand.
3. Everything your firm produces from letters and proposals to advertising and image building has to look and feel like your brand. A continuous thread of image and consistency needs to permeate everything your firm does. Several images, logos and looks only confuse your clients when they come to think of you. Regardless of divisions or departments, your firm should have “one look” that runs through everything you produce.
4. Be prepared to “Re-Brand” yourself. History shows us that many long-standing successful firms re-brand themselves at critical junctures in their history. Sometimes a branding refresher exercise is not enough to accomplish your brand objectives and a major branding initiative is needed to accomplish the strategies, goals and objectives of a diversifying firm.
5. Let your clients brand your firm! Beyond just getting a favorable reference for a job well done, your clients’ word and belief in our firms goes further than what you can say about yourselves. Constantly be on the lookout for clients who will help build your brand with newer clients.
6. Brand for future markets. As a result of good strategic planning and positioning, new markets will constantly emerge for your practices. Using our brand-base foundation, you need to ready your brand for these new directions that will entail new technologies, media and procurement methods.
7. Learn some techniques from your best competitors. Take a look at how competators brand their firms and “borrow” the good ideas and make them your own.
8. Believe, believe, believe in your brand! We all know that is easier to get up in the morning and engage in our practice when you truly believe in what you do and practice. Do everything that you can to make your employees believe in, and be proud of, your brand.
9. Be ready to brand your firm at a moment’s notice. Opportunities come up throughout the year when you need to engage in sponsorships and leadership events to promote your brand. Be ready when these “off-calendar” activities arise and make good business decisions for which level to participate.
10. Always remember the branding basics. The core values and beliefs of a company form the cornerstones of the firm’s branding program. These include total truth, superior execution and responsive delivery.

To successfully brand your firm you need to follow these 10 essential tips. Without them, you will not stand out from the pack at the most critical times. And to truly be successful in your business, branding must be an important part of your business develoment plan. To learn more about firm branding and how it can bring in the work you need for a successful year, join PSMJ this spring for our Business Development for A/E/C Firms seminar, coming to 6 locations across North America. Get the tools and confidence you need to succeed in bringing in more work for the firm – register today!