Branding, within the environment of an SME can be a very difficult thing. Everyone uses the brand, often without consultation of the marketing team, but they still want it to remain consistent and add value to the business. How do you keep a consistent brand without spending a large amount of time and money developing strict brand guidelines? For example how do you stop your production manager taking a low res Jpeg of your logo and having it printed on your work wear – that with a strap line that he has made up himself? How do you communicate with these 'non marketers' that the brand is an asset and should be treated as such. The brand should be treated like a product in terms if its quality control.
Perhaps that is the key, specifically in terms of production staff, although the brand should be explained as a physical product that also relates to quality control and consistency to yield the greatest results. Certainly for brand assets like logos and color this will work – but what about the intangibles – the brand culture, the things that really make a brand. Can these ever truly be appreciated by 'non marketers', especially non customer facing staff?
The brands culture, specifically in SME's can be the thing that sets a company apart from its competitors. A small quirky company that relations on a fun brand, innovation and the eccentricity of their staff will be lost without their strong brand culture. But can this really be understood by a manufacturing SME?
If this was to be related to traditional marketing thinking it would certainly focus on the People part of the four P's. It is the people that make a brand culture work. In terms of production staff think of a brand that relations on product quality as its key facet – the production people must be on board with this or the brand will fail.
Perhaps the key to developing a consistent brand, that the whole business will follow is communication and buy-in. Communicate the brand values ββin a language that the various departments will buy in, for production products and quality, for HR people skills / knowledge and for finance assets, value and income.
The key seems to be internal marketing – sometimes a brand requires as much marketing internally as it does externally to potential customers. Perhaps it is an even bigger challenge to market a brand to your own staff. It certainly is more important, as if it is not done right, the brand you are working so hard to communicate to your customers will be a very weak one.
