Strong brands can be tangible assets with real equity. But sometimes, building a brand requires gathering support and resources from others – C-Suite, partners, investors, committees. And that means you may need to make a business case for brand investment at your organization.
We recently had a piece featured in Brandingmag about six ways it pays to invest in your brand. Here are the highlights.
"The Business Case for Brand Investment" – see the full article in Brandingmag (July 29, 2022).
Six ways a brand investment can pay off
How can you demonstrate your brand is an asset and not an expense? Our Brandingmag article covers six popular areas, both external and internal:
Attract more of the right customers. Brand investment can drive traffic and feed your sales pipeline by keeping you top of mind with a more relevant audience.
Close sales more easily. Clear positioning and messaging can help to close sales at a higher rate, and even shorten the sales cycle (what's that worth to your company?).
Command a premium price. People pay more for brands that establish meaningful differentiation and instill peace of mind. Higher perceived value, higher margins.
Improve employee retention. Because it often plays a big role in company culture, brand investment can impact employee recruiting, morale, performance, and retention.
Reduce marketing costs. A brand with consistent messaging and design can run marketing initiatives more efficiently. Also makes it easier to onboard new content creators.
Boost the value of the company. Brand equity hits a whole new level during key events like raising capital, selling shares, going public, mergers or acquisitions.
So how do you get the green light for brand investment? Pick the KPIs that matter to your business. Any of the six areas above can be quantified – a 5% margin increase here, a 10% reduction in marketing costs there. Define two or three and show how a stronger brand can help achieve them.
Because a strong brand has real value. But it takes real resources to bring it out.
