What Is A Brand Ecosystem, and How Do You Create One for Optimal Marketing?
Congrats to all startups! You overcame the most critical and challenging part of becoming successful; starting is never easy! But now you have to scale, meaning your brand ecosystem has to be efficient and consistent.
So, what's a brand ecosystem, and how do you create one to reap the full benefits of your marketing efforts?
What Is A Brand Ecosystem?
A brand ecosystem entails all the pieces and parts of your brand. It's where your culture comes from and how your brand becomes a living, breathing entity. As we discussed in a previous post, the foundation is the Three Branding Musketeers that must all work together to build value: brand image, voice, and personality.
But the brand ecosystem is how it is implemented in every facet of your company from the inside out. It's the user experience you create for your current and prospective customers via multiple channels, like
Social media
Mass media & PR
Paid advertising
Website and e-commerce
Word of mouth
Brick & mortar points of sale
Brands are more than merely unique logos, catchy slogans, and appealing color palettes. Brands are how the market perceives your business and its products.
The goal of a brand ecosystem should be to design an experience with which customers look forward to engaging. It's not just about getting people interested in your business but also about creating an emotional connection and memorable experience.
How Do You Create An Impactful Brand Ecosystem?
Creating a thriving brand ecosystem takes effort and careful planning. It also takes deep introspection coupled with proactive strategizing. This post will offer high-level insight into the six steps brands should follow to create an impactful brand ecosystem.
1. Evaluate The Current Status Of Your Brand Positioning
Take a good, honest look at your logo, color palette, fonts, and any other visuals that make up your brand. Do they accurately reflect the values of the business? Are they properly conveying your message to potential customers? If not, it's time for an upgrade.
Taking inventory of your current brand ecosystem will also tell you how consistent your visuals are across all channels.
We recommend you check out our Customer Insights offer for in-depth and actionable insights about your brand. We evaluate what customers say about your brand and products, aiding in product development, message refinement, and brand positioning.
Of course, we'll also tell you how consistent your brand ecosystem is across all web and social publications.
2. Define and Refine Your Brand Values
Mission statements and value propositions are already in place. But have you correctly conveyed these to customers? Do all stakeholders agree on a definition of your corporate values?
Do all stakeholders enforce these values when interacting with customers?
If not, now's the time to create a unified vision and ensure everyone is on board.
We created a comprehensive checklist that automatically evaluates your brand's health to guide you in this process. Answer honestly into this free Brand Health Scorecard, and provide your email address for expert insights for taking your business to new heights!
Reviewing this quick read on the Three Branding Musketeers is also a great idea.
3. Design Tone and Visual Templates for Brand Ecosystem Consistency
Brand consistency is essential for customer recognition and trust. Visuals, such as logos, fonts, icons, patterns, and color palettes, must all be standardized across all web and social media publications. It helps customers to recognize your brand instantly.
Creating templates for all web and social channels ensures you always use the same visuals to promote your brand. Thus, get a well-informed designer to prepare templates for your:
Letterheads
Business cards
Websites
Social media posts and images
Email campaigns
Packaging and product stickers
For any text and spoken copy, style guides should be in place. These guidelines define the language and tonality you use for customer outreach. Write them to reflect your brand's values and personality, ensuring customers know what to expect from your products or services.
Hard Stop
We did this blog on harnessing the power of research and knowledge for brand content strategy, and we always like following our own advice. Reputable publishers like The National Library of Medicine confirm that the average reading span is declining with internet use. Epigram even cites a study that demonstrates the drop is from 12 to five minutes.
Thus, we're concluding this article here, not because we're done, but so you can reflect on this reading. Part two is coming soon, in which we go into two other subsequent steps, with an in-depth explanation of why your startup needs a comprehensive brand ecosystem strategy.
For now, we invite you to start with us; check out our range of products and services to help your brand grow and succeed.
