Brand perception is one of those things that is hard to define, and even harder to control. Customers will put you in a box no matter how well you market your business, and it's up to you to work with what they think. The market tells you what it wants, and you need to make sure your brand is meeting their needs.
Understand current perceptions
Forget about what you think your audience might think – this is a time for clear-cut answers. You need to know how people see your brand today to make effective decisions about how they might see it tomorrow. Keep your beady eye on the gap between how you want people to see you, and how they actually see you. There's usually a difference.
Talk to people
This could be anything. Maybe a survey. Or interviews with customers. The important thing is to get speaking directly with people who use your brand. That process should reveal what they feel about your brand. At this point, many brands get cold feet because you'll probably hear some negative comments or even pure apathy. But you can only fix a weakness if you know about it, so talking to people to make sure you know what to fix is an important step in changing brand perception.
Take ego out of it
It's common for someone with power to want to put their stamp on what your brand stands for. In the most extreme cases (think Virgin, Tesla, Apple) the founders and CEOs are the brand, so they get a free pass here. That said - John in Accounts doesn't (sorry John.) The best choice is to focus on understanding your customer, and position your brand around what they thing rather than internal comments.
Keep it tight
Staying on message takes discipline and planning. If you ask 20 people what they think your brand stands for, you'll get 20 different answers. You could pass those 20 different opinions down to the customer via your marketing. Or you could decide what the most powerful messages are and stick to a core idea or two that you want to leave your customers with.
While it's important to get buy in from the whole organisation, not everyone has to agree with it. Your brand should have a tight positioning to the whole market or a target segment that you can summarise in a word or two. If you can't do that, it's probably too complicated.
Update assets
Once you've identified the way forward, you need to make sure your current brand is fit for purpose. Do your visuals and tone of voice match the new brand perception you're aiming for? You might want a complete overhaul, or you might want to make a subtle change to keep things on track.
Communicate
This is when the rubber hits the road! Time to take everything you've learned and put it into action. You want to tell the story about what your brand stands for today. That might involve new social media assets, and updating your website to make sure your content matches what you want to say. And it could mean running a more defined campaign too.
Track your results
Many clients worry that brand perception is hard to track. And it's true that you don't get a classic ROI figure on your branding efforts. But that doesn't mean you can't track your progress. By re-running the same surveys that you did at the start of the process, you can work out if your changes are making the difference.
Remember. Brands are like a big ship. They take a long time to build and even longer to turn around. But if you're patient and stick to your plan, people will see your brand in the best possible light.
