Why Brand Management Matters

We live in a world of complexity, one that has changed the way consumers interact with brands online. Instead of only needing one or two touch points to make a purchase, consumers, on average, need closer to five or six before making a decision. That means they could visit your social media accounts, website, Google ads, blogs, and other channels while still deciding whether or not to buy from your company. In order for consumers to have a positive experience, your brand and it’s core messaging must remain consistent across each channel.

As a brand manager, it’s your job to make sure every employee in your organization is consistently using on-brand, compliant materials. Many companies fall short in this department though. In fact, Gleanster found the #1 reason companies struggle with multi-channel communication is poor content and brand asset management is. Let’s find out why.

What is Brand Management?

In marketing, brand management is the process of maintaining, improving, and upholding a brand so that the name is associated with positive results.

With so many people using the brand to communicate services to consumers across so many channels, it’s imperative to have a good foundation with clear brand guidelines. Brand managers are responsible for setting standards and providing guidance for anyone developing marketing materials, both internal and external. This includes vendor partners, printers, and agencies acting as brand and marketing extensions of your department, and anyone internally who represents your brand and your brand image.

Why Does Brand Management Matter?

Brand integrity.

Brand management, ultimately, is a powerful component of strategic communications at any company, helping to ensure the integrity of your company’s image and its brand promise in the world.

If employees, partners, and clients can’t find the right marketing piece they need, they may decide to go rogue and create their own. Strategic brand management empowers teams to have easy access to the latest branded and approved marketing materials, while maintaining full brand compliance.

Reduced external expenses.

Whether a flyer, a poster, an email campaign, or a Powerpoint presentation, brand assets are a consistent need throughout organizations, especially those with global and distributed teams. That’s quite a tall order for marketers with limited resources.

By controlling brand management through a marketing on-demand solution, marketers can facilitate a reduction in costs by improving accessibility to marketing materials, empowering customization on the fly, while increasing brand awareness. Selecting specific vendors can further control cost.

Staff productivity and reduced time-to-market.

While the fundamental purpose of brand management is to build and protect your company’s brand image, executing it well can also help an organization maximize its resources and avoid waste. Did you know workers spend 8.8 hours every week, on average, just hunting down the right information? If you can cut that number down, your employees could increase efficiencies. Work smarter, not harder, you know?

For example, rather than designers and writers having to develop one-off assets per request from field reps, branch offices, or franchise locations, centralized brand management can instead create focus on bigger, larger-scale, multi-use content and assets or templates that improve their efforts companywide. This allows teams to run faster, and reduce the time-to-market of their communication materials.

Is There a Tool That Can Help?

Yes. Brand management software (also known as Marketing Asset Management) was created to build and protect your brand across all the channels used to reach and engage with customers, prospects, and partners. Unlike internally-developed processes and systems, brand management software is a unique class of content management technology built especially for the challenges facing marketers. You can learn more about brand management software here.

Real-life Case Study: 

Rather than bog down marketers with one-off requests, Orlando Health empowers employees with MarcomCentral’s brand management software. Users are able to find and customize brand compliant materials throughout the organization, without asking Marketing for assistance.

Discover how to build your brand, maintain brand consistency, and strengthen brand equity with MarcomCentral like Orlando Health. View the webinar recording.