You pay for brand strategy whether you buy it or not.
Before brand strategy, Backcountry Squatters ran the danger of seeming like an outdoor club for privileged college women. After brand strategy, it was established as a worthwhile non-profit that fostered connections, confidence, and leadership that advanced women in their careers faster after graduation. Photo courtesy Backcountry Squatters
Brand strategy seems expensive—until you consider how much you pay NOT having it.
1. You’re spending up to 50% of every project budget just to get to the point you’d already be with brand strategy in place.
When you don’t have your messaging and voice dialed into a handy reference doc, you wind up “recreating the wheel” EVERY TIME. On every project. Over and over again. Forever.
With a comprehensive brand strategy, every project is already partway done.
2. You’re forcing each employee to put their own “spin” on things, weakening whatever organic brand clout you have.
Nobody’s working from the same script…so everyone’s coming up with their “best guess” on what your brand should be. That dilutes your brand in the market, losing sales and donations. What’s worse, it places unfair pressure on your employees to continually generate temporary brand strategy stand-ins...a crappy task where they can’t win.
Easy fix. A strong brand strategy gives EVERYONE the same roadmap, heading in precisely the right direction.
3. You’re shelling out for expensive, high-stakes meetings to debate which direction to go…instead of quickly referring to an agreed-upon strategy.
Meetings are about making a decision. And without a brand strategy, you have to make a lot of decisions…and that means mucho meetings. Long ones.
Without a strategy in place, everyone’s trying to uphold the brand for themselves. Their contribution feels personal. So not only are those meetings long, they demand sensitivity and careful framing to make sure everyone’s opinion feels valued and appreciated.
Know what’s 100x easier? Referring to the brand guide and saying “oh, it looks like that goes against our standards.” Or, “wow, that idea really supports brand pillar two—approved!” DONE. Nothing personal, nothing sensitive, and often, no meeting required.
A professional, management-level employee costs your organization about $70/hour. (Source: Department of Labor Statistics) Meaning that five-person, two-hour brainstorm session that could have been a four minute email just cost you $700. Have one of those a week, and in two months, you could have just bought a brand strategy that would last you five to ten years.
4. You’re losing good employees and suffering endless turnover because people are tired of wasting time and feeling under-resourced.
People who work for non-profits and social good enterprises are used to working lean—they’re wizards at efficiency. So when they’re constantly asked to reinvent the wheel, forge ahead without a brand strategy, and endlessly debate decisions that they KNOW could be solved by strategy (and trust me: they know), they get frustrated and move on. And that’s devastatingly expensive for you.
Armed with a brand strategy, these same employees can move forward fluidly, leveraging their good ideas. Which is exactly what keeps them around and making real change.
5. You’re missing out on big sales and big donations because people don’t connect with your appeal.
One of the biggest financial drains of all might just be the money you didn’t know you could earn. Often, there’s a big misconception that needs to be cleared up, like how people thought the Eating Disorder Center of Montana would be a cold, clinical hospital…when in reality, it’s a warm, welcoming day therapy center. Sometimes, people only understand one small PART of your mission. And more often than you’d think, even your employees don’t truly understand what you do.
Proper brand strategy hones in on what your organization REALLY does in a way that connects people to that cause.
6. You’re paying for trainings, consultants, and marketing packages that fail to solve your central problem (that you need a brand strategy).
Needing a brand strategy rarely looks like needing a brand strategy. It looks like marketing that doesn’t deliver. It looks like employees who can’t seem to keep up with PR demands. It looks like disappointed customers, a listless board, and rejected funding opportunities. So you pour more money into leadership seminars, hire the company culture guru, and book a bunch of Facebook ads…and it doesn’t work. Why?
If you’ve read this far, you know why. But here’s the secret: with a great brand strategy, all that stuff CAN go far, if you do choose to do it after. But you gotta start with the basics.
I’ve been building non-profit and social good brand strategies that launch organizations through the stratosphere for approximately nine hundred copywriter years.
My brand strategy pays for itself, over and over again.
Not all brand strategies are built alike. Mine are customized towards non-profits and do-good businesses, taking into account their more complex stories and needs. There’s no need to keep hemorrhaging cash and missing opportunities—let’s get your brand dialed to crank up your traction.
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