In the first segment of our Building a Brand series, we defined what a brand is and the importance of differentiating your brand message within the financial industry. Once you’ve established that brand message and clarified your brand direction, it’s time to begin rolling out your new and enhanced financial brand.
Step One: Launching Your Financial Brand Internally
When launching a new brand, it is vital that you launch your brand internally first before beginning an external rollout to ensure a successful launch and to obtain buy-in and belief of your brand messaging and direction. Key stakeholders, employees, and third-party vendors you work with will need to have a deep understanding of your brand intent for it to translate clearly to your customers and target audiences.
As a marketer, you will often become the guardian of your brand. It will be your responsibility to level-set expectations and monitor brand messaging and consistency across your marketing channels and customer touchpoints. A completed and well-thought-out brand guide will be the lifeline for communicating brand expectations to your team members and vendors. It also provides a clear structure to hold projects accountable to and guardrails for others when are representing your brand. Don’t let your hard work get lost in implementation. Start by ensuring your team has clear access to all brand elements such as:
Logos – Provide updated logos in multiple mock-ups and formats (i.e., vertical and horizontal layouts, transparent .pngs, jpgs and .eps files and in various colors)
Typography – Ensure that all staff has the correct font files downloaded onto their computers so that the correct fonts load when they open brand templates or develop materials.
Icons and Imagery – Although not everyone in your company will be content creators, providing these elements will prevent employees from pulling in off-brand visuals when creating presentations, handouts, or messaging.
Pro Tip: Link to folders, not specific items when referencing brand assets. That ensures that the link does not get broken if updates get made to files and replaced in a folder location. This also helps your designers keep assets up to date and relevant for the whole team.
Step 2: External Brand Launch
Rolling out new brand elements into an existing and well-established brand can be an extremely daunting and overwhelming task. But fear not! We are here to help break it down for you and make sure you have a successful brand launch with our Financial Brand Implementation Checklist In an ideal world, updating all assets, digital, social, and physical environments would happen simultaneously. However, this is not always realistic when dealing with live environments or third-party vendors that manage various aspects of your marketing. To help you streamline priorities and keep your marketing moving forward, we have listed items in order of importance:
Mark your progress and gain additional insights with the full Checklist for Launching Your Brand.
Launching Brand Elements on a Website
Your website is the digital face of your company, typically the first impression online audiences have of your brand, your most trafficked “branch” and the primary source for online CTA’s for lead generation and customer support. Getting brand elements updated on your site first can be a quick win to help you implement the rest of your branding relaunch. Before you’re able to have a strong social, digital, or paid ads presence, you need to make sure your website delivers a consistent and strong brand message. Here are areas on your site to consider:
- Logo on Navigation Bar
- Typography Throughout the Site
- Homepage Hero
- Product Pages
- Footer
Launching Brand Elements on Social Media Profiles
Social media platforms are where you engage and interact with your customers, community, and online audience. Taking the time to establish consistency across your social channels has a monetary impact. According to Forbes, consistent branding across all platforms increases revenue by up to 23%. With various formats and use cases for each channel, reference our Social Media Image Size Guide to help effectively update all your images.
- Profile Photos
- Cover Photos
- Profile Bios and About Us Sections
- Brand Announcement Post – Establish a clear reference point on your social channel that marks where new brand elements will be used moving forward. On Twitter or Facebook, you can create a pinned post at the top of your profile to highlight your updated brand.
Launching Brand Elements at Branch Locations
Another beneficial reason of establishing a brand style guide is when it comes to the branch experience. Although, the website is fast becoming the most visited “branch”, traditional branches continue to play an integral role in servicing customers and is another touchpoint to be able to provide a remarkable experience.
- Logo
- Interior and Exterior Signage
- Handouts, Brochures and Business Cards
- Branch Colors and Interior Décor
Other Areas to Consider:
- Digital Ads
- Email Marketing
- Mobile App and Online Banking
- Online Business Listings
- Debit and Credit Cards
- Employee Reviews and Recognition Program
Digital Listings and Reputations Case Study
See how our Digital Listings and Reputation platform provided American State Bank opportunity to reach more customers and generate more positive reviews.
The best principle to operate by throughout the whole process is Progress over Perfection. A brand should be continually evolving and growing. You will have time to keep iterating so just focus one small win at a time and don’t loose sight of the bigger picture.
