Four Ways To Live Your Brand Across The Entire Financial Institution

One question we often hear during a rebrand (once you’ve determined your vision, decided your niches, crafted your message and created your new visuals) is “What’s next?”

The simple answer: you must operationalize your brand. While I use the word “simple,” operationalizing your brand is anything but simple.

However, the credit unions and banks that have the most success with brand initiatives are those that that invest in taking deeper steps with their brand. They move it from being a marketing initiative to an organizational wide initiative.

They operationalize their brand. But how do you live your brand across the entire credit union or bank? Here are four ways to operationalize your brand:

• Journey Map the Process
• You should know exactly what you want consumers to do when they come into your branches, are on your phones or are doing something online. In other words, you need to map their journey. If you don’t spell out that exact journey then your employees will struggle to deliver a consistent experience.

• Set Brand Standards
• It’s not enough to have a process. You also must have standards in place. What you expect your employees to do. Every. Single. Time. This is where marketing meets human resources. Every employee evaluation should include a line about “how well are you living our brand standards.” The more specific these standards are the better results you will generate.

• Hold Employees Accountable
• Of course journeys and standards don’t mean anything if you don’t enforce them. You will never operationalize your brand if you don’t hold your people accountable for their actions. You must answer the question, “What do we do when one of our employees is not living our brand?” If you don’t take your brand consistency seriously (to the point of enforcement) then don’t expect to see brand consistency throughout the organization.

• Train Employees To Your Brand
• Employees cannot live (or operationalize) what they don’t know. Your team must see a direct connection between their day to day job and your brand. You only achieve that level of efficient operations through training. We give our employees robbery training, compliance training and systems training. Until you invest in their brand training then you will have gaps between your staff, your operations and your brand.

Remember, great brands are built by people. Your people. Involving your team in the brand process through the above steps gives them ownership with your brand. And it also operationalizes your brand.

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