Do your staff have the right tools, inspiration and education to do this? Does everyone understand why a strong brand matters and what you are hoping to achieve with it? If they don’t, you could risk your credibility with customers.

If branding were communicated internally with the same commitment as health and safety, for example, imagine the effect. Because one of the most important communication channels in B2B is your own staff. When we do our brand tracking surveys, we look at the value proposition of the brand – we ask everyone what it stands for. If we get many different answers from within the company, it’s not a good sign. Branding isn’t just about marketing – it needs to be built on real values and represent truth to attract and retain trust in the marketplace. This truth must be communicated from the inside out, consistently and repeatedly.

Keeping the brand alive internally gives employees a sense of purpose at work and helps nurture and unite the company culture. Staff cannot be true to the value proposition if they have forgotten what it is. Every communication, internal and external, should be aligned with the value proposition. In other words, it should be ‘on brand’. Consistency is key and requires engagement from all departments, not just marketing and communications.

There’s a strong link between branding outwards and company values, which direct how the company behaves to achieve its goals. If branding and value go in separate directions, there’s a risk of losing credibility. And once credibility is gone, it can take years to recover. Brand tracking can be a useful tool to track any cracks as they appear and repair them before the brand is damaged.

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