How to meet management requirements when investing in a DAM
Papirfly
3minutes read
You may have heard the expression DAM? Or you have heard colleagues talk about it? Probably because these days, content is EVERYTHING.
Companies and digital systems
In today’s society, all companies have the need to invest and adopt technology that enables competitiveness and increased revenues. With a large selection of tools, it’s difficult to find the right course. Everyone would like a product that pays its own dues and anticipate where in the lifetime cycle you will break even.
You may have heard the expression DAM? Or you have heard colleagues talk about it? Probably because these days, content is EVERYTHING.
Companies and digital systems
In today’s society, all companies have the need to invest and adopt technology that enables competitiveness and increased revenues. With a large selection of tools, it’s difficult to find the right course. Everyone would like a product that pays its own dues and anticipate where in the lifetime cycle you will break even.
You may have heard the expression DAM? Or you have heard colleagues talk about it? Probably because these days, content is EVERYTHING.
Companies and digital systems
In today’s society, all companies have the need to invest and adopt technology that enables competitiveness and increased revenues. With a large selection of tools, it’s difficult to find the right course. Everyone would like a product that pays its own dues and anticipate where in the lifetime cycle you will break even.
Actionable tips for solid employer brand governance
Papirfly
6minutes read
Why is employer branding important?
One of the biggest mistakes in employer branding is that it can easily become disconnected from what drives it in the first place — the core mission and values of your business. This is what defines your company and should come through in everything it says, does and creates.
When constrained to your HR department, or only associated with superficial perks, your employer branding is missing its potential to create a company-wide impact on everything from your talent attraction and employee retention, to your output and – ultimately – business revenue.
A positive employer brand is something your company should be shouting about, and not just in the office. As well as being a way for potential candidates to get an insight into what your work environment is really like, it gives consumers a chance to see the human side of your brand and what it really stands for.
Your employees will thank you too. By communicating with your staff to understand the things they love about their work, how you can make it even better for them, and what drives them day-to-day, you can put them at the centre of your employer branding and foster a positive company culture. The benefits of a people-first employer branding strategy include better staff morale, more chances to improve their skills within the company and a better chance of creating advocates for your brand.
Establishing strong brand governance is the first step to getting everyone in your company on-board with your employer brand and become brand ambassadors — from C-Suite execs, to new interns.
What is brand governance in the context of employer branding?
Brand governance is integral to achieving this level of consistency at scale and across local markets. At its core, brand governance is a way to make sure everything that’s produced by your brand is aligned with the same consistent thread that encapsulates the look and feel of your brand, the way it behaves and what makes it unique.
While successful employer branding needs to be governed and embodied by senior leadership teams, the same core values, mission and sense of purpose need to reach everyone in the company, even if they are based in multiple locations.
Below, we’ve outlined the top considerations for making your employer brand shine with watertight brand governance.
6 steps for governing your employer brand
#1 Understand cultural nuance
If your company has employees working in different locations, then your employer brand strategy needs to go further than just one office. Without taking cultural nuances and work practices of each market into account, you run the risk of your messaging completely missing the mark, or worse, actually offending your audience and harming employee engagement. Don’t fall into the trap of assuming that your messaging translates word for word in every country, or that your images will be received the same way. Your company culture has to translate for the local culture.
Taking an employer brand campaign global isn’t just a case of switching the languages. To avoid any embarrassing miscommunication from your employer branding activities, you need to find a way to align the central values and purpose of your company with what resonates with employees, candidates and consumers in specific locations.
#2 Accommodate different candidate pools
Across the board, organisations with a diverse workforce benefit from faster growth, a boost in reputation and a large global impact. If you only seem to attract the same kind of talent, then it’s probably a sign that your employer branding only resonates with a small talent pool.
Again, this is a case of working to better understand your audience and the different motivations, concerns, challenges and priorities within them. To attract and retain a truly diverse range of candidates, you need to think beyond the obvious categories and make sure that each is represented in your employer branding strategy.
It’s then important to communicate with authenticity, using messaging that you can back up with the way your company behaves.
#3 Get organised. Get a DAM.
When your employer branding is on a roll, and you have watertight brand governance to ensure global consistency, your teams are ready to produce assets to their heart’s content. Almost.
To avoid the chaos that can come with global asset production, they need somewhere to store, share and structure the materials they created using a Digital Asset Management system (DAM). Having a visual, well-organised filing system will make finding and sharing relevant assets quick and easy, and prevent your brand’s materials being misused.
#4 Keep your EVP consistent
For your employer value proposition to make any real impact on your brand it needs to land in the same way, anywhere your company operates. Without understanding how they translate in different local markets, your core values and purpose are at risk of being misinterpreted, or meaning something totally different depending on where you are in the world. Ultimately, you need to take steps to provide the consistent message your people need.
When you include teams from across the globe in your brand governance, they’ll have a clear understanding of how to implement it in their local markets.
#5 Simplify sign-off and approvals
In the midst of global talent recruitment campaigns, staying on top of approving hundreds of marketing materials accurately and in time for launch can be time-consuming, not to mention a stressful task for brand managers.
For the peace of mind that all your materials are consistent, accounted for and ready for market, having a streamlined approval process is essential.
#6 Get a hold of your assets
Avoid the unnecessary confusion of tracking down recruitment branding assets and materials by storing and sharing them from one location.
This can be made even easier if you can set permissions to ensure that individual teams only have access to assets created for their local markets and specific campaigns.
Tools for implementing strong brand governance
There is a wealth of branding software available that will make controlling brand governance a whole lot easier for you and your teams. In fact, the choice can often get a little overwhelming. Before you lose yourself in comparisons and reviews, here are the key features you need to look out for.
Template creation
Having a template is one thing, but making them bespoke is another. Smart design templates from a brand management platform make it easy to set predefined parameters to give your teams the freedom to be creative without veering off-brand.
Work from a centralised location
Through digital marketing brand portals, you can combine creation, management and storage. With one centralised location for everything that encapsulates your employer brand, your teams can align on guidelines, processes, approvals and more.
Make global brand alignment a reality
Through digital marketing brand portals, you can combine creation, management and storage. With one centralised location for everything that encapsulates your employer brand, your teams can align on guidelines, processes, approvals and more.
What’s the point of working so hard to define your Employer Value Proposition if your entire company can’t see it?
Open up stronger collaboration with global teams with a tool that allows you to bring them to the same location to find your brand’s most up-to-date assets and brand guidelines.
Data protection
With so many brands already seeing the benefits of employee advocacy, having an up-to-date resource of assets and imagery featuring real staff is becoming of greater importance.
Make sure your chosen branding software allows individual employees to sign off the usage rights for imagery in which they are featured to follow guidelines – General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU, or equivalent for your region.
DAM
There are lots of Digital Asset Management Systems out there, but without the extra features and capabilities needed to make your employer brand shine, very few offer an all-in-one subscription solution.
It’s a huge advantage to have creative suites, templates, planning and analytics features built-in. This keeps things simple, with everything your teams need in one place. Plus, there’s no need to manage multiple subscriptions. DAM alone won’t be enough to solve your problems, but alongside a brand management platform it’s a powerful tool.
With the right tools for watertight consistency, successful employee engagement and easy asset management, you can put your brand’s best foot forward for attracting and retaining talented employees.
Global employer brand governance is crucial to attract and retain talent
The enormity of the tasks outlined in this article may feel daunting, but there are solutions out there that can make it all a straightforward reality.
At Papirfly, our dynamic brand management platform is transforming the way teams manage their employer brand through a centralised online portal. Teams get the tools they need to create, share and manage campaign assets across the world – and maintain total brand consistency.
Brand development is a cornerstone of business growth. With the sheer scale and complexity of developing a brand, which only increases as the brand grows bigger, an organised approach is necessary to be successful. Between brand guidelines, digital assets and campaign planning, there are a lot of moving parts among a rising number of employees and stakeholders. Keeping it all organised and under control only becomes more challenging as the scale of your brand increases, unless you have a good software solution in place to simplify the brand development process as a whole.
A single source of truth
It can’t be understated how important it is to get your digital assets organised, and make them easily accessible for the people that need them in your company. If your files and assets are in disarray and spread in all directions, stored on the designer’s computer or in a mess of folders in a cloud storage service, a lot of time is wasted trying to track them down.
There might even be old versions floating around that employees will come across. If they don’t find the right assets, they might resort to using outdated material or creating their own from scratch that breaks with brand guidelines. The consequence? Weaker brand recognition in the market due to inconsistent and ambiguous presentation, which in turn leads to loss of revenue.
With Papirfly’s Brand Hub you get a single source of truth that stores everything in one place, and is accessible by all employees and stakeholders. No more wasting time searching for missing files, and no risk of having old and outdated material in circulation, causing harm to your brand. When you can be certain that every asset is always on-brand and up to date, you can focus on brand development instead.
Central control – local empowerment
CEO of Jaguar Land Rover Ralf Speth once said: “If you think good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of bad design”. The second someone can’t find digital assets or the material they need for a new campaign, they will most likely create something themselves. These assets can quickly end up breaking with brand guidelines and dilute your brand, and so this situation must be avoided to preserve your brand’s integrity.
Our platform not only gives you complete control of your brand, it also empowers permitted users to create and tweak marketing material using your digital assets. By making your brand templates available online and linked to your brand guidelines, your graphical assets are ready for self-service across all your markets and time zones, with no risk of off-brand material being created and published.
Always available
An online solution simplifies brand development. It provides greater flexibility and empowers your employees to be more autonomous, so that your marketing team can focus more on brand strategy and campaign planning.
This also allows brand managers to present and share all details and content related to the brand with ease across the entire organisation and to collaborators.
If you are responsible for brand development, our brand management platform will provide you full control. Changes in your brand guidelines happen in real time and you always have full insight into how, when and where your content is used. In addition, we have solutions that allow you to create and execute branding initiatives with simplicity and make sure your launch is smoothly completed and reaches your designated target groups – always on brand.
Brand Hub – One home for your brand
One single source of truth. This is Brand Hub – your online portal connecting your people with every aspect of your brand.
A marketing portal where brand assets can be accessed, brand guidelines can be understood and the tone of voice, values and personality of your brand is there for everyone to see.
Showcase brand guidelines with clear examples for employees at all levels of the organisation, across every location.
Easy to use and update in real time, build your Brand Hub to your own specifications with the help of modules and pre-built functionalities.
Connect with other tools in Papirfly’s all-in-one brand management platform to unleash the full benefits, with features including Digital Asset Management, Template Studio, Marketing Planner, Collaboration Tool and Reporting and Analytics – everything you need to activate your brand.
Brand Hub is a home for your brand – a base of operations from which you can manage your brand and work on brand development with greater efficiency and coordination. Transform the way you work and help your brand come alive with Brand Hub.
If you want to read in more detail about what Brand Hub can do, and the problems it will help you to solve, download our brochure here.
Retail marketers juggle 12+ content channels. Learn how DAM helps simplify workflows, ensure brand consistency, and scale content operations across retail touchpoints.
Brand management
Build brand recognition with smart design templates
Papirfly
4minutes read
Establishing brand recognition is essential if you want to build your brand successfully. When you’re going to market, you should also know that it takes 5-7 impressions before people remember your brand. This means that keeping your brand consistent, so that it looks and sounds the same every time, is highly important to attract customers. Without this consistency, customers may not give you as much as 7 opportunities before dismissing you completely.
We know achieving this consistency is easier said than done, but it is possible – with the right structure, system and the technology at hand, brand recognition is within reach. Graphic design templates make it far easier to create and publish marketing material, and keep your brand looking the same every time.
Achieving brand recognition takes time and effort. You have the recipe, and you know the drill, but at the end of the day, how your brand is presented is often out of your control. Sometimes colleagues will create material that breaks with your brand identity guidelines – or worse, they use old collateral. Sound familiar?
With design templates, this will no longer be an issue. This tool allows you to streamline design tasks and increase operational efficiency without risking a broken brand.
The power of online design templates
Graphic design templates are a powerful and lifesaving tool for marketers and brands everywhere. They allow you to automate the production of brand assets and marketing material, enabling anyone to create what they need, when they need it, with no special skills required.
Some amazing capabilities of online design templates:
Accessible online at any time:
When time is of the essence, keeping the templates always available is key. Log on, choose the desired template, and create a brand asset in an instant.
Self-serviced:
Usually, when it comes to creating brand and marketing assets, you either need a designer or designer skills. Not to mention the knowledge and capability to use design software. With self-serviced design templates, this is no longer a problem. Anyone can be a designer with this online editor, and you don’t have to worry about brand disruption. The templates have your brand identity covered.
Smart and flexible
Unlike Office templates or Adobe Indesign templates that can be altered by the users even though it is a “template”, graphic design templates are smart. The technology lets you pre-define what can and can’t be changed, giving you total control of your brand output. Every object and item has rules that narrow the design and creation options, you decide the level of flexibility.
If you are now thinking to yourself: “I know all this, but it’s impossible to practise in real-life, there are too many things getting in the way of my branding strategy and long-term tasks.” We understand. That’s why you need graphic design templates.
Key benefits of graphic design templates
With design template technology at hand, your branding processes will become a whole lot easier and you’ll be on your way to build brand recognition better than ever.
Your brand will always be up to date
By transforming your designs to online templates, keeping your brand updated is easy. Any change or alteration you make is done within the template and your users will always have access to the latest version. No more old and outdated brand assets.
Your brand assets are always available
Part of the challenge with brand inconsistency is when colleagues either create their own assets or use outdated files. By keeping your assets available online 24/7 and easily accessible, you eliminate this problem once and for all.
Your brand assets become self-serviced
Another part of the inconsistency challenge is the need to adapt to local needs. Today, with the large range of platforms, channels, and market needs, this is more important than ever. Adapting your assets is key to staying relevant in the market. Using online graphic templates, your colleagues and stakeholders will have instant access to the assets they need, and can modify them to fit their needs in a few simple steps.
Speed is of the essence in today’s digital marketing space. You need to be prepared for fast changes and updates, and you need to be able to deliver swiftly. Without technology and tools at hand, this is almost impossible. By allowing colleagues and stakeholders to create their own brand assets based on branded templates, you won’t risk putting off-brand content in circulation, and they can have their assets created in no time. It’s efficient and seamless.
Graphic design templates secure brand consistency
Another important factor in today’s fast-moving market space is that consumers are using a whole range of channels and platforms. This makes your market presence more complicated, but your customers also expect a consistent brand presentation across all channels. By having online templates for all the relevant platforms prepared and ready for use, it becomes far easier to have a quick turnaround time and be where your customers are.
Build brand recognition with an all-in-one platform
Our Template Studio comes as part of our brand management platform. Providing every person across your organisation with the tools to create studio-quality on-brand assets, with Template Studio you empower your people with the opportunity to champion your brand – and give your marketing team more time to focus efforts on core strategic goals.
How to build an employer brand that benefits employee retention
Papirfly
5minutes read
Attracting top talent to a company is more important than ever in the current talent market. To fully realise the benefits these employees can bring however, it’s important to keep them around for as long as possible to drive continued success.
Retaining existing staff nowadays goes beyond providing a competitive salary and a few day-to-day perks – all of the elements of a workplace have to align in order to create an environment where talented people truly want to be.
Failing to meet these expectations makes it considerably more likely that staff will simply look elsewhere for their ideal role. After all, the average person changes jobs 12 times in their lifetime.
As a result, crafting an engaging and effective employer brand is critical in retaining top talent.
What is employer branding?
WAn employer brand is how a company presents itself as a place of work to existing teams in the office. As well as pay and benefits, an effective employment brand should encompass:
Although a ‘customer brand’ and an employer brand are often thought of as two separate entities, in today’s connected world, the two should be approached as different sides of the same coin.
The markers of a strong employer brand
An employer brand is a crucial tool in the fight to retain talent today. But how can you determine the effectiveness of your existing employee brand proposition?
While every employer brand is different, the following traits can help give senior marketers an idea of whether or not their employer brand is on the right track.
3 techniques for building an employer brand that retains top staff
Building an employer brand that staff truly value doesn’t miraculously happen overnight. It takes careful planning, the buy-in of managers and the aid of specific techniques.
1. Establish a strong EVP
An employee value proposition (EVP) is a unique opportunity for an employer to demonstrate how they’re different from the competition. From the pay on offer, to the company’s vision and values, these elements should be specifically crafted to excite and empower existing staff.
Creating a strong proposition is not a matter of guesswork or copying what ‘hot’ companies are doing. It’s all about spotlighting an enterprise’s unique selling point (USP) and acknowledging the wants and needs of those in the office. In the quest for a strong EVP, consider:
Offering flexible work options
Supporting the mental health of teams
Backing cycle to work schemes and other incentives
A winning EVP shouldn’t just include the physical and financial needs of workers, it should also empower employees and get them on board with the company vision.
For a more comprehensive look into this vital part of your employer branding, read our article on crafting the ultimate EVP.
2. Create an employee advocacy program
A brand advocacy program is an internal process that encourages people within the office to talk about the company both online and offline to cast it in a positive light.
Whether this involves staff sharing ‘behind the scene’ photos from their workday, or teams engaging with content on social media platforms, both approaches can not only promote the employer brand further, but also help staff feel more involved in the business.
However, before giving teams the green light to post, a successful employee advocacy program must have a concrete process in place. A single typo, poorly worded post or inappropriate image associated with the brand could tarnish an otherwise solid reputation.
Take stock of teams throughout the organisation
Map out how best to utilise employees’ voice
Educate brand ambassadors on the brand’s purpose and values
3. Build and distribute an employee newsletter
An employee newsletter is not just a useful document for keeping teams within the business up to date with the latest news and developments – it can also serve as another way in which an organisation can strengthen their employer brand.
Creating and circulating an employee newsletter helps keep teams in the loop and serves as a vessel for departments to share their wins with the rest of the company. By giving staff an occasional forum to express themselves and learn about their colleagues, people will feel more invested in the business and the work they do.
To support the creation of an effective employee newsletter, a dedicated brand management solution can help teams quickly and easily assemble a perfectly branded newsletter. With the use of intelligent templates, even those without design experience can create on-brand assets with confidence to feature within.
The benefits of employee branding
By taking steps to create the ideal environment for teams in the office, businesses can enjoy a number of powerful benefits:
Employee retention is improved
When a worker departs a company, it can cost between six and nine months’ salary to recruit and train a replacement. In the wake of multiple departures, an organisation could quickly be looking at a six-figure expenditure down the road.
By holding onto staff for longer, and improving employee retention throughout the company, time and resources that may have otherwise been dedicated to recruitment can now be invested elsewhere.
Staff productivity is boosted
Between ad-hoc chats around the office, inefficient processes and other distractions, the average employee is productive for 60% or less of each day.
Taking steps to enhance an employer brand and engage employees can play a key role in improving productivity and work ethics. When people are united behind your brand values, they will be more motivated to put in the effort at work.
Worker morale rises
26% of employees in the UK are actively disengaged. Pair that with the fact that low morale correlates to an increase in negative behaviors such as absenteeism and conflict, and it’s easy to see how unhappy workers can bring forth a number of issues.
By building a strong employer brand and creating an environment where team members feel comfortable and happy, morale soars, workers attend their job more often, and friction between colleagues is kept to a minimum.
Activate your employer brand with Papirfly
Although employer brands are a huge benefit to talent retention, taking the steps to develop and implement a winning employer branding strategy is easier said than done.
Creating, managing and coordinating the content needed to nurture the internal brand alongside other marketing responsibilities can seem overwhelming and unsustainable.
Do you bring on new staff to fulfill the vision? Do you make concessions in one area to invest more into the employer brand? The correct answer is neither.
By using a comprehensive, all-in-one brand management platform, such as Papirfly, teams can streamline content production, coordinate resources quickly and deliver a compelling and consistent internal brand that retains team members longer.
To do this, our solution features a suite of tools specifically built to enhance employer branding. Some of these include:
Smart templates
Custom templates empower your employees to create infinite on-brand assets quickly and easily. With this accessible software, even those with no design experience can build compelling collateral with absolute confidence and no risk of breaking with brand guidelines.
Digital Asset Manager
The built-in DAM allows everything from brand guidelines to EVP videos to be shared with teams all over the globe in just a few clicks. Get everybody united in a single vision with ease.
Languages and localisation
Localise content swiftly and create crucial branding documents for teams in any region, all without the need for third-party translators or agencies. Take your internal brand strategy global with haste.
If you would like to learn more about Papirfly and how we can help enhance your employer brand, get in touch or book a demo today.
Retail marketers juggle 12+ content channels. Learn how DAM helps simplify workflows, ensure brand consistency, and scale content operations across retail touchpoints.
Content Creation
How to create display ads at speed and at scale
Papirfly
3minutes read
The use of digital display advertising has become a marketing mainstay – and with nearly 70% of the global population now online, it won’t be going away anytime soon.
But creating visually appealing ads that stand out and get attention across multiple channels is no mean feat. And doing it at speed is more challenging still. That’s why an effective banner ad creator is on one of the most precious content creation tools a marketer can have.
How to create display ads that engage and convert
Display ads play an important part in how many consumers discover products and offers online. But getting noticed is a real challenge. The average person encounters hundreds of ads across their devices every day. At least half of them go completely unnoticed. The rest, many consumers would rather block.
Success doesn’t come from simply launching an ad and hoping for the best. It requires intention – building ads that feel relevant, look professional, and avoid being filtered out by ad blockers. The secret is to meet audiences where they are, with displays ads they actually want to see. The more targeted and meaningful your content is, the more likely it is to drive action.
That’s where display advertising software steps in.
Streamline digital content creation with a banner ad creator
So, how can you create responsive display advertising that puts your brand in front of your audience – fast?
One solution is to use templated content creation tools. Papirfly’s smart, easy-to-use templates empower team members to produce studio-quality materials, whether they have design skills or not. Key elements are locked in, so there is no danger of going off-brand. The result is that anyone – regardless of design experience – can build on-brand banner ads in minutes.
Producing digital display ads at scale with templated content creation tools
As the digital marketing landscape grows more competitive, the right content creation tools become essential. Display advertising software is no longer a nice-to-have – it’s a core enabler for standing out in a saturated space.
While it’s easy to focus spend on ad placements, production time and resource costs often go overlooked. Papirfly’s Digital Asset Management and templated content creation suite addresses both these issues, offering a centralized solution packed with customizable templates and tools to help you work smarter.
From accelerating time to market to reducing agency reliance, Papirfly gives your teams the autonomy to create banner ads at scale – while staying perfectly on-brand.
Does everyone create content that’s on‑brand, every time?
Find peace of mind with better brand governance.
Does everyone create content that’s on‑brand, every time?
Why is it challenging to create display ads at speed and scale?
Creating display ads quickly and at scale is difficult because it typically requires expert support to produce engaging, on-brand designs for different channels. Without the right content creation tools, production bottlenecks can slow teams down and inconsistent execution can dilute brand impact.
How do templated content creation tools support display advertising?
Templated content creation tools, like those from Papirfly, allow non-designers to create professional, on-brand display ads using pre-approved layouts. This streamlines the creative process and ensures consistency across regions and campaigns.
What makes a banner ad effective in today’s digital landscape?
Effective banner ads are visually engaging, contextually relevant, and professionally designed. They avoid intrusive formats, align with brand standards, and deliver clear, actionable messaging that resonates with target audiences.
What role does a banner ad creator play in digital content creation?
A banner ad creator makes building responsive display ads much simpler. With reusable templates and locked brand elements, it reduces reliance on designers, speeds up content creation, and ensures every ad meets brand guidelines.
How does Papirfly help marketers scale display ad production?
Papirfly combines Digital Asset Management and templated content creation, enabling teams to produce display ads faster and at lower cost. It centralizes brand assets and empowers local teams to create ads independently, without ever compromising brand consistency.
Elements of an excellent brand communication strategy
Papirfly
6minutes read
While reaching target audiences has always carried its challenges, cutting through the sea of noise amid the millions of competing organisations in today’s hyper-competitive market is one of the most difficult tasks for any business.
In addition, according to a recent study, only a quarter of stakeholders can differentiate between individual brands. With no stand-out qualities, it is likely that success for these enterprises is down, at least in some part, to chance.
Naturally, relying on the luck of the draw to attract customers and clients to a brand is no basis for ongoing success. But, how can you improve your brand, take control and truly shine? It all comes down to effective brand communication.
The role of brand communication
Winning business communication involves the use of many different techniques and mediums to convey a consistent, appealing and attractive image of the business to target audiences and shape positive perceptions.
Over time, as content imparts valuable information to customers and stakeholders, people begin to associate this enterprise with trust and value, boosting brand equity. If done successfully, robust brand communication can turn an uninformed prospect into a returning customer.
Think of some of the most well-renowned brands in the world, like Coca-Cola and IBM – you’ll likely associate these enterprises with positive terms, like ‘professional’, ‘expert’ and ‘trusted’ even if you’ve never been a customer.
This is the power of effective brand communication. It’s what differentiates generic cola drinks from Pepsi, and what helps keep the name of organisations ringing in the minds of the public for years.
As well as customers, communicating your brand effectively can also be an excellent way to better establish your brand, engage prospects and attract top talent in today’s connected world.
Now, more than ever, a strong brand has to be three-dimensional and stand up to the scrutiny of customers and candidates on the outside of the business, as well as existing employees on the inside. To do this, internal and external communication must be:
High-quality
To keep teams in the office productive and customers engaged, it’s crucial to communicate your brand, its values and its merits outwardly.
Consistent
While customers and employer brands are often regarded separately, the lines between both are blurry, making business continuity a must.
Authentic
With social sharing ubiquitous today, portraying a transparent and honest brand is key in retaining the admiration of employees and clients.
How to improve your brand communication strategy
Brand communication is one of the most important elements of an overarching marketing strategy. It’s how a brand portrays itself, how it forms deep connections with prospects and how it stands out in a saturated market.
But because this area is so complex and valuable, it can seem illogical to constantly update and refine your approach. However, the world of marketing is fast-paced. Platforms change. Customer and staff expectations shift. Best practices evolve.
To keep up, it’s vital to implement brand communication strategies as living, breathing entities.
Choose the right media channels
To shape how your brand is perceived by its employees and customers, your brand should strive to have a presence in the places where your prospects will be, whether that’s in physical destinations or on platforms like Facebook and TikTok, for example.
This is crucial because as many as 13 touchpoints are needed to turn a prospect into a customer, or an employee into an ambassador. If this content isn’t within reach, how can you expect your brand to leave an impression?
By carefully considering where content is placed across multiple channels, not only is marketing more effective, but promotional efforts are more likely to generate a greater ROI for your company.
In order to boost the equity of a brand, and ensure prospects can recall the business, it’s important to maintain brand consistency on a global scale with a unified look, feel and brand voice.
Although your collateral could be ticking all the right boxes and addressing the audiences’ specific pain points, if people aren’t able to attribute that goodwill to your unique brand, that positivity and trust are lost.
By nailing a consistent look and feel across your website and social media channels with the help of purpose-built Brand Activation Management software, a brand can become more recognisable and stand out from the competition. In the real world, this can improve revenue by as much as 23%.
Embrace crisis communication management
Brands dread the day when things go wrong. And while there is a small percentage of companies that have managed to dodge controversy, maintaining a spotless image – especially within a large or well-established business – is near impossible.
All it takes is a single brand ambassador to misrepresent the brand with a poorly worded post or a typo in a piece of corporate collateral to dent your reputation. While this is detrimental on its own, word can travel fast on social networks and magnify blunders small and large quickly.
To plan for every eventuality, a robust crisis communication plan is a valuable component of every effective messaging strategy. While these documents will vary from brand to brand, a good crisis plan should:
Note who has the authority to activate the plan under what circumstances
List the employees responsible for each task throughout the process
Draft messages for the possible crises your business could face
Collate the contact details of people and services valuable during an emergency
With a contingency plan in place, your brand can control the narrative in an adverse situation, and create a less stressful environment for workers both in and outside of the office.
Adapt brand personality for multiple scenarios
While a business must have a consistent brand voice, it’s important that this isn’t taken too literally. In order to appeal to candidates and customers on different platforms, the core message must be adapted to suit different spaces.
By taking a middle-of-the-road approach to brand voice, and failing to adapt the personality of the brand to different scenarios, messaging can seem stilted, irrelevant or unengaging as the content is not entirely relevant to the platform or audience.
Carefully tailoring internal and external communication using insight gathered from a strategic brand communication audit can drive better performance, as 74% of marketers say targeted personalisation generates greater engagement. A brand is a complex and incredibly valuable asset for any organisation, and it takes more than just an excellent customer communication strategy to form an image that employees, candidates and customers all look up to. To develop a well-rounded brand, it’s important to seek answers to the following:
What does your brand identity look like?
What values does your business image reflect?
How does your branding strategy align with overall business objectives?
Propel your messaging to new heights with BAM by Papirfly™
Messaging is a broad, vast and incredibly important topic when it comes to brand building and communication. From how you talk to your employees to how you market your products or services, this strategy is an integral part of your brand.
Due to its breadth and importance, it’s crucial to have a solid companycommunication strategy in place before embarking on a new campaign. By taking a gung-ho approach, you could risk compromising brand continuity, authenticity and quality.
However, developing a corporate communications plan that ticks all of the boxes is no easy feat – marketing is a fast-paced sector, and deadlines come and go quickly. To keep on top of your daily duties without compromising on quality calls for a dedicated brand activation solution, such as BAM by Papirfly™.
As well as featuring a suite of time-saving marketing tools, BAM is ideally suited to corporate communication because:
It allows teams the ability to develop quality, on-style content with confidence across several mediums, such as social media, leaflets, emails and more
BAM’s intelligent templates allow in-house teams with no design experience to effortlessly craft collateral that adheres to brand guidelines
The built-in DAM allows crucial documents, like crisis communication plans, to be shared globally with ease, allowing increased agility
Our all-in-one technology allows existing designs to be quickly adapted for new platforms or localised to different regions in just a few clicks
If you would like to learn more about BAM and explore how else it can help take your brand to new heights, get in touch with our team, or book a demo to see our solution in action.
Retail marketers juggle 12+ content channels. Learn how DAM helps simplify workflows, ensure brand consistency, and scale content operations across retail touchpoints.
Brand management
Your 3 essential steps to rebrand strategy success
Papirfly
9minutes read
A rebranding strategy can help you rethink, refresh, and reposition your brand as efficiently and effectively as possible. Approaching the decision that a rebrand is the right move for your business is no simple task. If you and your enterprise are at the start of that journey, and are still considering whether a rebrand or a brand refresh is the right thing to do, then understanding what to consider when rebranding your business is a natural first step.
Should you have already been through that soul-searching process – and decided a rebrand is the right way to go – carefully considering your next move is crucial. The potential ramifications for your organisation and your relationships with your customers, employees, and the wider world can be significant. This means you need to consider three key areas; conducting research before creating your new brand identity, building the toolkit that will empower your people at launch, and choosing tools will provide strength and stability for this new era for your brand. In this article, you’ll learn how to successfully rebrand to help you accomplish your specific business goals that are driving the change – efficiently landing your rebrand by rolling out your new identity to every location of your entire enterprise.
1. Conducting research in the rebranding process
Before making any changes, you need to do the research and find out how your brand can improve. What elements of your brand do people like? How can it connect more with your customers? There are endless questions to ask when building a new identity. The more knowledge you have, the more effective your rebranding strategy will be.
Carry out a brand identity assessment
It’s vital to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your branding to maximise your chances of success. It’s best to get a wide range of views by speaking to the company’s employees, stakeholders, customers, and prospective customers.
How do they perceive your brand? Do they think your company would benefit from rebranding? This insight is one final moment before crossing the threshold with certainty that a rebrand is the right choice for you.
There are various ways to canvass the opinion of key audiences, including one-to-one interviews, focus groups and consumer surveys. Some relevant questions to ask may include:
How would you describe our brand to a friend?
Who do you think is our target audience?
On a scale of 1-10 how much do you like our branding?
What words would you use to describe our branding and tone of voice?
How much does our branding reflect your experience you have with our brand?
How positive does our branding make you feel, and what could be improved?
The insights you gain from this research will shine a light on current blindspots, and highlight what is currently resonating with audiences – giving you what you need to help you shape a new brand identity, and a framework for an effective rebranding strategy.
Define what your business stands for
Once you know what your customers, employees and other stakeholders actually think about your brand identity, you can focus on what you want them to think about it. This requires a lot of self-reflection and discussion internally with your team.
Here are some questions to pose to yourself:
What’s our value proposition?
What makes us different from competitors?
What’s our mission, our core values and our beliefs?
Who are our target audiences and what are the ideal customer profiles?
Is the story of our brand’s history and where we are heading clear?
This exercise is useful in helping to clarify the reasons behind your rebrand and how your new or refined mission, vision, and values differ from when your current branding was developed.
How to write a brief for a rebrand
You should write a brief that sets out what you want to achieve from your rebrand, and what the work involved will be. Whether you are working with an external agency or carrying out the rebranding internally, a good brief will focus everyone on the purpose and expected outcome of the rebranding process.
A written brief is also vital in ensuring the ‘buy-in’ of other key people in your organisation, with all key decision-makers having approved it. Getting everybody on board is essential to avoid wasting time and resources when senior executives – often outside the marketing department – challenge key assumptions in the brief and changes in direction at critical moments can waste time and money.
The brief should include:
An overview of your company, including history, products and services
An overview of the current issues with the branding
Your newly defined brand positioning
A customer profile
Competitor analysis
Rebranding strategies
Key product messages
The scope of the rebrand and the activities it will entail
By including as much information as possible, you’ll be able to shape your brand proposal to apply the brand changes across all marketing channels, digital or print. And then its time to get the designers to work and bring your new identity to life.
Your new brand identity is almost there
Once you have some mock-up designs for potential new logos, web pages, packaging, or store designs, it’s wise to seek feedback before making final decisions. As well as allowing people within your company to have their say, you can see what your customers think by carrying out some creative testing.
Surveys can be an effective method for testing how a rebrand might impact an audience prior to its launch. You can reach out to existing customers or other people in your demographic to ask what they think of specific elements of a rebrand, testing how well it resonates and whether or not it creates the desired effect. Use online surveys to gather data from anywhere in the world – no matter how remote or widespread your target audiences might be, you can get useful data fast. Use open-ended questions to produce deeper insights amongst predefined questions that feel quicker and more simple to answer, such as multiple-choice, rating scales, and ranking questions.
Tweak. Amend. Test again if necessary. By doing this research, you’ll know when the next phase of your brand’s identity is ready to unleash upon the world. Now it’s time to empower your people to launch it.
2. Empower your people as you launch your rebrand
Once your visual identity and brand assets have been agreed upon, it’s time to compile everything into one handy toolkit. This will become a brand bible for anyone involved in marketing and communications for your company.
Creating a brand toolkit
Consider everything your teams will need to become fully educated on your brand guidelines. As well as elements that are specific to your enterprise and industry, make sure your toolkit contains:
An overview of your brand identity
Your logo and variations of it
Your colour palette
Your typography
Rules for layout and alignment
Brand illustrations and iconography
Art direction principles
Examples of your branding used across different applications e.g. landing pages, social media, product packaging, etc.
Your brand toolkit will be invaluable for communicating your rebranding strategy to business stakeholders and helping to make sure everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet. It’s also very useful when you work with outside contractors, helping to quickly on-board them in your updated house style.
Ensuring your rebranded visual identity is an indisputable truth
Your next step requires some intensive team action, as implementing your rebrand will touch every part of your business – and your internal launch must be a success to give your external launch the best chance of success and making the time and financial investment worth it.
You’ll need to set out all the rebranding activities to be undertaken, assigning each one to an individual or department, and agreeing a time frame to work to. You should plan weekly meetings where each person can update the team on what they’ve been doing. It’s likely that some things will take longer than expected, and you’ll run into a few obstacles along the way, so be realistic with your schedule and leave time for ironing out any issues.
To support this process, consider these corporate marketing activities required for your rebrand to be launched internally as effectively as possible:
Create a need-to-know sequence, so your rebrand is rolled out to your various audiences (executives, employees, customers, suppliers,media, etc.) in the appropriate order – some will be of a higher priority than others
As part of this priority order, make sure that your rebrand has been announced and accepted internally several months before you intend to launch publicly
Establish a narrative behind your rebranding, so it becomes clearer to those inside your company why you have taken this step, and can translate to your customers and how it will specifically benefit them
Spend several weeks building hype towards the rebrand, and communicate these actions internally – as well as helping to cement understanding within your enterprise, this will prepare your audiences for the upcoming change, and make it something worth anticipating rather than hitting them as a complete surprise
Create communication plans for the initial weeks and months after launch to make sure your employees, customers and the wider world are reminded about what your brand identity now is, so they can quickly familiarise themselves with your new look and feel – you new brand identity should feel normal after a few months
Keeping these steps in mind will ensure your launch is conducted as seamlessly as possible. You and your branding teams will be in the best position to receive an encouraging response, and with a solid rebranding launch strategy in place, be able to adapt to any needed changes along the way.
And when the rebranding is complete, make sure you have an internal launch party. Get your employees excited about the change, and they will be more likely to become brand ambassadors. If you have started to offer new products and services as part of your rebrand or you want employees to take a new approach to customer service, ensure they have been appropriately trained.
Preparing your organisation for your rebrand is a big challenge and a huge accomplishment. Yet a key element to achieving the growth – a factor that would have been at least part of your reasons for rebranding in the first place – is thinking beyond the launch, and truly preparing your people to unleash your brand for years to come.
3. Beyond the rebrand – the right tools for a new era
Having done the necessary research, and putting together a complete brand toolkit that equips everyone for launching your brand, maintaining momentum on consistency is key – not least, to ensure customer loyalty is maintained to help sustain and increase revenue.
Considering your current ecosystem is essential, as the user experience for your teams needs to be as seamless as possible to ensure mistakes are kept to a minimum if not eliminated completely. So ask yourself. “What do our people need to truly land our rebrand?”
While the importance of establishing all approved brand assets in your toolkit is undeniable, without Digital Asset Management (DAM) – one single source of truth for all assets – then old logos, out-of-date images and poor file storage could see your efforts diluted.
Having a powerful DAM is essential to centralising all documents, images and videos that you will need to activate your brand identity. When access is granted and integrated with one online home for your brand, guidelines are confirmed and available in real time, and concerns regarding ‘where to find what is okay to use’ can be eliminated.
When it comes to creating 100% on-brand assets – essential for any newly rebranded company – then the most useful way for everyone to feel reassured they are approving assets is to create a master design template from which many specific asset templates can be produced.
Keeping track of all rebranding activities and campaigns and simplifying execution of all global efforts is also an important factor to consider. When teams are spread out around the world, being able to see that you are aligned globally when you need to be is just as vital as ensuring every region and location has the autonomy to speak directly to their audience whilst keeping the core brand safe and consistent.
Supporting this is a continuous analysis of asset performance and brand adoption within your enterprise – essential in improving brand performance over time. Assessing the impact of rebranding on your bottom line goes in line with remaining aware of feedback from your target audience. Be constantly aware of social media channels, speaking to Customer Success teams, and committing to becoming more agile.
Download our guide to further understand how to map out the strategy and tools you will need to successfully rebrand your business.
Rebranding can be a huge undertaking but also marks a fresh, exciting phase in the life of your business. Done right, it will excite and re-engage your customers while also leaving you in a strong position to attract a new audience.
Good luck with your rebrand, and reach out to us at Papirfly to discover the power of our smart templates and the wider possibilities of our platform by booking your free personalised demo today. Papirfly’s brand management platform gives marketing teams everything they need to land their rebrand, in one single place.
“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”
Churchill said this in response to criticisms that he changed political parties. Great leaders are both courageous and vulnerable. They reflect on their strengths and weaknesses, and course correct – sometimes in very public ways – to ensure their behaviours match their values and goals, even when it’s not easy.
We all grow and change over time… and so do brands. Whether in response to a new line of products and services, an evolution in visual identity, or to reflect a shift in a company’s mission and values, a rebrand can keep an organisation aligned with an ever-changing landscape.
However, this is not a step that should be taken lightly. The cost of rebranding a business can be a steep one if the purpose of this change and the approach to this problem is not carefully considered. Not only can it cost you a serious amount of time and money, but your company’s reputation could be at stake if you miss the mark.
What is rebranding?
Rebranding is an exercise in changing or improving any major branding elements e.g. logo, colour palette, typography, etc. The idea behind it is that a brand is evolving, and the company wants people to know about it.
A business can rebrand as much or as little as it wants, from simply changing its slogan or logo, to changing everything, including the company name. It’s helpful to consider three different types of rebranding:
Brand refresh – You change minor details only, such as modernising individual aspects of your logo or slightly changing the hues of your colour palette.
Partial rebrand – You change certain elements but not others, such as using a new logo that uses elements, themes and colours from your old logo.
Full rebrand – You change everything as if you were a completely different company.
Whichever approach most appeals to your current circumstances, it is important that the purpose of your rebrand is carefully considered. History is littered with rebranding examples that had far from ideal outcomes:
Tropicana’s simplification of its logo and packaging ended up costing the company a 20% loss in sales
These examples are not to say that rebranding a company isn’t a wise decision – given the right circumstances, a new look and feel can be a significant asset to a brand. Perhaps your existing image is lagging behind the times visually, meaning you are coming across as old-fashioned or limiting your chances of capturing a new audience. Or you reimagined your company’s objectives and values and want to reflect them outwardly.
In other words, it is crucial to carefully consider the reasons behind your rebrand, and weigh up whether this investment can benefit the business or not…
3 good and 3 bad rebranding considerations
Your motivations behind a brand change are vitally important to look upon with a critical eye. Due to the seismic shift a full-scale corporate rebrand could have on your organisation’s image, your relationship with your customers and more, it is vital that one is pursued for the right reasons.
Below, we give a quick breakdown of three worthwhile reasons to start the rebranding process, and three that might require a rethink:
Good reason #1: New company direction
Over time, the mission, vision and values of your company may have shifted to the point of being unrecognisable to what they were originally. Whether as a result of new market conditions, a change in senior management, or simply natural evolution, your brand identity may need to be freshened up or changed entirely to reflect your new direction.
Bad reason #1: Boredom with current identity
Just because you may have fallen out of love with your existing branding doesn’t mean your customers have. It is important to separate your own feelings from what your brand is meant to do – appeal to your target audiences. Making a change due to your own disillusionment could have major ramifications to your company’s future
Good reason #2: Reaching a new region or audience
Whether you are expanding to another part of the country or around the globe, or you have shifted focus to a new target audience, you might need to refresh your brand in order to better appeal to these customers. Alternatively, in the case of venturing abroad, you may consider adopting a ‘sister brand’ that aligns more closely to the culture you are entering.
Bad reason #2: A dip in sales
A recent reduction in revenue could be an indicator of many things, not just that people are bored with your brand. When Uber updated their brand a few years ago, half of their customers surveyed had no idea what their new logo represented. Instead of making this hasty decision, take the time to consider if other areas of your marketing strategy or overall business could account for this loss of sales.
Good reason #3: Mergers and acquisitions
If you find yourself in the situation of having joined forces with one or more additional companies, it can be beneficial to bring relevant elements of all brands involved into one united identity that previous customers of all sides (and future customers) can familiarise themselves with.
Bad reason #3: Covering up a crisis
While it might feel like a wise decision to rise from the ashes of a PR disaster as a completely different brand, today’s savvy consumers can see right through these attempts. This can actually exacerbate the crisis, making people feel you are trying to take the easy way out rather than owning up to and learning from your mistakes.
Added to this, you may have to convince important stakeholders in your organisation to opt for a rebrand. Make sure that you are well prepared by setting out any arguments clearly and draw up a strategy to help you make a decision that is fully supported by all parties.
Tips to prepare for your corporate rebrand
Once you have established your reasons for pursuing a rebrand are appropriate, a brand refresh rollout plan will involve several significant steps to best ensure a successful result.
Identify your company’s vision, mission and values
Start by reaffirming in your mind what your company stands for today, and how that differs from where you were when your current branding was introduced. How have your values shifted? Do you have new objectives and targets? By devoting time to this topic you’ll have a stronger sense of where your identity needs to evolve and in what direction.
Audit existing brand assets
You don’t necessarily need to reinvent the wheel to refresh your brand. Rather than start from scratch, look at your existing assets and see what can be salvaged. What still aligns with the new direction you wish to take your brand, and what needs to be reimagined?
These expressions of your existing brand will be indispensable for your team – only by understanding where your brand is now can you effectively plan for its future.
Secure buy-in from key stakeholders
Leadership. Employees. Customers. Shareholders. There are a lot of groups that you will need to convince in order to make your rebrand a success, so it is valuable to canvass their opinions and prepare them for the change that you intend to make.
Once you have their support, the chances of a good outcome greatly improve than if you were to spring the ideas or change onto them without any warning. It will also give you valuable insight into whether your rebrand would be accepted and if it is necessary.
Build the right team
A rebrand must be a collaborative effort across your team in order to make the move stick and to ensure the final product does not alienate employees. Get representatives from across your senior management, marketing, sales, human resources and further departments involved who can actively lend their insight into repositioning your brand.
Get ready to update brand guidelines
As the key documentation at the crux of your brand identity, it is important that you are ready to update your brand guidelines with the new visuals, colour palettes, verbiage and more that will underpin your new direction.
Furthermore, storing this valuable information in a digital brand portal could be crucial in ensuring that everyone in your team is aware of the change, limiting the potential for any of your previous brand assets resurfacing later on.
Plan a successful launch
Consider how you will intend to make the world aware of your new direction. You may want to tease the arrival of your rebrand through a social media or email marketing campaign, getting people excited about the arrival rather than springing it on the unaware.
Or, maybe you feel an out-of-nowhere advert or website update will have a more eye-grabbing effect. A classic example of this is the Old Spice viral campaign that absolutely catapulted the previously old-fashioned brand into the next generation.
Of course, there is so much that must be taken into account for a rebranding strategy to work as intended. If you’d like to know more, download our essential guide to rebranding below.
Are you ready for a rebrand?
Whether you are opting for a light refresh of your brand visuals and messaging, or a complete brand overhaul that pushes your company towards a bright new tomorrow, it is essential to have the tools alongside you to accommodate this massive shift.
Papirfly’s all-in-one brand management platform offers a powerful selection of features that can help ease the process of rebranding and ensure that the results stick across your future marketing campaigns.
Use the template studio to bring asset creation in-house, locking down the key elements of your new branding so all assets produced are perfectly consistent
Keep all up-to-date brand assets in the in-built DAM system, preventing outdated logos and obsolete branding from re-emerging
Coordinate the steps involved in your rebrand with birds-eye campaign planning
Introduce an online, accessible brand portal to act as a single source of truth for all your brand now represents
Discover the efficient, consistent and exciting future of marketing – get in touch to learn more about our brand management solution or book a free demo today.
Hybrid working. The popularity of this term may have skyrocketed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but make no mistake – this is an inescapable future for the vast majority of companies across the globe. Let’s take a look at hybrid working at-a-glance…
But just because it’s unavoidable doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. On the contrary, the growing trend towards some configuration of hybrid work model offers a lot of big benefits for businesses of all shapes and sizes, including:
Reduced running costs
With people coming into work on staggered schedules and businesses no longer needing to have all hands on deck at all times, this means there is less need to spend on extensive office space. Instead, companies could rent the space they save out to other organisations, or simply reduce the amount they rent to cut down their overheads.
Better work-life balances
A lot of people have benefitted both practically and emotionally from having the opportunity to work from home. They can work more flexibly, and when they finish for the day, there’s no long commute awaiting them. While interaction with coworkers is great for morale and to prevent isolation, many will appreciate the adaptability of a hybrid working model.
Boosted productivity levels
Research has found that many people claim to be more productive when working from home compared to being in the office. If employees have all the tools at their disposal to work remotely, this more comfortable, familiar environment can actually encourage them to work more efficiently.
Wider recruitment opportunities
By employing a hybrid or remote working model in your company, you are no longer restricted to hiring people within the vicinity of your office. Instead you can look farther across the country, or even internationally, to find ideal recruits for your organisation.
Appealing to younger generations
With a large proportion of millennial and Gen Z recruits prioritising benefits like flexibility and better work-life balances over traditional salary-based perks, being able to offer a hybrid working model can appeal to their needs and offer you a competitive edge when recruiting.
Tackling the challenges of hybrid working to marketing teams
Nevertheless, while hybrid working can inspire these benefits and more, it can also introduce a number of new challenges – many of which revolve around communication and organisation.
Now, these are two essential qualities that any effective marketing team must possess. Without them, campaigns become jumbled and chaotic. Assets become inconsistent or become lost in the shuffle. Jobs get duplicated or ignored altogether. And, as a result, your brand identity can take a big hit.
If not organised effectively, a hybrid working model can quickly create this unwanted scenario. With people working separately away from the office multiple days a week, or possibly in perpetuity, it can make it difficult to collaborate on campaigns or projects. And, if left to their own devices, it is possible assets and collateral are produced that contradict your brand’s personality.
This is a situation all marketing teams are keen to avoid. Fortunately, with the right systems and processes in place, it is more than possible for you to reap the benefits of a hybrid environment while avoiding any sleepless nights over the quality and consistency of your brand.
Here are our 6 top tips to help you get started:
Tip #1 – Invest in DAM
First, let’s tackle the potentially major headache of materials going missing, or employees having to send dozens of emails to get their hands on an asset they need. When teams are spread far apart and working disparately, it is easy to forget to send assets over to the people that need them or lose them in an ocean of folders.
To overcome this problem, it is crucial to contain all your assets in one central hub. This is where a DAM (Digital Asset Manager) or equivalent solution is a must-have for any hybrid work setting. You can store an infinite number of assets in this digital space, which can then be filtered, searched for and found by team members across the globe when they need them.
No delays. No lengthy email chains. No lost property. Everything is housed in one place for when it is required. A solid DAM solution will also allow you to assign permissions to users, so they can only access relevant, brand-appropriate materials for their needs, so there is no risk of anything being published that isn’t supposed to due to a misunderstanding.
A DAM-like system is a fundamental tool for effective hybrid working. It enables marketing teams to find all the assets they need in one place, wherever they’re working from at the time.
Tip #2 – Make brand guidelines easily accessible
As well as centralising your brand assets, it’s crucial to do the same with your brand guidelines. Guidelines and style guides in general are crucial for keeping your marketing efforts aligned and consistent across all channels, from social posts and blogs to posters and billboards.
It prevents your teams from second-guessing your brand identity and empowers them to create with confidence. But, if your brand guidelines are solely printed out in a folder somewhere in your office, it isn’t much use for your employees working from home.
So, it is critical that these guidelines are housed in one central, accessible online location. Your remote employees can then always refer back to them when creating materials regardless of where they are, meaning there’s no risk of going off message.
Tip #3 – Establish clear communication channels
Nothing can create chaos in a marketing team like not knowing who is on a job, or who they should contact for updates. Whether it’s a designer in need of copy, or a marketing coordinator waiting for assets to set a campaign in motion, if people are out of the loop, it can cause costly delays and derail productivity (particularly if there are time differences involved).
With this in mind, it is important to establish points of contact for everyone, be it project managers, creative directors or others, who can coordinate messages and prevent any long-winded, convoluted email chains among various team members. If you work with an agency or other freelancers, this also ensures that any contact with them is streamlined and consistent, so that any work or amends aren’t missed or duplicated.
Leveraging effective communication tools like Slack, Zoom, Trello, Asana and the many others available on the market can also be highly beneficial. These help keep everyone in touch over the course of a campaign or project, ensuring nothing is overlooked as a result of people not being in the same vicinity.
Tip #4 – Keep briefs focused and available
Successful briefs succinctly translate the goals, purpose and intentions of a project to the relevant team members, forming the foundations for inspired creative thinking. If they contain an excessive amount of detail, are lacking key information, or are simply written in a confusing way, this will lead your remote workers down problematic paths.
To prevent this, establish a clear, consistent template for creative briefs, refining it over time where necessary, to ensure that your disparate workers always receive the ideal level of detail to produce high-quality work. This will help guarantee that work reaches the proofing/approval stages in a strong position, without the need for constant supervision or check-ins.
Tip #5 – Digitise proofing and approval workflows
Proofing and signing-off completed work can be a wearisome process even with everyone working in the office at once. If an asset is constantly going back-and-forth between designers or agencies and the relevant marketing managers, this can quickly push campaigns back hours, days, or even weeks.
Digitising these processes can cut down these waits significantly, and help work get through regardless of where everyone involved is based. Online collaboration tools mean that everyone who needs to check an asset can see and input amends in real-time to the recipient, so they can all be made in one motion, and then be instantly approved for use in the required campaign.
When you have deadlines to meet, it is helpful if everyone involved is aware of this information. So, giving your remote workers access to a digital, centralised campaign planner can give them total clarity on what assets need to be supplied and when. They can then structure their days around these priorities, so nothing is overlooked.
For the best results, we’d recommend a campaign planning tool that enables you to attach briefs, tag marketing materials, and manage specific folders for each project. This will give you total oversight and clarity from start to finish, regardless of whether your teams are working from their desks or are at home.
Embrace hybrid working without hurting your brand
Now it has gained a greater foothold across the globe, the hybrid working model is here to stay. With more and more professionals appreciating the flexibility that this approach offers, it is crucial that everyone, including marketing teams, identify ways to make these models work without compromising on the integrity and strength of their brand.
We hope that our tips will enable you to embrace this model with no repercussions to your brand identity. It will take some getting used to, but with the right tools in place to keep communication and organisation at a high level regardless of people’s working environment, you can really start to feel the benefits of a hybrid approach.
Gå ikke glipp av en faglig ettermiddag i Oslo med eksperter fra Statkraft, Kantar og Papirfly! Start høsten med inspirasjon og konkrete tips til å bygge en sterkere merkevare. Etter faglig påfyll blir det mingling og noe godt i glasset.
