5 Rules for Brand Reinvention
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If you’re thinking about reinventing your brand, you should find it to be an exciting process with great rewards at the other end if you really take the time to do it right. Just don’t shortcut the process and cheat yourself out of the great benefits that await you at the other end.
More and more retail mortgage lenders especially, as well as other industry-facing and consumer-facing companies in the mortgage industry, are recognizing how valuable having a brand really is to their businesses. Commoditization of products and services is pervasive throughout many industries, so having a way to define yourself is becoming exceedingly important if you plan to muster up enough market share to make a decent living.
Now, for retail lenders, it’s become especially important as refinances are bound to dry up and you begin to rely more and more on business relationships, especially with Realtors®, to make a go of it. If you are a company that has been focused on refinancing the world when other’s who compete with you have done a better job of balancing their refi and purchase transactions, then your reinvention better be substantial and have a good story behind it.
What are the rules for reinventing your brand? Here are five you should keep in mind...
1) Beefing up your marketing and PR efforts won’t cut it. Try as you may, closing the gap between who you are right now and who you desire to be by merely developing and launching a new campaign, refreshing your logo and/or coming up with a new tagline likely will not bring you anywhere near the results you’re looking for. People will see this and may compliment you on your new look and campaign, but they will view you as the same company unless there is substance and a good story to back it up. In other words, authenticity is key.In the case of mortgage companies, business referrers know where their bread is buttered and therefore know where to point their buyers to get their deals done. If your new focus is on business referrals, this may require a complete overhaul in your corporate culture, how your company deals with customers, how you hire originators and many other items that come into play as you adapt to the market.
For companies that provide other industry products and services, you will have similar challenges during a reinvention and may need to take a look at your product offering, your people, your approach to customers and a myriad of other tangibles and intangibles in order to truly close that gap and really bring everything into alignment. Is your product truly the best? If so, according to who and what evidence? If it’s according to you, that’s great…then be sure you can acquire the evidence to back yourself up whether it’s customer testimonials, case studies, product comparisons, etc. and leverage them appropriately.
2) Know and accept where you stand. Everybody wants to hear good things about themselves and nobody wants to hear bad things about themselves, right? That’s why a reality check can be difficult…fear of the unknown. Many would rather just move through their careers believing things are fine, even when there’s anecdotal evidence that maybe they’re not as fine as they think. If you have anecdotal information that suggests a challenge for your company, consider yourself lucky and invest the resources to investigate deeper through research to get the full picture. Sometimes, measurable and sustainable growth can’t be accomplished by simply selling harder and running faster…you must acknowledge all the facts to make the right decisions and adjustments to bring your company to the next level.
3) Don’t just tell others you’re valuable, show them. If you desire to reinvent your brand, the only way you can do this is by taking a hard look at and evaluating your talents internally. This requires being honest with yourself and being very introspective…not an easy process but truly at the core of what you’re doing through a reinvention. Having an in-depth understanding of your talents and building upon them will lead to you as a company not just “telling” your audience that you’re valuable, but also “showing” them you are. Some ways of showing this value would be through consistency in interactions with customers/non-customers, case studies, testimonials, white papers, who you hire (and let go) and much more. The point is, you can’t just say something, you have to really do it and live it. A great example of this…Zappos! Or how about Harley Davidson or Disney? They focus on giving people experiences through every single touch point. What you do for others is your true brand.
4) Tell the truth, be authentic. Companies, like people, can make big changes over their lifetimes. These changes can make sense if you can build a narrative that people can understand that bridges the gap between what you were and what you’ve become. Not doing this can make you appear fake in the eyes of your target audience. It’s
important for people to understand the “why” behind what you’re
doing/have done so they can make sense of it and explain it to others in a
simple, concise way. Simply stated, you may be a company that used to offer one
or two services, but have decided that it may make sense to offer a suite of
related services, essentially providing a centralized shopping experience to
make it easier for people to do business with you. Telling the story behind this
is an important step if you’re to become recognized properly in this way
otherwise your audience will view you the same as you once were or as another
"me too." Remember, people like a good story, so don't hesitate to tell yours.
The desire for authenticity has been reinforced by the proliferation of
reality-type television. People have a natural curiosity and like to see what's
under the hood, so to speak. Granted, many have some level of scripting
involved, but people generally still accept them as real.5) When reinventing your brand, don’t allow outsiders to have undue influence on “who” you become as a company. This can only serve the purpose of “watering down” what you stand for. This is the fatal flaw of most brand reinventions because many companies do just that…they survey the market and then become what the market dictates only to land up looking like all of their competitors who have done the same. This is exactly why so many competing companies say the same things about themselves just in different words. That’s not differentiation. This is logical right? If 5 companies ask the same people what they should be when they grow up, the answers they receive will be the same.
I hope you found these points helpful. If you have any additional points or ideas, please share in
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